response 87 of 247:

Apr 13 22:07 UTC 1999

Well, yeah, there's that too...

response 89 of 247:

May 7 01:00 UTC 1999

I got some e-mail today telling me that one of my favorite folk CD shops
will be no more.  House of Musical Traditions is discontinuing their 
CD department to make more room for their instrument sales.
Like Elderly Instruments, HMT sold both recordings and instruments;
unlike Elderly, which has expanded ferociously over the years, 
HMT is stuck in a small house in a thriving urban neighborhood, 
Takoma Park, Maryland, and there is no place for them to expand.
 
I was introduced to HMT around 1985 by Bruce Schneier, who recommended
it to me at a ConFusion SF convention.  I got there just in time to 
vacuum up all sorts of wonderful gems from the 1980s glory period
of British Isles folk, LPs which are now rare and expensive collectibles. 
I got most of the early Oyster Band albums there, the English Country
Blues Band, Pyewackett, many of my Malicorne LPs too.  
Almost all my Breton folk albums came from there.
House of Musical Traditions ran the best import folk 
LP & CD store that I have ever seen -- well, maybe they were not 
quite as good as San Francisco's Down Home Music, but I don't get 
to San Francisco very often, and I managed to visit HMT 
once or twice a year.

In recent years, HMT adopted a generous preview policy, and 
also moved into used CDs.  So I'd visit the store when I made trips
to my parents' home in Annapolis; spend a couple of hours there
rummaging and listening, and come back to Michigan with a giant 
stack of music which just wasn't available here.

Online & mail order is nice, but sometimes it's no substitute for in-store 
browsing.  However, for import folk music, mail order is about all 
I have left.  Mad's Records in Ardmore, PA, is the only store left 
in my regular orbit which stocks more than a token selection of 
import folk CDs.  Mad's is nice, but it was never as good as HMT.

The last sad irony is that we skipped our planned trip to the 
store in December 1998; we just ran out of time.

response 91 of 247:

Aug 9 18:06 UTC 1999

Re #90: It's about time.

response 93 of 247:

Aug 28 06:11 UTC 1999

  Does anyone actually *buy* CDs at Harmony House?  My impression,
  based on the selection and pricing in the stores I've visited,
  was that they'd somehow figured out to make money by *not* selling
  records..

response 95 of 247:

Aug 28 15:14 UTC 1999

In Lansing, before the advent of Where House Records' classical
section, and Tower Records, Harmony House was the most
useful local resource for classical music, and they also tended to have
some indie rock stuff which other Lansing stores did not have.
 
Harmony House's all-classical shop in Royal Oak is still a useful
resource.  My impression is that this store is larger than SKR Classical
or Tower's classical department, and it often has stuff which we don't
see in Ann Arbor.
 
But I don't see how Harmony House is going to put a store which will 
be comptetitive in Ann Arbor in the small Elmo's space.

response 97 of 247:

Aug 30 23:03 UTC 1999

Out here in the oh-so-sophisticated San Francisco Bay Area, there's 
essentially no worthwhile outlet for classical CDs except Tower.  
Fortunately Tower is pretty good.

response 99 of 247:

Sep 9 02:56 UTC 1999

  I was in SKR today, hoping to pick up "69 Songs", the new 3-disc
  Magnetic Fields collection (which came as an almost complete surprise
  to me, I'd heard no advanced hype and the only information I had that
  anything new was due was from talking to band member Claudia Gonson
  after a show last year when she said something vague about "something
  due out next fall.")  Unfortunately they'd sold out of the limited-edition
  boxed set -- apparently the band's area shows over the past couple of years
  have built up more of a local following than SKR expected..

  Since I'd been lured into SKR, though, I decided to buy Richard Thompson's
  "Mock Tudor" and the Talking Heads' re-issued "Stop Making Sense"..

  I then went on to several other record stores to see whether I could find
  the Magnetic Fields box at any of them.  I didn't, but I somehow wound up
  walking out of Tower with a Kinks album, a T. Rex album, a collection of
  Astor Piazzola's tangoes, an afro-pop collection, and a compilation by
  Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, as well as a promo CD sampler.

  All I can say is:  I hope that Magnetic Fields release is *really* good
  because it's already cost me a bundle and I don't even have it yet..  ;-)

  For those who're looking to try something different, Tower is having a
  sale of the "Music Club" collection series and have a display on the end
  of one of their aisles.  They have collections by influential early ska
  acts Desmond Dekker and Toots & the Maytals, a decent early ska collection
  ("This is Ska",) and an excellent classic dub collection ("Dub Chill Out")
  as well as several other interesting picks.

  I *highly* recommend the "Dub Chill Out" collection.  It's very accessible
  classic dub by the greatest masters of the genre -- King Tubby, Lee Perry,
  Augustus Pablo, Scientest, King Jammy, etc..

response 103 of 247:

Sep 13 02:46 UTC 1999

re 98:
just U of M and EMU, another school id wouldnt suffice?  I still use my
MSU id when I want student discounts even though its been about a year.

response 105 of 247:

Sep 13 17:01 UTC 1999

  This is the week that the "Michigan Money Saver" coupon books are
  handed out around U of M's campus..  They contain both a $3 coupon
  for Tower (good through the end of the year) and a 20% off coupon
  for SKR, so if you're a frequent Ann Arbor music shopper (and as as
  miserly as I am when it comes to music spending..) you'll want to
  take a stroll near campus this week and grab one (or more..)

response 107 of 247:

Sep 23 13:05 UTC 1999

It's a combination of all of the above. Smaller stores can't afford to
undercut prices as much as the big dealers. Internet companies can offer great
deals since they don't need stores. All they need are warehouses, and some
probably just deal directly with the record companies, further undercutting
costs.

We're also dealing with megastores that combine several stores at once (Media
Play, Best Buy and Circuit City springs to mind). Smaller stores that only
offer one kind of product (music, books, clothes) have a harder time of
surviving that the big department stores. That's why Arborland doesn't have
small stores anymore. That's why the Ann Arbor Rd. area is being built up with
huge stores. Small specialty stores just can't survive in this environment.

response 109 of 247:

Sep 23 20:49 UTC 1999

I think what most small business consultants advise is to strongly 
emphasize better and more personalized service, as well as a 
distinctive and possibly unique product line.  If a business can carve 
a particular niche that can appeal to enough people, then even the 
smaller ones can survive.

For example, I learned rather fast that it's not a good deal to buy 
used music at a regular or even discount store.  I started going to a 
small business dealing in used music, and the tapes and CDs were in 
much better condition, and were cheaper.

response 111 of 247:

Sep 24 22:31 UTC 1999

(Record Exchange?)