Record Shops are History.

Woebot

Woebot

Well-known member
Rapidly coming to the conclusion that the only place to buy records is online.

The best thing about them is you're confronted with stuff you didnt think you wanted, that which you never knew about, but you can engineer chance encounters like that online. I suppose also there's the psychogeographical thing, but can't one just do a lit bit of flaneur-ing on the side to compensate.

The main problem with record stores is that the stock is nowadays picked clean, for one the staff ensure this. Furthermore all the interesting records now never come anywhere shops. Dealesr take them straight from the kind of diggerati sources you and I have scant time to explore and sell them on eBay or GEMM.

Obviously I'm mainly talking about second-hand records, but for my money something like Independance outperforms any of the high street stores and while not to insult London's greatest stores (lets face it there are no contenders) Honest Jons, Rough Trade and Soul Jazz more and more I suspect their hearts aren't in it (all three have their own labels as there is no money in retailing) and also they're stylistically hamstrung (Rough Trade which tried to keep up with Jungle has given up in the face of Grime (says a lot about their approach in general). Besides you can get all this new stuff cheaper online anyway.

Accordingly here is a snapshot of the new letterbox i'm getting fitted:
 
C

Canada J Soup

Monkey Man
You might want to think about having the Hardkiss record removed, it could get in the way of deliveries.

I buy maybe 80% of my music online, partly because I can get stuff I want without having to make time to go to and look for it in the real world and partly I'm less likely to be disappointed if I have a particular record in mind. Still, I get a much bigger kick out of going into a physical store and coming home with a plastic bag under my arm than I do coming home from work and finding a package that I ordered a few days previously (although the occasional 5am drunk order can be an interesting surprise). Perhaps more importantly, seeing a reasonably priced search result on GEMM or Musicstack never matches the huge thrill of finding something you've been looking for for years in a forgotten dusty crate. I'd probably miss record shops more than I would online record shopping.
 
F

francesco

Minerva Estassi
Now i mostly buy online, since you don't find 90% of what i search in records shop here in italy, but right now i have a shock because i realised of much i have spent in the last three months and i realized that it's easy to click and becoming stupidly poor. At least in a shop i see the money go away.....
.... but i love shopping and internet bores me but, alas, i often don't find what i search and come home and in few second order online.
Also, when there will be no more records shops neither books shops i will be a recluse at home, since that as always been a reason to move my ass out of the bed.
 
M

martin

----
Problem with Rough Trade, their prices aren't that far off HMV / Virgin (you can get most of their Notting Hill stock around Hanway St for up to £4 or £5 cheaper per disc) and their ordering options are a bit limited.

Aquarius Records is a good online site for hearing decent-sized RealAudio clips, so you can know what's worth checking out, but they're ultimately hip-capitalist hippies and there's been loadsa problems with misplaced orders etc. Forced Exposure is miles superior. But I know what you mean, there's no way I'd have heard of half the things I've bought in the last 4 years, let alone have spotted them for sale, without the Net.
 
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D

Diggedy Derek

Stray Dog
Possibly the biggest challenge to record retailers isn't just the net, but the way supermarkets have made everything so much more competitive. Blimey, they're cheap on CDs- £9.77 for a triple CD of "best of metal" for example. Now obviously this isn't the kind of thing Rough Trade sells, but if Tesco is selling cheap compilations, Amazon has to discount it's compilations too, and all of a sudden those Blood And Fire CDs that we know and love and used to buy in Rough Trade are 30% cheaper or so online. Profit margins are much, much, much thinner all over the market, and these small businesses have no margin for error whatsoever.

That letter box is absolutely hilarious.
 
john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
It may be that 2nd hand record shops in London are on their way out but it seems to me that elsewhere they are still doing ok, but maybe supplementing their income thru Gemm.

There ARE still a few hidden away London shops I frequent where you can pick up great stuff cheap that you'd never bid for on ebay because people will pay more for it that it is worth (in "real" rather than "market" terms if that makes sense - ok, it doesn't really!).

I hope they last, but I doubt they will - their only appeal is that they HAVEN'T been picked clean by staff or dealers... and they probably can't survive by me dropping by once a month!
 
