response 32 of 64:

Sep 10 10:43 UTC 1998

That would be Discount Records, I think.  It tends to have "the hits" only,
but at decent prices.  The staff varies in personality.

response 34 of 64:

Sep 10 13:29 UTC 1998

Oh, and I never knew that S'kids carried 'Fameous cheap' recordings. 
As far as I'm aware, Clees, it was good for getting in things that
were obscure and unlikely to be found at a mall-type record store, and
for charging obscene prices for same. (Not that I minded, too much,
since it's better to pay $18 for a British recording at S'kids than
$18 at a mall shop for something I could find at Best Buy for $12...)
If it was something that Borders might carry, I'd usually wait to see if 
it turned up there (like anything remotely popular), but if it was at
all unlikely, S'kids would have it. (E.g., where am I going to find
a source of James Keelaghan recordings now? Or Garnet Rogers? Or, 
Horslips? Or Old Blind Dogs? Or Great Big Sea? Or any of a thousand
wonderful bands/performers who aren't signed to a label that can 
distribute them in the States?)

response 36 of 64:

Sep 10 16:25 UTC 1998

re  34: Try the selection at Borders.com.  Our on-line ordering
has been open for awhile, but expect a Grand Opening next week, when
you all will probably hear more about it.  Instead of one copy of 
Keelaghan at 225 stores, five copies sitting in the on-line order
fullfillment center provides service without overstocking stores.
Actually, I would hope a name like Keelaghan would be in the Borders
folk racks.

response 38 of 64:

Sep 10 18:43 UTC 1998

'Zactly. The two Keelaghan are his two on Green Linnet, which put him
out for a while (dunno if they still are, but he *said* at his last
concert that he'd have one out this fall, yes yes yes) -- he's got
five in total. And Garnet Rogers is totally self-produced/distributed,
although I could always find him at S'kids. Now, yes, I *can* do a
lot of mail-order, and a lot of waiting for gigs so I can get the 
albums, but I really liked being able to call up S'kids and have 
something held for me (oh God, what I am I going to do about the 
Oysterband?! Or Dougie MacLean -- who did finally have his latest disc 
show up at Borders about a year and a half after I just ordered it 
straight from his website...)

response 40 of 64:

Sep 11 23:26 UTC 1998

And may it last.

response 42 of 64:

Sep 12 17:31 UTC 1998

 re #39:  If Schoolkids' had remained as notable a record store as
 many people seem to remember it being I think it would've survived.
 In recent years, though, there seemed to be little reason for me to
 shop there -- their selection (at least in the areas I shopped for)
 was not notably better than other stores in town and in fact was
 substantially inferior in a couple of the specialty niches that *I*
 desired, though I'm willing to grant that they probably had a fine
 selection of records in some of the sections I never wandered  into.

 As for Borders being responsible for killing them off, if there was
 a record store in town being capable of killed off by Borders' music
 section with its very high prices and middle-of-the-road selection
 then I'd have to say that store was alreasdy in big trouble..

response 44 of 64:

Sep 12 20:37 UTC 1998

Um, why is the Michigan Theater marque going away, Larry?

response 46 of 64:

Sep 13 00:41 UTC 1998

They're renovating the facade of the Michigan Theater to return it to its
original "feel."

response 48 of 64:

Sep 13 04:33 UTC 1998

We had a fairly contentious hearing about this at the Historic District
Commission.  In the end we voted to let them do it.

response 50 of 64:

Sep 13 17:47 UTC 1998

Perhaps what I will miss the most from Schoolkids is the loss of 
their "editorial view."  In some ways the store was like a music 
magazine.  Mark Ziemba expressed their biases well in resp:29 --
"earthy ethnic music, American and foreign" -- and from what I 
see in the responses here, I suspect your alignment with that 
bias determines how sad you are about the end of the store.
 
Schoolkids expressed its editorial view in a number of ways.
Most obvious would be the reviews they whipped up and pasted on 
the fronts of CDs they were pushing.   I never read them uncritically --
Schoolkids was much more enthusiastic about singer-songwriters than 
I am -- but they were always pointers to albums I might want to 
at least know about, if not own.
 
For some really obscure items, occasionally the store would just 
cut out reviews from other sources and paste them on the disc.
On some discs, this at least gave you a clue of what to expect, 
more so than the murky artwork.
 
More than anywhere else, Schoolkids is where I would go up to the 
counter and ask to buy whatever they were playing in the store.
It might have been some folk singers from Corsica; it might have been 
Kim Richey.  Earlier this year it was Freakwater -- I was never 
going to buy another Freakwater cd, as I'd felt burned by several of 
their older discs, but their new release SPRINGTIME is pretty good.
Many of my jazz and blues buys have been chosen based on Schoolkids
in-store play, because I don't track those genres closely.
 
On one of my last trips to the store, the disc which was being played
on the jazz side was Ray Bailey/SATAN'S HORN, a rather nice electric
blues set.   It was out of stock; the clerk offered to special order it 
for me, but it turns out the disc is out of print, and the whole
record label has been shut down.  Some people might think it was 
pretty odd of a record store to give in-store play to a disc they 
could not sell you, and some people might have been annoyed.  
Me, I was just happy to make the introduction of Mr. Bailey; I 
scribbled down the info about the disc and found a copy a few days 
later at a Wazoo shop.
 
And that's what I'll miss the most about Schoolkids:  the hopeful 
optimism that on every trip there, the store will introduce me 
to something new and interesting. 

response 52 of 64:

Sep 14 03:34 UTC 1998

On a hand written divider in the pop section, I saw
 Mr.Michael Bolton,Esq. 
I don't think I'll see anything like that in a corp store.

response 54 of 64:

Sep 14 08:01 UTC 1998

It was Discount records.
Popular?
Hmmm, makes me wonder whether my taste for 'alternative' music (which 
distinguishes me from the Dutch massess) isn't that alternative when it 
comes to comparing it to Americans.
But the fact that I was very pleased to notice radio stations that 
actually don't play house, but rock, adds seriously to the impression.
I can tell you that almost all radio stations in the Netherlands only 
differ in the wavelength they're broadcasting on.
*uch*