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| Author |
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| 25 new of 106 responses total. |
tpryan
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response 81 of 106:
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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.
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otaking
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response 82 of 106:
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Aug 30 04:24 UTC 2002 |
(Hi Ken!)
I went to the Canton Harmony House on Monday. The store had maybe 5 other
people in it for the hour I was there. They still had a decent selection. I
found some more CDs, including some stuff I just decided to try on a whim.
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krj
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response 83 of 106:
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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.
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tpryan
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response 84 of 106:
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Oct 4 23:07 UTC 2002 |
From back in the 70's or so, Schuler's 'hired' Borders to
do their distribuiton and marketing. They also get to be exclusive
in their market (no Borders cross-competting with them).
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krj
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response 85 of 106:
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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."
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dbratman
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response 86 of 106:
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Feb 2 21:18 UTC 2003 |
I bought a couple of Renaissance revival albums (one by Annie Haslam,
one by Michael Dunford) at the Piccadilly Circus Tower.
Out here in the Bay Area, the decreasing selection of classical music
at Tower and the increasing selection at Borders and B&N have not yet
come anywhere near into parity. There's only one other retailer that
sells new classical recordings, Musical Offering in Berkeley, which I
can rarely get to and which has a an excellent but idiosyncratic
collection whose tastes don't always match up with mine. Everything
else is gone. I doubt the situation for new non-classical music is
much better, outside of Down Home's equally idiosyncratic selection,
though we have some outstanding used stores in the non-classical field,
both CD and vinyl.
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dbratman
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response 87 of 106:
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Feb 2 21:22 UTC 2003 |
Ken: The Charlatans? You're thinking of the early San Francisco sound
band whose gimmick was Edwardian costumes? I don't think I've ever
heard them, though I've certainly seen enough photographs of them.
I never got the Texas Campfire Tapes, and now perhaps it's too late. I
bought Short Sharp Shocked when everyone in Alps was talking about her,
but never felt grabbed enough by it to want to explore any further.
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krj
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response 88 of 106:
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Feb 2 21:27 UTC 2003 |
The Charlatans I'm referring to are the current British rock band whose
USA releases are marked "The Charlatans UK." I knew this meant that there
had been an earlier band in the US using the name, but I didn't know
anything about them; thanks for filling in this gap for me.
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mcnally
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response 89 of 106:
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Feb 2 22:18 UTC 2003 |
Seems like I saw an album from them a couple of years ago but I'm not
sure the Charlatans UK are still together. I think one of their members
died in a car crash after getting out of prison or something like that.
Loved the organ intro at the start of "Weirdo", though..
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dbratman
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response 90 of 106:
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Feb 4 17:36 UTC 2003 |
There's a photo of the '60s Charlatans in their full Edwardian get-up
here:
http://www.marshallphoto.com/mp.v1/photos/Rock_US/Charlatans/Charlatans_
3805-20.html
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krj
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response 91 of 106:
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Feb 24 07:58 UTC 2003 |
resp:85 :: UK paper The Guardian ran an obit of sort for the
Picadilly Circus outlet of Tower Records, joined with an obit for
the founder of classical label Hyperion Records.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,899071,00.html
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krj
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response 92 of 106:
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Feb 24 08:07 UTC 2003 |
mziemba mentioned this to me a while back. The Detroit chain
Harmony House managed to avoid liquidation and they are going to
continue with their classical store, and their large all-purpose
flagship store, both on Woodward Avenue. Harmony House's
announcement links to some media stories.
http://www.harmonyhouse.com/announcement.asp
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dbratman
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response 93 of 106:
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Feb 25 07:08 UTC 2003 |
The description of the Piccadilly Tower outlet's emptying shelves is
sad; but remembering my own visits to the place, plus the large number
of other record stores whose closing sales I've attended, generates
mostly the wish that I'd been there to pick up some bargains.
During the late 80s, when record stores were closing out their regular
vinyl stock, I picked up an enormous number of bargains from various
shops, but I never was able to confirm my prediction that, when the
last LP was left in the last classical record bin, it would be of works
by Max Reger.
A link at the bottom of the Times article leads to another article
complaining about the dearth of new music by British composers being
played by British orchestras. Welcome to the club. But seeing the
names of composers offered, can it be any wonder? David Sawer is all
right, but I sure won't be running to hear any George Benjamin.
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krj
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response 94 of 106:
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Mar 8 21:06 UTC 2003 |
There is a new small CD shop in downtown Ann Arbor. Underground Sounds
is in the basement mini-mall beneath the Afternoon Delight restaurant,
on Liberty. The store is mostly aiming at the college-age
market, but I saw a few things to appeal to geezers like me:
used 10,000 Maniacs CDs and new stuff from The Waco Brothers, for example.
The store is probably half the square footage of Schoolkids-in-the-Basement.
----------
E-mail this morning announced the death of Jim Lindsey, the proprietor
of Wazoo Records in East Lansing. I don't know what the connection is
with the Ann Arbor Wazoo Records; the East Lansing version of Wazoo
was the oldest used record store in town, well established when I
arrived in 1975.
Jim had a strong bias for 60s-70s bands and that's usually what was
playing in the store -- Jefferson Airplane was a favorite, and he
introduced me to Savoy Brown. He was pretty much the only staff
I ever saw in the store, so I wonder what its future will be.
