response 86 of 106:

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.

response 88 of 106:

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.

response 90 of 106:

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

response 92 of 106:

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

response 94 of 106:

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.

response 96 of 106:

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.

response 98 of 106:

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. 

response 100 of 106:

Oct 16 00:11 UTC 2003

same goes for Throbbing Gristle

response 102 of 106:

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.

response 104 of 106:

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.))

response 106 of 106:

Jan 12 03:10 UTC 2005

Underground Sounds, the small CD shop on Liberty in Ann Arbor, 
has moved above ground.  I haven't checked their stock in about 
18 months; they seemed to be aiming for a younger customer than me.
Still, this is the first sign of growth in downtown CD retailing
in quite a few years.