response 36 of 106:

Aug 18 18:28 UTC 2001

The State Street Harmony House in Ann Arbor seems to have bitten, or to be
in the act of biting, the dust.  They have a 'for rent' sign in their window.

response 38 of 106:

Aug 20 16:37 UTC 2001

Yeah.  I think everyone in the Grex music conference who commented on 
the Harmony House store wondered what the heck they thought they were 
doing, putting a mall-quality CD store, which could compete on neither
price nor selection, in the State & Liberty area.

response 40 of 106:

Aug 22 10:02 UTC 2001

  So for those of us who aren't in Ann Arbor any longer but are
  still keeping score, what's left?

response 42 of 106:

Aug 22 16:52 UTC 2001

And Encore, Wazoo and PJs.
 
I've found that my shopping for new CDs at stores has collapsed.
For new CDs, I'm shopping only at Borders, Elderly Instruments 
in Lansing, and very occasionally at Schoolkids-in-the-Basement.  
Schoolkids is limited both in stock and in hours open, so I haven't been
going there much.

My rough guess is that I'm buying maybe 1/4 of what I used to buy
in the local new shops.  For a lot of what I want, it's not 
even worth the time to check Borders: obscure folk/world 
and classical CDs just aren't being stocked much in Ann Arbor any more.

I miss being able to wander out either from home or work to browse 
through bins of CDs, but it seems that era has ended.

response 44 of 106:

Aug 23 17:37 UTC 2001

Most used stores let you do just that.  

response 46 of 106:

Aug 24 22:11 UTC 2001

        Borders has a new, different kind of listening station in 
the newly opened stores...a way to listen in a multitude of CDs 
from one place, instead of only 5 at a time.

response 48 of 106:

Sep 14 02:58 UTC 2001

At the Frandor Mall in Lansing yesterday, I unexpectedly stumbled 
over a new Michigan Where House Records outlet.  (This is the locally-
owned small chain which used to operate campus stores in East Lansing
and Ann Arbor, not the California-based chain with the similar name.)
Alas, it's beyond easy walking distance from my office, but I will 
have to stop in there and see if their stock is interesting enough
to merit any business.  If anyone is looking for it: the store
is just to the east of Bollert's Ace Hardware.

response 50 of 106:

Oct 21 19:13 UTC 2001

((I decided to move resp:49 to a different item...))

response 52 of 106:

Oct 28 05:42 UTC 2001

Back in resp:music2,154,217  (music2, item 154, resp 217)  I wrote 
about the Virgin Megastore on Michigan Avenue.  The store was still 
pretty appealing when Leslie and I returned there this spring; but 
we were there again on Friday, and the store has crashed.
 
The biggest disappointment was the dismantling of the classical section.
Classical was forced out of its separate room, the one with classical 
albums playing in the background; it was shoved in a back corner and 
cut by maybe 40%.  The old classical music room is now the DVD room.
 
World music seemed gutted as well; I couldn't find any discs that I wanted.
 
There were a couple of British Isles/Celtic items worth looking at, 
and they were priced at an appealing $14.  I settled for the new Kathryn
Tickell CD and passed on the Bachue.  And there was a Tracey Dares CD
I had not seen before.  But that was it; two CDs bought, and just one 
tempation passed up, from a store where previously I had found 
armloads of stuff.
 
The standard price of $18.99 was really putting me off buying anything
which might have been stocked at any other store.
 
We're unlikely to go out of our way to stop there  on our future
Chicago trips.

response 54 of 106:

Oct 29 18:24 UTC 2001

Second-hand followups to some of my recent reports:
 
resp:52 ::  There is a Usenet report on rec.music.classical.recordings
that the Virgin Megastore in Times Square has drastically pruned 
its CD section to make way for videos, much as Chicago did.  So perhaps 
this was a corporate decision for the whole chain.
 
resp:48 ::  A co-worker told me that the Where House Records shop 
in Frandor Mall in Lansing has closed; this is just five weeks 
after I learned that it existed.  I never got to visit it.

response 56 of 106:

Nov 2 00:39 UTC 2001

The venerable Canadian firm Sam the Record Man has filed for 
bankruptcy.  There are two good stories at http://www.globeandmail.com
but unfortunately Globe and Mail URLs are about three lines long, 
so you'll have to search on "sam's" to find the news story 
from October 31 and a memorial from November 1.
 