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krj
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response 95 of 106:
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Jul 18 05:21 UTC 2003 |
One more Ann Arbor CD store has folded.
While down on South University for Art Fair today, I saw an empty
storefront where The Record Exchange used to be. Staff at Ulrich's
said the music store had closed within the last few days.
I was only at this shoppe two or three times; it sold a mix of new
and used discs, had no detectable folk section, and in general was aimed
at a younger audience than me.
This was the last CD shop in the student-oriented South University
area, which previously hosted Tower and Michigan Where House Records.
I've been mourning the loss of the wonderful CD clearance tables
which used to dominate my Art Fair spending. Schoolkids, Where House,
and Tower would put hundreds of slow-selling CDs out on sidewalk tables
during art fair, with prices between ten dollars all the way down to maybe
two dollars. You could be rewarded for your digging by real gems.
Even the sad-sack Discount Records might have something worthwhile --
their street tables were dominated by rubbish like no-name, unknown-label
classical compilations. In today's trip to the art fair I saw no CD
clearance tables anywhere.
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dcat
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response 96 of 106:
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Jul 18 16:00 UTC 2003 |
Last I was in East Lansing, I asked in the Wazoo on GR if they were related
to the Ann Arbor store of the same name; the man working the register
hesitated a moment but said they were not.
I'd noticed a couple days ago that Record Exchange seemed to have shut down;
although the sign said it was well within their operating hours and there were
people inside, there was a "CLOSED" sign on the door. They'd cut back hours
and (I think) people recently; my guess is they're another casualty of the
disgustingly high rents in town.
I haven't bought new cds in years; almost everything I listen to I can get
at Encore or Wazoo! for half what they'd cost new.
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orinoco
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response 97 of 106:
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Jul 18 22:48 UTC 2003 |
Record Exchange never did anything for me. I'd shop there for convenience's
sake when I lived on Hill, but I never liked it much.
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otaking
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response 98 of 106:
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Aug 3 22:00 UTC 2003 |
I'll miss Record Exchange. On occasion, I'd find some really cool stuff in
their $1 areas. I once found 3 Christine Lavin CDs there, as well as some CDs
by D'Cuckoo, Throbbing Gristle and The Arrogant Worms. I also picked up
several soundtracks there.
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dbratman
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response 99 of 106:
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Aug 5 06:28 UTC 2003 |
Any store with 3 Christine Lavin CDs - heck, any store with one
Christine Lavin CD - is a good store.
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goose
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response 100 of 106:
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Oct 16 00:11 UTC 2003 |
same goes for Throbbing Gristle
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krj
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response 101 of 106:
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Oct 29 21:30 UTC 2003 |
Detroit retailer Harmony House, which almost closed a year or so ago and
then revived with just its classical store and its flagship store both
on Woodward, appears done. I have a web chat board rumor that what
is left of the operation has been sold to somebody called Trans World.
In Google's cache, I found the Harmony House web page from Sept 27
which announces the Classical store is closing, giving no details.
The Harmony House web page isn't responding any more.
As I mentioned when HH first started to liquidate: the classical
CD shop in Royal Oak was world class, a really good resource.
I regret a little that we never visited it during its one year
reprieve.
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dbratman
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response 102 of 106:
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Oct 30 17:54 UTC 2003 |
I was never at this Royal Oak store, but I've only seen one really
world-class classical CD shop in the entire history of classical CDs,
i.e. one which measured up to the best LP stores in the LP era. It's
Classical Millennium in Portland, Oregon, and it was still alive and
thriving when I last visited, a year ago.
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trustnon
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response 103 of 106:
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May 22 17:56 UTC 2004 |
I've pretty much given up on buying cd's now, most of the money goes to the
RIAA, so i just buy vinyl now, i've found it to be relatively cheaper than
cd's and u get better quality, now i have a large collection of vinyl, the
best part about it is that ure alloud to remix it as a dj.
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krj
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response 104 of 106:
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Nov 23 05:45 UTC 2004 |
The Borders store in downtown Ann Arbor just whacked the square-footage
devoted to CD by maybe 30-40%. Classical music got chopped by about
50%; the classical music room is now shared with jazz and a few
other things.
The stock was not pruned by that amount, as the shelving has been
replaced with new racks which store CDs all the way down to the
floor. This may use space more efficiently, but it means
that browsers have to drop down to their knees a lot. Some of
us are getting to an age where we don't really want to do that
just for shopping fun.
My initial reaction is that the CD area is a really unpleasant
space to be in now; I expect the time I
spend in idle CD browsing at Borders to cut way back.
But then, Borders and I have been falling out for a while.
Borders has been doing an increasingly poor job of stocking
the CDs I want, even when they are USA-distributed discs on
labels that Borders has historically stocked, and as a result
very little of my CD spending goes into Ann Arbor shops any more.
I think everything I have bought in the last three months came
from Internet mail order, or from a trip to Tower Records in
Manhattan.
In party, Richard reminded me that this was roughly what Virgin
Megastores did when they axed the classical room and cut the
world music section to expand DVD space.
((There's another piece to be written about the impending death
of the USA world music scene, but that's for another item.))
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tpryan
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response 105 of 106:
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Nov 28 18:25 UTC 2004 |
I fell out of Borders a long time ago.
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