Z-Ro Let The Truth Be ToldJuvenile Reality Check
Things which I wanted, but which didn't get cheap enough to get and someone else snatched:
VP's Channel One CompilationStudio One FunkTI The King (which I should have bought at 50% off, but there seemed to be so many copies that I got lazy)Sizzla Waterhouse RedemptionSugar Minnott At Studio One (this I'm sort of eh about actually)New Busta RhymesNew Orleans Funk Soul Jazz thing (people bought this at $15!)
Things I never saw, but wanted and I am mad about:
This Heat Boxed Set
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 17:49 (seventeen years ago) link
Amen.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 17:52 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 18:05 (seventeen years ago) link
― vahid (vahid), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 18:18 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 18:23 (seventeen years ago) link
― vahid (vahid), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 18:24 (seventeen years ago) link
― Nu-Edward III (edward iii), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 18:31 (seventeen years ago) link
― PFS (pfs), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 18:34 (seventeen years ago) link
― nickn (nickn), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 18:40 (seventeen years ago) link
― Phil Freeman (unperson), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 18:53 (seventeen years ago) link
An Albatross - BlessphemyAll 4 Coachwhips (sorry, but they aren't worth much more)Frog Eyes - The Bloody HandMark Hollis - Mark HollisPlastikman - MusikRye Coalition - CursesSam Roberts - Chemical CitySerena Maneesh - Serena ManeeshTo Live and Shave in L.A. - Vedder Vedder BedwetterWhitehouse - BuchenwaldZoroaster - Zoroaster
― ... (50 Bourbon St), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 18:55 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 18:55 (seventeen years ago) link
― Al (Alex In Baltimore), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 19:02 (seventeen years ago) link
― PFS (pfs), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 19:05 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 19:10 (seventeen years ago) link
― nickn (nickn), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 22:05 (seventeen years ago) link
― A Radio Picture (Factory Sample Not For Sale), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 23:21 (seventeen years ago) link
― Michael (Oakland Mike), Wednesday, 20 December 2006 23:51 (seventeen years ago) link
― tremendoid (tremendoid), Thursday, 21 December 2006 02:18 (seventeen years ago) link
― Phil Freeman (unperson), Thursday, 21 December 2006 02:34 (seventeen years ago) link
uh, wow.
― GAWD PVNCH (yournullfame), Thursday, 21 December 2006 03:08 (seventeen years ago) link
Jazz very picked over but I got Vijay Iyer - Raw Materials and the Subjazz Proxy disk (there were still at least 20 copies of this one).
Dance still had a couple hundred, and I got the Optimo Psyche Out, Karsh Kale, and a Zuco 103. They had one of the Lindstrom & Prins Thomas disks that I bought at 80% off, so I put it in front and it was gone by the time I left. Forgot to check for Ellen Allien, who had half a dozen there Monday. Found a Dizzee Rascal "Off 2 Work" in the singles, and in the main Rock/Pop got the Sadies, Walkmen, Vacation, John Cooper Clarke, Peter Perret EP, Mice Parade EP, Bailter Space, John Greaves, and finally Malcolm Mooney from 1998 with "Father Cannot Yell" on it. Never knew he did anything after Can, but it's worth $1.70 to check out. Also noticed one last Matt Friedberger, which I had bought at 60% off last week.
― nickn (nickn), Thursday, 21 December 2006 03:10 (seventeen years ago) link
my favorite/strangest find was the alan braxe and fred falke cd single for "rubicon" with sticker for $2.
― josh (josh.), Thursday, 21 December 2006 03:10 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 21 December 2006 03:41 (seventeen years ago) link
― joygoat (joygoat), Thursday, 21 December 2006 04:58 (seventeen years ago) link
Absentee - SchmotimeLewis TaylorTangiers - Never Bring You PleasureLadyfuzz - KerfuffleThe Automatic - Not Accepted Anywhere
Gifts:The Associates - Fourth Drawer DownMy Computer - No CVGirls Aloud - ChemistryThe Passage - For All and NoneWildhearts Must Be Destroyed!Syd Matters
Bye bye Tower.