Sam's had outlets all across Canada, but the important store 
was the one on Yonge Street in Toronto.
Back when I was a college student, my friends and I experienced
something we called "the East Lansing/Toronto Spacewarp."  
We went to Toronto, lots of times.  And in those days, the 
four-story Sam's, with the landmark animated neon LP 
design on the front, was probably the best 
record store in Canada, and one of the best in the world.  
Long before "world music" became a viable genre, Sam's had a 
killer section of international music; I got some fun Eastern 
European albums from there.  And lots of Canadian and British Isles
folk, and jazz, and classical...  sometimes it seemed like if it 
was released anywhere in the world, then there was a good chance 
that Sam's had it.  I don't think I ever saw a selection of 
imported records that was better than Sam's.

I didn't get to Toronto much in the CD era.  Senna would tell me 
that the store was declining due to commercial pressure from 
the HMV down the street.  When I made my last trip to Sam's
about three or four years ago, it was clear that the store wasn't
what it had been 15 years ago, but I still came away with a good 
armload of Canadian, British and European folk and roots music, 
including one treasure I never expected to find -- a long out-of-print
disc on Billy Bragg's old Utility label by Jungr & Parker.
(And the Sam's clerk marked it down by 40% -- "This has been here 
far too long," she said, when I hesitated at the somewhat high price.)

I hit HMV on that same Toronto trip; the HMV store was newer and shinier,
and it wasn't bad, but it still didn't have the breadth of stock 
that Sam's had, even in Sam's long decline.

Thanks to Sam Sniderman, age 81, who ran such an important store
for its entire 63-year life.   

response 58 of 106:

Nov 28 18:45 UTC 2001

Followup to resp:52 on Chicago stores ::  On Tuesday's trip to Chicago
I visited Tower Records in the Loop, and Crow's Nest Music in the 
Music Mart Mall, about two blocks away, about 200 S. Wabash and 
300 S. State respectively.  I'm pleased to report that the classic 
big city CD store is still clinging to life...
 
Tower on Wabash is the old Rose Records store; Rose was the thriving 
local chain 15 years ago, and I had visited the Rose store back around 
1985.  Tower didn't change much; it's an old-fashioned rabbit warren of a 
store on three floors.  The pop/rock section of the first floor did seem 
a little thin, but the classical section on the second floor was 
dazzling -- in fact it was too overwhelming for the limited shopping time
I had available -- and the world music selection on the third floor
was quite choice.  (I'll mention the purchases in some other item, to 
keep followups about the music itself out of this item.)
Tower Classical had the biggest selection of opera DVDs I'd ever 
seen in one store.

Crow's Nest is a big new spacious store.  They may have even a bigger
pop/rock selection than the Tower, but the classical and world music 
sections are somewhat smaller, though still decent.  The nice thing
about Crow's Nest is the price:  almost all of the discs are $14.99
or $15.99, which is cheap these days.

response 60 of 106:

Feb 2 01:16 UTC 2002

  I've tried several times to enter a longer review of my visit to 
  San Francisco's Amoeba, a huge used record store with an impressive
  selection.  Unfortunately I've been having connection problems and
  have lost two previous drafts, so I'll restrict myself to just the
  basics..

  Visited Amoeba for the first time this past week and found the 
  San Francisco location to be the best used record store I've visited,
  ever, with a broad stock of popular music, decent prices, and a 
  surprising stock of international music (when was the last time you
  visited a used-record store that had a Fado section?)  I'm told that
  the Berkeley location may be even better, I'll check it out on my next
  trip to the Bay Area.

  For the moment, though, I'm just savoring the long-lost feeling of
  walking out of a record store with an armful of interesting discs
  (13 titles, some of them doubles..) for under $100.

  For those who visit San Francisco and want to check out Amoeba, it's
  about a block or so from where Haight Street ends at Golden Gate Park.