response 61 of 106:

Feb 2 04:27 UTC 2002

There's also a store called "Rasputin" near the Ameoba in Berkely, and it's
another very good store.

response 63 of 106:

Feb 2 16:43 UTC 2002

What happened to Cellophane Square, a record shop in Seattle?  Are they 
even still in business?  Guess I haven't been out there since 1989 or so.

response 65 of 106:

Feb 11 07:10 UTC 2002

following on from resp:56 ::  we made a day trip to Toronto on Saturday, 
so I had a chance to check out the big Yonge Street store of 
Sam the Record Man, the chain which filed for bankruptcy in December.
 
It was an odd sort of stock reduction sale.  CDs which were in the 
long plastic theft-reduction cases were 20% off; CDs which were 
not in such cases were 60% off.  And then we paid in mighty 
American dollars, so the 60%-off discs which were stickered at 
$20 Canadian came out to about $5 each in US money.  

But the store has been pretty well picked over.
I did get a fistfull of Canadian Celtic CDs, mostly from the maritimes,
and at the higher price I got the one in-print disc by the French 
band Lo'Jo which I didn't have -- that's the sort of rare and exotic
thing which Sam's used to stock in abundance.
 
I ran into two old Toronto friends in the store, and they were of the 
opinion that the Sam's bankruptcy is a scam to screw the CD distributors.
Their news, confirmed by a clerk who worked there, is that the Sam's 
operation is being bought out of bankruptcy by the children of the 
original Sam Sniderman.  So it will be interesting to see what 
develops.
 
The HMV store two doors down from Sam's was its usual big and bland self;
they had a lot of British Isles & Celtic stuff, but not much new.  
All I got from my shopping list were the two most recent discs
from the Quebecois band La Bottine Souriante.

response 67 of 106:

Mar 11 22:24 UTC 2002

I live in the San Francisco area, but I'd never heard of Amoeba.  
Rasputin's, also mentioned, is my choice for used rock CDs.  They also 
have the honor to employ one of the world's leading Tolkien linguists 
('cause a Ph.D. in German won't get you a cup of coffee).

response 69 of 106:

Jul 18 15:50 UTC 2002

Heard on WWJ-AM news radio this morning:  the venerable Michigan retail
chain Harmony House is giving up and shutting down.  Some stores will 
be closed next week, others in the fall.
 
The chain had been trying to find a buyer for several years, if 
I remember the old news stories correctly.

I don't have time to write much of an obit for them right now.
Most of their stores will not be much of a loss for serious music
fans, but their classical specialist shop in Royal Oak was world-class.
With its demise, there will be no classical retail shop better than 
the Ann Arbor Borders anywhere in the state.

response 71 of 106:

Aug 9 23:37 UTC 2002

No, Discount Records was part of the Sam Goody/Musicland operations --
I forget which name was at the top of the corporate hierarchy, we had
a big argument about this with Ashke a year or so ago.   Anyway, 
Discount Records was certainly not a part of Harmony House, since the 
short-lived Ann Arbor Harmony House outlet was just a few storefronts
away on State Street.
 
I dimly recall an earlier published rumor that Discount would close
this summer when their lease was up.  The store had been sinking for 
years; my sister-in-law tended to get me Sam Goody gift certificates
which I could spend there, and it usually took some effort to find
anything I wanted to buy.
 
I think this means that Borders and Schoolkids-in-the-basement
are the last sources of new CDs downtown, with Best Buy and 
Media Play out on the periphery of town.

response 73 of 106:

Aug 11 03:31 UTC 2002

I think this may mean that Schoolkids-in-the-basement is the only
"pure" new CD store left in town, the only one selling (almost 
exclusively) new music recordings.   Every other retailer listed 
above relies on books, electronics, or general merchandise.

response 75 of 106:

Aug 12 00:16 UTC 2002

Elderly Instruments is showing no signs of distress.  However, 
at Elderly, the CD department is just a small-to-medium sized part
of the business; instrument sales remain their core, as far as I 
can tell from their new general catalog.

Elderly is also a large-scale mail order operation, and they seem
to have adapted well to the Internet.

response 77 of 106:

Aug 23 03:43 UTC 2002

Today's Free Press web site reports that surviving Harmony House stores
have increased the discount to 40% in an attempt to get rid of everything
by the end of September.  The Royal Oak classical store is still reported
open.

response 79 of 106:

Aug 26 01:25 UTC 2002

I went to the Harmony House on Woodward and the new Tower Records in
Birmingham thsi weekend.

Harmony House: There was a mob of people at the store. When I went Saturday
afternoon, there was still plenty left, with a lot of unsorted boxes on the
floor. I left with 12 CDs for around $80.

Tower Records: I can't say I'm overly impressed with the store. It had some
obscure stuff and decent prices on CD singles, but charged more than Borders.

response 81 of 106:

Aug 28 23:10 UTC 2002

        I was at the Canton Harmony House yesterday.  Ford Road at 
Seldon Ave., Canton.  They are still open.  They said they got 2
other closed stores worth of stock.  It did look like they where 
not selling much, so I had to ask.  Not filled with customers,
either.  They said the Royal Oak store reported 150 customers the
first night of the 40% off.
        Anyway, If you are looking for "The Remains of Tom Lehrer"
the box set that came out a couple of years ago, they still had 2.
40% discount on $48 is not bad.  I would say a rather good stock
still there, including other box sets.

response 83 of 106:

Oct 2 22:54 UTC 2002

STeve and I stopped in at the Schuler's Books & Music in Meridian Mall,
which is in Okemos.   From the price stickers and the store fixtures, it
looks to me like Schuler's has become a rebranded Borders store.
CD selection is roughly equivalent to that at the Arborland Borders.

(This probably explains why I heard that a Borders store was going
into the new mall north of East Lansing on US 127, but the store 
directory for that mall only shows Schuler's Books.)

The Schuler's stores are likely to be a better selection for my CD tastes
than the Barnes & Noble in downtown East Lansing; but, I can walk to B&N
from the office while Schuler's requires a car trip.

response 85 of 106:

Jan 26 23:02 UTC 2003

The Sacramento Bee reports that Tower Records is winding up their UK 
operations; within four months their signature store at Picadilly Circus
will be turned over to the Virgin chain.
 
Another store of great memories gone.  When I first read a Usenet 
suggestion that one could import CDs directly from the UK in the 
late 1980s, it was Tower Records at Picadilly Circus that was 
the recommended store.   Now this seems like the most obvious thing
in the world, but around 1988 it was a new and exciting way to buy
hard-to-get CDs.  I would call Tower early in the morning and place my 
order with a young American emigre' woman who worked in their mail order
department, and I got imports from Tower until I found the UK folk music 
specialists around 1990, when coincidentally Tower's shipping charges 
got outrageous.
 
We made a pilgrimage to the Picadilly Circus store on our UK trip in 
1995, and got armloads of European folk stuff and a few nice rock 
items too.  I remember the store stereo playing The Charlatans, and 
I remember finding the now-scarce CD of Michelle Shocked's 
"Texas Campfire Tapes."