― Fastnbulbous (Fastnbulbous), Thursday, 21 December 2006 07:22 (seventeen years ago) link
boris - pinkmclusky - the only difference between you and me is i'm on fireloren mazzacane connors - sails
the rest over the past couple weeks, most 70% off, some 80%:
isolee - 'western store' and 'wearemonster'luciano - 'sci fi hi fi'erase errata - 'night life'meat purveyors - 'someday soon things will be much worse!'a pair of studio one compsa certain ratio - 'i'd like to see you again'wolf parade - 'apologies to the queen mary'larry young - into somethin'the knife - silent shout (2 copies)kylie minogue - impossible pricess (2 disc import)luomo - the present loveresg - a south bronx storywolf eyes - human animalcomets on fire - avatarcarla bozulich - evangelistagwen mccrae (a 2 albums on one CD import)arizona amp and alternator - s/tnao wave: brazil post punk 1982-1988 (2 copies)the free design - kites are fun & one by one islands - return to the seaneko case - the tigers have spokenblack heart procession - the spellmoodymann - black mahoganidetroit cobras - babyannie - anniemalblack strobe - the other side: parismountain goats - we shall all be healedarchitecture in helsinki - in case we dieexcepter - sunbomberecho and the bunnymen - songs to learn and singjolie holland - springtime can kill youthe hold steady - boys and girls in americabooka shade - 'movements' and 'memento'tim hecker - 'mirage'saint etienne - 'songs for mario's cafe'fiery furnaces - 'bitter tea'wayne shorter - 'speak no evil'andrew hill - 'pax'nina nastasia - 'the blackened air'burial - s/tuusitalo - 'tulenkantaja'colder - 'heat'the dresden dolls - 'yes, virginia'the handsome family - 'milk and scissors'
― bohren un der club of gear (bohren un der club of gear), Thursday, 21 December 2006 07:43 (seventeen years ago) link
Is Friday the last for West 66th NYC store as well as West 4th? I'm thinking something salvageable might be uptown.
― Dr M (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 21 December 2006 15:51 (seventeen years ago) link
― jaq (jaq), Thursday, 21 December 2006 16:45 (seventeen years ago) link
― ... (50 Bourbon St), Thursday, 21 December 2006 16:49 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 21 December 2006 16:58 (seventeen years ago) link
― jaq (jaq), Thursday, 21 December 2006 17:07 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 21 December 2006 17:30 (seventeen years ago) link
― jaq (jaq), Thursday, 21 December 2006 18:11 (seventeen years ago) link
I got:
ICP Orchestra - Oh, My DogVitalic - OK CowboyThe Juan Maclean - Give Me Every Little ThingErase Errata - At Crystal PalaceJustus Kohncke - Was Ist MusikNervous Cop - s/tLuomo - The Present LoverSusumu Yokota - Cat, Mouse And MeSystems Officer - Systems OfficerLisa Papineau - Night MovesHenry Flynt - Raga ElectricRosalia De Souza - Garota Moderna
― Lingbert (Lingbert), Friday, 22 December 2006 05:23 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 23 December 2006 06:28 (seventeen years ago) link
Holy fucking shit, they got an orchestra?
― naus (naus), Saturday, 23 December 2006 06:32 (seventeen years ago) link
I had a pretty nice coda to all this today when I hit the Amoeba in SF and scrounged through their bargain bins after selling back some stuff:
Currituck Co. -- Ghost Man on FirstTsunami -- Deep EndCraig Wedren -- LaplandAzita -- Life on the FlyrhBand -- Third Order ParasitismA-Frames -- Black ForestMichael J. Sheehy -- No Longer My ConcernUiLad -- FiresClearlake -- CedarsBooks on Tape -- The Business EndThe Dead Texan -- s/tFrausdots -- Couture, Couture, CoutureThe Delta Waves -- Dream in Real TimeUrinals -- What is Real and What is NotMagnapop -- Hot BoxingJale -- DreamcakeBright -- s/t
Plus two Tower Recordings spinoffs:P.G. Six -- Parlor Tricks and Porch FavoritesSamara Lubelski -- Spectacular of Passages
...all for $13. So it felt like a bit of the Tower luck was carrying over. ;-)
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 23 December 2006 06:36 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 23 December 2006 06:41 (seventeen years ago) link
indeed. it's truly the cream of the juggalo crop.
― Lingbert (Lingbert), Saturday, 23 December 2006 07:09 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Saturday, 23 December 2006 08:09 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 23 December 2006 14:28 (seventeen years ago) link
From the corner of Broad and Chestnut, the future of the record store looks bleak.
Amid the holiday rush, Tower Records' Center City store went out of business yesterday, two months after the once-revered chain was acquired for liquidation. In the final days the shelves were half-empty, the selections grim - obscure metal bands such as Rorschach Test and Backlash.
"It's sad, because I used to buy all my music here," said Andy Fortson, 21, of Mount Airy. "But they just can't compete with all the downloading and competition from stores like Best Buy. It seems like it's pretty much impossible to have a record store that only sells music."
So, like Tower, is the independent record store soon to be a thing of the past, as disposable as an MP3 file that can be deleted with a click? That would seem logical in an iPod culture where CD sales are down 5 percent this year and purchases of song downloads are up 66 percent, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
But the changes remaking the music industry tell a more complicated story, and while record stores face daunting challenges, some are finding creative ways to survive in a digital world.
The music retail wreckage this year isn't limited to the 89 stores in the Tower chain. The Center City store, thought to be one of Tower's busiest, had been an Avenue of the Arts linchpin since it opened in 1999.