R

Rachel Verinder

Well-known member
The thing is - those triple CD "Best Love Songs Ever" compilations you get at Tescos for £9.77 with their plentiful tracks by Simply Red actually help subsidise Blood and Fire.
 
Chef Napalm

Chef Napalm

Lost in the Supermarket
Rachel Verinder said:
A bit of both makes for a balanced and pleasant world, I think.
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Amen! Online for variety (a la Woebot) and into the shop (shameless plug) to shoot the shit and maybe pick up a couple of 12s that were popular 6 months ago, but are still good. I tend to think of it as admission to like-minded conversation.
 
A

ambrose

Well-known member
hey matt, it might be better to test the letterbox with recorss in a mailer, like, with 10 records stuffed into them. the edge of the record look precariously close to the sides of the box in yr pic. could lead to scrunched up sleeves :0

as for internet vs real shopping, i went to a real shop (phonica) for the first time in 3 months the other week. it gives you a rush to the blood seeingthe actual objects of yr affection, but after youve wiated 3 hrs for the snooty staff to notice you to listen to them and buy them, your ardour may have diminshed. Its good that you can listen properly to records in a shop*, but for me, the attitudes of staff in london record shops seriously make me not want to ever darken their doors.

plus, its exciting getting records thru the post, but then you have to be when it arrives otherwise its a lengthy truip to the post depot. matt, does that letterbox ahve auto-recorded delivery signing features?

*the number of tunes i have dismissed after hearing 30 sec clips on the internet, then subsequently hearing them in a club and spending months trying to get them after theyve all sold out :(
 
Woebot

Woebot

Well-known member
ambrose said:
hey matt, it might be better to test the letterbox with recorss in a mailer, like, with 10 records stuffed into them. the edge of the record look precariously close to the sides of the box in yr pic. could lead to scrunched up sleeves :0
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Its a right tight squeeze when they're in those cardboard cartons.

Rachel Verinder said:
mixing it up
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Who am I kidding? Nothing beats the thrill of wading through the racks, but the balance is slowly tipping in favour of the (intrinsically inferior) online experience.

Franceso said:
cost
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Yep this is one to watch. But without the kinetic near gravitional pull of the records themselves in shops (how difficult is it to walk out without buying a single one?) I reckon I may be able to control myself better (lol)
 
Woebot

Woebot

Well-known member
Nothing but a catalogue of disasters to report on this front.....

• After losing KMA's Cape Fear on an eBay bid I swiftly managed to loose Hyper On Experience's "Fun for the Family" too.

• I've waited a whole month to recieve a copy of Locked On Volume 3. Which looks like it's disappeared for good :-(

• The vinyl copy of Pyrolator's "Ausland" I ordered contained the wrong record and I've had to return it.

• To top it all off my new improved letterbox (which took me 4 carpenters to fit, I'd book them and they'd all drop out at the last minute, wasting valuable time innit) isn't quite wide enough to fit a standardly packed LP/12"

And I'm STILL waiting for my copy of Edu Lobo's "Missa Breva" cos the first copy I got from Gemm was (in spite of advertising itself to the contrary) scratched to fuck.

Back down the shops I guess!!!!
 
M

mms

sometimes
Diggedy Derek said:
Possibly the biggest challenge to record retailers isn't just the net, but the way supermarkets have made everything so much more competitive. Blimey, they're cheap on CDs- £9.77 for a triple CD of "best of metal" for example. Now obviously this isn't the kind of thing Rough Trade sells, but if Tesco is selling cheap compilations, Amazon has to discount it's compilations too, and all of a sudden those Blood And Fire CDs that we know and love and used to buy in Rough Trade are 30% cheaper or so online. Profit margins are much, much, much thinner all over the market, and these small businesses have no margin for error whatsoever.

That letter box is absolutely hilarious.[/QUOTE


this is the general problem for small retailers, they just can't offer the kind of massive discounts that amazon can, but then it's important to get a customer base for the stuff they won't or can't really stock i reckon.
dvds are another story entirely, look at the places id prefer to buy dvds like forbidden planet and they have stuff for £20 that is 6 in hmv, that makes me feel a bit sad.
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hint

hint

party record with a siren
mms said:
this is the general problem for small retailers, they just can't offer the kind of massive discounts that amazon can, but then it's important to get a customer base for the stuff they won't or can't really stock i reckon.
dvds are another story entirely, look at the places id prefer to buy dvds like forbidden planet and they have stuff for £20 that is 6 in hmv, that makes me feel a bit sad.
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it also creates this cycle where the average punter assumes that singles should really cost £1.99 at all times, so any retailer charging more than that is considered to be ripping you off. when really they're making roughly the same profit per unit as a retailer who's getting heavily discounted stock from the distributor.
 
