Record Store Day celebrates indie retailers
By DAVID SHARP – 13 hours ago
AP

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Despite the success of online retailers, explosion of Internet downloads and high-profile closings of Virgin Megastores and Tower Records stores, bricks-and-mortar record stores aren't all spinning toward oblivion.

Although hundreds of independent music retailers have gone out of business in recent years, about 2,000 are still around, and many are thriving.

The survivors will celebrate Saturday, as acts such as Erykah Badu and Franz Ferdinand gather to pay homage to the hometown record store.

Record Store Day was the idea of Chris Brown, a long-haired, goateed music guru from Bull Moose, a chain of 10 record stores in Maine and New Hampshire.

"I wanted to have a fun kind of party event at Bull Moose where we could thank our customers and just have a fun time," he said. "I realized that it would be a much better party if we got the other stores involved, just make it a national thing."

Now in its second year, Record Store Day is being celebrated at more than 1,000 independent record stores in the U.S. and in 17 countries.

Artists like Disturbed and Ani DiFranco — both appearing at Bull Moose — are paying tribute with in-store appearances. Others like Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, The Smiths, Modest Mouse and the Decemberists are offering special-edition vinyl releases.

For retailers, it's very different from the days when kids rushed to the store to thumb through the 45-rpm records. These days, more compact discs are sold despite a resurgence in vinyl. Record stores also have branched out into video games, movies and other merchandise.

Some like the Waterloo in Austin, Texas, Twist and Shout in Denver, and Amoeba in San Francisco are cultural hubs in their communities.

"Music is clearly the centerpiece. It's at the emotional heart of these businesses, but economically they've diversified," said Jim Donio, president of the National Association of Recording Merchandisers, which is sponsoring Record Store Day.

It hasn't been an easy road for the mom-and-pop stores.

About 1,000 indie music retailers have gone out of business since 2003, said Joel Oberstein, president of Almighty Institute of Music Retail, a market research firm based in Studio City, Calif.

But 2,000 independent record stores have survived, and the store closings have leveled off over the past year, Oberstein said.

Indies cling to a small market share. All told, there are 10,000 online retailers, mass merchandisers, national chains and other retailers, in addition to the hometown record stores. Donio estimated that independent stores account for less than 10 percent of overall music sales in the U.S.

Looking to thank customers and promote local stores, Brown tossed out his idea for Record Store Day in 2007 at a conference of indie music retailers in Baltimore.

A year later, heavy-metal band Metallica officially kicked off the first Record Store Day at Rasputin Music in San Francisco.

Brown is vice president of Bull Moose, a seemingly incongruous corporate title that is nevertheless typical of indie stores that have adapted to marketplace changes. In fact, Bull Moose is coming off a record year and strong first quarter despite the recession, he said.

Its stores feature a variety of compact discs from jazz to metal to rap to world music, but also DVDs and Blu-ray discs, video games and video game systems, vinyl albums, T-shirts, baseball caps and more. There are also used DVDs, CDs and vinyl.

Julian Butler of Standish, who was shopping this week at Bull Moose's Portland store, said he used to download his music and movies — illegally and free of charge — before getting a cease-and-desist letter from his Internet service provider.

These days, he said he prefers the sound of compact discs to the compressed MP3 files, and he likes the social interaction he gets in the store.

"Mostly the sound quality is a lot better on CD and you're supporting the actual makers of the music," Butler said of his decision to give up illegal downloads. "Plus you get to come here and meet some people instead of sitting in front of your computer."
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Record Store Day: How will you celebrate?
Apr 17, 2009, 04:34 PM | by Simon Vozick-Levinson
Entertainment Weekly

Mark your calendars if you haven't already: Tomorrow, Saturday April 18, is Record Store Day. The holiday started a couple years back as a way to honor America's rapidly vanishing independent music retailers, a noble cause if I've ever heard one. Now it's grown to the point where all sorts of artists big and small are playing intimate in-stores and offering exclusive products at participating indie shops across the U.S. A very abridged list of some of the most notable Record Store Day specials is after the jump, but there are zillions of these things happening. Click over to the official site for much more complete info on releases and in-stores, plus the all-important list of participating vendors. Then let us know in the comments section how you'll be stimulating the moribund music-retail economy this weekend!

Exclusive releases:

■Bruce Springsteen, "What Love Can Do"/"A Night With the New Jersey Devil" 7" vinyl single
■Bob Dylan, "Dreamin' of You"/"Down Along the Cove" 7" vinyl single
■Crosby, Stills, and Nash, live double vinyl album
■The Smiths, "The Headmaster Ritual"/"Oscillate Wildly" 7" vinyl single
■New Order, "Temptation"/"Hurt" 7" vinyl single
■Tom Waits, "Lucinda/Ain't Goin' Down to the Well"/"Bottom of the World" 7" vinyl single (live recordings from 2008's Glitter & Doom tour)
■Grizzly Bear, "While You Wait For  The Others"/"He Hit Me" (live on KCRW) 7" vinyl single
■Sonic Youth/Beck, split 7" vinyl EP
■Flight of the Conchords, "Pencils in the Wind" 7" vinyl single
■Vetiver, "Wishing Well" 7" vinyl single
■Blitzen Trapper, "War Is Placebo" 7" vinyl single
■Iron & Wine, Norfolk 6-20-05 live CD
■Wilco, bonus downloadable concert for anyone who purchases Ashes of American Flags DVD
■Jane's Addiction, "Mountain Song" 7" vinyl single
■Cold War Kids, live EP
■The Dandy Warhols, Earth to the Remix EP, Volume Two
■Cursive/Ladyfinger (ne), split 10" picture disc EP

In-store shows:

■The Cannabinoids featuring Erykah Badu, Dallas, Tex.'s Good Records
■The Breeders, Cincinnati, Ohio's Shake It Records
■Eagles of Death Metal, Claremont, Calif.'s Rhino Records
■Chris Cornell, Minneapolis, Minn.'s Electric Fetus
■Talib Kweli, New York, N.Y.'s Fat Beats
■Mark Olson & Gary Louris, Austin, Tex.'s Waterloo Records
■Prefuse 73/The Pains of Being Pure at Heart/Bill Callahan, New York, N.Y.'s Other Music
■Ra Ra Riot, East Lansing, Mich.'s Flat Black and Circular (acoustic performance)
■Silversun Pickups, Berkeley, Calif.'s Rasputin Music and DVDs
■The Bird and the Bee, L.A.'s Fingerprints
■DM Stith, Bloomington, Ind.'s Landlocked Music
■Uncle Murda, Brooklyn, N.Y.'s Basement Mix Records
And much, much more...

Something we can all agree on (although it comes too late to save my neighborhood Music Millennium store).

ijwthstd wrote on Apr 18^th, 2009 at 11:47am:



Dan, can you send me the best links/email lists you follow to stay on top of all of these events in LA?