The Musicland chain declared bankruptcy in January, prompting the closing of stores like Sam Goody in Ardmore. Independent outlets have gone under, too, such as Repo Records, down the road in Bryn Mawr, as well as hipster haven Spaceboy on South Street.
Not all record stores are suffering equally. Many local emporiums, like hip-hop- and R&B-heavy Armand's Records in Center City, and WXPN-centric Main Street Music in Manayunk, are struggling to get by. Others, like wide-ranging a.k.a. music in Old City and Repo's South Street store, which specializes in indie rock, are thriving.
"Consumers are attached to physically owning something," said Jim Donio, present of the National Association of Recording Merchandisers, based in Marlton. "We're a culture that likes things."
Though downloading is inexorably eating into CD sales, "it still only makes up about 5 or 6 percent of the business," said Billboard magazine's Geoff Mayfield. He blames Tower's demise equally on "lowball pricing from mass merchants," meaning stores like Best Buy, Target and Wal-Mart. Those stores often sell new releases for as little as $9.99 to lure Jay-Z or U2 fans who might also pick up a digital camera or a washing machine.
Independent store owners like Armand's Steve Ben-Moyal can't compete, because it costs them more to buy Nas' Hip Hop Is Dead wholesale than the $9.99 the hit album sells for at Best Buy in Plymouth Meeting.
"It's a struggle," said Ben-Moyal, whose second-floor Chestnut Street store was all but empty one afternoon this week. Business is down 70 percent over the last few years, he says, partly due to a new computer program, the Serato Scratch Live, that lets DJs use MP3 files instead of the vinyl LPs that were the backbone of his business.
Store owners face a laundry list of obstacles. There's a music-sharing culture in which 2.8 billion ready-to-burn blank CDs were sold in 2006, according to the Consumer Electronics Association, compared with about 588 million CDs of recorded music. There's competition from the likes of Amazon.com for baby boomers who are too busy or intimidated to venture into stores.
Then there's the disappearance of the college student customer - now, happily downloading MP3s. Dan Matherson said that doomed his Main Line Repo store, which had relied on Villanova and Haverford students. But business is up 10 percent at his South Street store, where indie singer-songwriters Sufjan Stevens and Joanna Newsom are big, especially since Tower and Spaceboy went belly-up.
The loss of younger buyers does not bode well for brick-and-mortar retailers - and that will only worsen if Apple launches its long-rumored iPhone early next year.
"When I was in high school, when I was being more directly financially supported by my parents, I would love to buy CDs from Repo," Gabe Yassky, 18, a Wynnewood resident who's a freshman at Bard College, said by e-mail. "But I've lost those romantic views I had. I mean, I just don't have the money now, and everything is digital."
Raheem Palmer, 20, of Southwest Philadelphia, who goes to the University of Pennsylvania and DJs as "R to da Izza," figures that fewer than half of the 15,000 songs on his iPod come from store-bought CDs.
"For kids growing up, who've never been to record stores, times change, and you've just got to learn to adapt," said Palmer, who started working at Armand's this week. "But at the same time it hurts, because the experience of just going to the store and seeing people and telling each other what kind of music they should check out is almost gone."
Donio, of the merchandisers' group, said thriving stores are selling more than just music - video games, action figures, MP3 players. That approach is typical of f.y.e., the chain owned by Trans World Entertainment, which tried to buy Tower in October for $133.8 million.
f.y.e. spokesman John Sullivan said this week that Trans World had bought the lease of the Tower store on Broad Street, and plans to open a store as early as February. He said this store - the chain's area flagship - would be more music-centric than most, with "a good classical selection" to rival Tower's.
Another approach that works at independent record stores, Donio said, is "the High Fidelity model, where it's more about the music culture in the store."
That's the strategy of Amoeba Records, the three-store mini-chain on the West Coast, whose stores offer such a vast selection of new and used CDs that they are regarded as a Mecca to music-lovers. Co-owner Marc Weinstein calls his customers "culture hounds" - as good a term as any for the customers at a.k.a. on Second Street, where business this week was buzzing.
"We really try to carry a vast array of different types of music, and try to be as completist as possible," said a.k.a.'s Mike Hoffman, a former Third Street Jazz employee who carries 35,000 titles in his Old City store. He said business is up three percent this year. "We really cater to music heads."
That means people like Kerry Kenney, 33, of South Philadelphia, who was Christmas shopping at a.k.a, his hands full with the Beatles' Love and the Bee Gees' greatest hits, Miles Davis' In a Silent Way box set, and the African experimental collection Congotronics 2.
"When I was younger, Tower was the place," Kenney said. "I don't download, or do any shopping on the Internet. I like to experiment when I shop, and pick up a CD and hold it in my hand before I buy it. I'm more old-fashioned that way."
