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*

response 56 of 64:

Sep 19 12:13 UTC 1998

Discount Records is a Sam Goody store, a.k.a. Musicland.  Those are both chain
stores.

response 58 of 64:

Sep 25 02:17 UTC 1998

I've started a new Schoolkids item for the new Agora conference.
Fall Agora #25 / Music #154.

response 60 of 64:

Oct 15 16:39 UTC 1998

Steve Bergman's Schoolkids, according to the ads in the Ann Arbor News,
continues limited operations in Oz's Music on Packard.  
 
Jim Leonard's new SKR stores are being cleaned and repainted; there seemed
to be quite a bit of activity when I was downtown this past weekend.
(This is in the old Schoolkids storefronts.)
More updates in the new item #154 in Music.

response 62 of 64:

Dec 6 05:00 UTC 1998

shoot, and I was out that way just yesterday too.

response 64 of 64:

Dec 27 19:07 UTC 1998

   I pretty much remember the opening of Schoolkids; I spent a long
time there over the years, looking at the cut-out bins and such.  I
didn't go there for any one specific type of music, but let myself
discover new things as I heard them played in the store, and read
the little reviews they made for certain disks.

   I have no doubt that Border's did a lot of damnage to them, but
equally true I think is that we consumers played a large role.  In
the era of mega-stores people look for the cheapest possible source
of commodities regardless of anything else.  The people here in this
conference are the fringe I'll bet, with their tastes and desires to
support that which is local.

   Schoolkids.  RIP.