response 7 of 64:

Sep 4 22:49 UTC 1998

I have to admit..., an Ann Arbor landmark leaving us.  But I feel that Borders
has had a much better selection lately than school kids.  Although I usually
spent most of my time in the Annex.  The kind of music I listen to is
sometimes hard to find, but Borders has been really stocking up on a wide
variety of hard to finds.  
I wonder you is going to take over the spot>?

response 9 of 64:

Sep 5 14:47 UTC 1998

..

response 11 of 64:

Sep 5 17:14 UTC 1998

  ((Music #149 now linked as Summer Agora #151, thanks Katie!))

response 13 of 64:

Sep 5 21:56 UTC 1998

People always decry the passing of these local bookstores/music stores, 
but in a good many of these cases, the problem is that the local person 
is just not a good businessperson. krj noted above that lately they 
had stopped stocking the CDs he would buy. If a merchant doesn't have 
the stock, how can people buy it?

Another example of a "local" that just closed up is Main Street News. It 
seemed to me they were in the same boat as Schoolkids.  Several times 
recently I saw a magazine in Borders that I wanted.  Feeling like I'd 
rather support the local merchant, I would trek over to Main Street News 
only to find that they didn't have it on the shelves. What I wanted was 
not really exotic, either. One time it was Cook's Illustrated, another 
time it was San Francisco Magazine.

Another time, I sent them an email before going in to ask them about a 
particular title.  I never received a reply.  My feeling is that the 
proprietor just wasn't on top of things.

response 15 of 64:

Sep 6 00:57 UTC 1998

I always tried to shop Schoolkids, but it was very iffy towards the
last six months or so.

I am still bummed. 

response 17 of 64:

Sep 6 02:07 UTC 1998

danr in resp:13 : I don't know how much it would be being a "bad 
businessman."  I think it was a classic cash flow crunch: once 
the well-capitalized new stores, in this case Tower and more 
importantly Borders, open up and siphon off business, the local 
independent has less and less money to use in reordering stock. 
I saw the same pattern with Jocundry's Books in East 
Lansing, after the Barnes & Noble opened nearby; the cycle just 
played out slower here in Ann Arbor.
 
Schoolkids established its reputation in an era when it was a 
"destination store," clearly the best record store between 
Toronto and Chicago.  But as Tower and Borders pushed into the 
Ann Arbor CD market, Schoolkids' margin of superiority
over all other area shops vanished.

response 19 of 64:

Sep 6 19:04 UTC 1998

        I just got back from my trip to Schoolkids.  Glad I had a chance
to talk to Steve Bergman.  He said he recognized the face that was in 
the store and bought lots in their 22 years there.  The large type 
letter on the door says it well.  Said he was working over the past 
months to get a buy-out, but that it fell thru by last Friday.
        I wonder if having Schoolkids in Ann Arbor is why Ann Arbor does
not have a Harmonney House?
        Did Schoolkids displace someone else in the local market when
they opened in 1976?
        I came back with:
        Greatest Hits - Jim Kweskin & the Jug Band
        Mulling it Over - Martin Mull (a greatest hits package)
        The KingBees (a SchoolKids Records CD issue of their LPs)
        Wally World - Wally Pleasant
        Tiptoe Through the Tulips/Resurrection - Tiny Tim (an import
                CD]
        Kay Starr Collectors Series (a very complete Capitol records
                collection, put out in 1991, when CDs had finally 
                become established in the market
        The 1950s, Volume 1 - hits from the era, the CD looks like
                a good collection of tunes I may have scattered 
                elsewhere, and maybe only on LP.

response 21 of 64:

Sep 7 07:11 UTC 1998

Tower is overpriced.  They have adequate selection and that's about it.  You
need to leave the country to really get good music at good prices anyway.

response 23 of 64:

Sep 7 18:01 UTC 1998

Well, there are a good five or ten artists that I can never find any
place but Schoolkids, or at least anything beyond a one-album token 
sop to the folkies who *might* shop at Towers or Borders. So I think
I will have a lot more mail order in my future. Sob.

response 25 of 64:

Sep 8 21:11 UTC 1998

I have. In the past. It's hard. Very hard.

response 27 of 64:

Sep 8 23:16 UTC 1998

  Well, I stopped by to pick over the carrion and found a couple of things
  I'd been meaning to get and a few others I'd been thinking of trying,
  most notably Muszikas' "Blues For Transylvania", Hedningarna's "Kaksi",
  and Massive Attack's "Protection".

response 29 of 64:

Sep 9 01:13 UTC 1998

I found out, suddenly, this weekend, that Schoolkids' Records was closing
when I stopped in to look around for something.  I was stunned.  I've
shopped there for over ten years.  I milled around for a while, but it
felt funny, like getting a stuffed dog for your birthday, instead of a
real one, like you wanted.  So, I went home and tried to remember what it
was that made going there special, before soaped windows would wash it
away for good.  Although I never did get a dog when I was a kid, like I
wanted, I did get to go on a class trip to somebody's farm.  I guess going
to Schoolkids' was a lot like the class trip to a petting zoo.
Schoolkids' had a good selection of earthy ethnic music, American and
foreign, and you could reach out and touch it.

It was always a pleasure hearing about various albums from the
salespeople, hearing them in the store, and sometimes, even hearing them
*perform* in the store. 

In fact, I visited Schoolkids' the day I saw my first concert at the
Michigan Theater, back in 1991, to catch a glimpse of my favorite British
folk rocker, Billy Bragg.  I remember Billy, all set with his scones and
tea, equally as ready to belt out verses of "The Internationale" as
"Greetings to the New Brunette", posing for pictures and giving people
hugs.

I recall stumbling across Bill Miller, a Native American folk musician,
there, while shopping for something else.  I was so enthralled with the
performance, I stopped what I was doing and just listened.

It was a place where, after visiting the library and picking up a copy of
the music of the legendary 1930s Egyptian composer Mohamed Abdel Wahab as
performed by Simon Shaheen, a virtuoso violinist and oud player, you
could, as I did, see Shaheen perform there, the following week.

Schoolkids' was a place where the music was alive, and you couldn't help
but enjoy it.  Now, I'm afraid all we've got left is stuffed animals with
cute names, free with the purchase of a combo meal at the local fast food
joint.



_________________________________________________________________________

Mark, who's been retailing music for five years, listening to it and even
making a little of it for nearly two decades, and generally enjoying it
all his life, will be holding a memorial service this weekend for his
favorite local music store with his stuffed animal collection.