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/16294886.htm
― arthritic hand golden fist (RSLaRue), Sunday, 24 December 2006 15:48 (seventeen years ago) link
VINYL RECORDS TO GO THE WAY OF THE DODO! NO MORE VINYL RECORDS!
― GAWD PVNCH (yournullfame), Sunday, 24 December 2006 15:52 (seventeen years ago) link
Anyway things I will miss about Tower:
1) Buying Riddim magazine. Now I have to find a Barnes & Noble who stocks it or buy it from VP's record wing.
2) The Market stores fantastic bargain bin which was a treasure trove for imports (esp. Soul Jazz stuff.)
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Sunday, 24 December 2006 17:14 (seventeen years ago) link
I went over to the Tower in Santa Monica the Thursday night before they closed to see if they had anything decent at the 70% off discount. Not only did they have decent stuff, they had a lot of great metal CDs that nobody else was getting because they had never heard of the bands. After much agonizing, I trimmed my purchase down to about $60 worth of stuff. I brought it up to the front counter, and the guy scanned a couple things in and told me that the total was $27. I blinked. He asked me if I had anything else that I put aside, and I nodded quickly and rushed over to where I had left the discard pile. I brought that up front, he scanned the top CD, and gave me about $100 (after the 70% discount) worth of merchandise for $32.50. Since he was losing his job in two days anyway, and any profit was going to the liquidation company that purchased Tower, he had no real reason to care. What were they going to do, fire him? Hell, they cost him his job.
I went back on Sunday morning, since the store was closing and had everything at 90% off, and ended up getting another 27 CDs for $40. I called my friends to let them know, but just as they walked through the door, the guy up front announced that the store was closing and everyone needed to check out. Bummer for them.
My haul, all for a total of about $100 (including a couple CDs that I had purchased at the store earlier for a lesser discount), all brand-new and unopened:
April Wine - Stand BackAyreon - Actual Fantasy RevisitedBlackfoot - StrikesCandlemass - Essential DoomCandlemass - Doomed for LiveCathedral - the Garden of Unearthly DelightsCraft -Fuck the UniverseCronian- TerraDarkest Hour - Undoing RuinDaylight Dies - Dismantling DevotionDead Meadow - Shimmering King and OthersElDopa - The Complete RecordingsEphel Duath - Pain Necessary to KnowFandango - Fandangothe Flaming Lips - at War with the MysticsGenghis Tron - Dead Mountain MouthGuano Apes - Don't Give Me NamesHerod - Rich Man's War... Poor Man's FightHome Video - No Certain Night or MorningKalas - KalasLennon- Damaged GoodsLullacry - Volume 4Merzbow - Rainbow Electronicsthe Mission - ChildrenMotorhead - Ace of SpadesMy Ruin - The Brutal LanguageThe Obsessed - Lunar Womb (Reissue)Passenger- PassengerPentagram - First Daze Here TooPlanes Mistaken for Stars - Knife in the MarathonPoint-Blank - Point-BlankBrian Posehn - Live in: Nerd RageRaunchy - Death Pop RomanceRebel Meets Rebel - Rebel Meets RebelRed Sparowes - Every Red Heart Shines Toward the Red SunRed Sparowes/Battle of Mice/Made Out Of Babies - TriadRumpelstiltskin Grinder- Buried in the Front YardSamhain - Final DescentSatyricon - Dark Medieval TimesSatyricon - Rebel ExtravaganzaScar Symmetry - Pitch Black ProgressSuffocation - SuffocationThe Sword - Age of Wintersthe Start - InitiationThunder - ThunderTito and Tarantula - Hungry Sally and Other Killer LullabiesVoivod - KatorzWarrior Soul - Drugs, God, and the new RepublicWitch - WitchWizardzz - Hidden City of TourmondYob - the Unreal Never LivedYyrkoon - Occult MedicineZoroaster - Zoroaster
― Jeff Treppel (JTreppel), Saturday, 30 December 2006 06:14 (seventeen years ago) link
― the claudine longet invitational (get bent), Saturday, 30 December 2006 06:21 (seventeen years ago) link
Yeah, I was a similar beneficiary on what turned out to be my last day in this respect. I wasn't complaining.
Warrior Soul - Drugs, God, and the new Republic
Really, the only great thing on this album is the cover of Joy Division's "Interzone" with the howled "And we rock and ROOOOOOLLLLL!" bit at the very start. Completely ridiculous. That said I admit I can still hum the chorus of the title song after all these years.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 30 December 2006 06:27 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 30 December 2006 06:29 (seventeen years ago) link
I was down in the area of the Costa Mesa Tower today doing some other errands -- no change on the outside of the building or anything yet, just looked forlorn.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 30 December 2006 06:31 (seventeen years ago) link