B

boomnoise

♫
across all markets worldwide distribution is becoming more and more of a key factor. in terms of providing people with the things they want the internet is far more efficient. but with moves by record companies to create far more satisfying objects with artwork and packaging i would say that record shops won't die for a while yet - the tactile element is key - you can't browse sleeve notes and check the quality of records online - there's nothing like slipping a 12 out of it's 12x12 card envelope and it's clear plastic protective covering and scanning it for scratches. it's a strange equation though. time vs availability vs value vs letterbox size. it will be a sad time when second hand shops don't exist. scarcity online is totally different to scarcity in the real world - values inflate and the real 'find' factor is comprised. online collecting makes things too easy. the thrill of the chase is part and parcel of record collecting. if you can find everything you want online then you may as well be buying mp3s for all intents and purposes. the very way an mp3 sucks life out of a record (should you argue that), a record bought online sucks life out of its very existence as an desirable object.
 
E

egg

Dumpy's Rusty Nut
i dunno about that i got the hangable auto bulb eps from a faceless online trader but they were still most enjoyable to receive

they're jsut different experiences with different rewards and different complications

daferred gratification/postal excitement vs tactile inspection and spontaneity perhaps

:D
 
D

dominic

Beast of Burden
it's more rewarding to search through crates at a store

and when you find a record you like, it's a "legitimate" score

whereas gemm feels like cheating

plus in stores you encounter lots of records that you never heard of -- they simply look interesting, so you put the record on the store's turntable

whereas w/ gemm you're pretty much limited to what you already know

and yet gemm creates temptation to order everything that you already know and are dying to have -- i.e., let's order 200 records through gemm today!!! -- just give in to the compulsion completely!!! -- max out the credit card!!! -- there ain't no limits as happens when this particular store on this particular corner hasn't got the record, or when no store in this city has the record -- all that matters is that some store or some person somewhere on this godforsaken earth has the record and is willing to sell

plus, w/ gemm there are serious shipping costs involved if the store that has the record is on the other side of the altantic

so i have "moral" issues with gemm

nonetheless i have a shopping cart on gemm that is crammed full with records

i've yet to order the records -- but the buying binge, when it finally happens (and it will), is gonna be murder premeditated
 
M

mms

sometimes
dominic said:
it's more rewarding to search through crates at a store

and when you find a record you like, it's a "legitimate" score

whereas gemm feels like cheating

plus in stores you encounter lots of records that you never heard of -- they simply look interesting, so you put the record on the store's turntable

whereas w/ gemm you're pretty much limited to what you already know

and yet gemm creates temptation to order everything that you already know and are dying to have -- i.e., let's order 200 records through gemm today!!! -- just give in to the compulsion completely!!! -- max out the credit card!!! -- there ain't no limits as happens when this particular store on this particular corner hasn't got the record, or when no store in this city has the record -- all that matters is that some store or some person somewhere on this godforsaken earth has the record and is willing to sell

plus, w/ gemm there are serious shipping costs involved if the store that has the record is on the other side of the altantic

so i have "moral" issues with gemm

nonetheless i have a shopping cart on gemm that is crammed full with records

i've yet to order the records -- but the buying binge, when it finally happens (and it will), is gonna be murder premeditated
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gemm is a service that is good as an idea but rubbish in practice,
alot of it is deeply overpriced, even more expensive than london shops for somethings!
also a lot of the time it's not updated so you order something to find its not there !
 
M

mms

sometimes
polz said:
I've been looking for this lp for twenty years and some weeks ago i finnally found and bought it on ebay. I can assure you that that feels pretty good, i for one am very happy with the internet (as many people i think will be who don't have the privilige of living in london)

(I still buy lots in the shops as well though, they're two different channels with their own right of existence)
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i was outbid on one of my most wanted records by a dollar cos i was at work, there are pitfalls
 
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