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Support Your Local Record Store
A Guide to
Northeast Ohio’s
Independent Music Retailers: Part One
By Nate
Hough-Snee |
Corporate globalization runs rampant in this age of
free trade and multi-national corporations. It seems just about anything
you buy these days is coming from some distant land where one of several
prominent companies paid the local people a less than living wage to make
it. While this is a huge injustice to all involved (except the company
board of directors) the issue I speak to address is a much smaller, more
local one. That issue is the corporate crowding of local independent record
stores. Two local independent stores I talked with recently were Music
Vault and Record Den. This will be a continuing series in Utter Trash, so
if you run a local independent record store in the Northeast Ohio area
contact us by email at
trashmag@uttertrash.net.
Record Den (Mentor)
For about thirty years there has been a record store in
Mentor known as Record Den, selling the best (and probably the most) music
in an area that was once farmland but is now a bustling suburban business
center. Owner Greg Beaumont has been in the business strictly out of love
for music through thick and thin. Lately he has seen the thin end of things
as an already saturated independent market became more crowded in the past
half-decade with the rampant growth of large chain stores like Best Buy, FYE,
Coconuts, Hot Topic, and CD Warehouse. He laments that these guys can move
wholesale quantities through impulse buys as Mom and Dad take along 12 year
old Susie to get a fridge at Best Buy. Susie sees her beloved boy band (and
I don't mean Pansy Division here either) and refuses to leave until she gets
it. Being the average, affluent, suburban parents, they surely give in to
their child's every want and need rather than face embarrassment in a public
place. Score reads Best Buy: $400 appliance + $18CD. Indie store: 0. But
it can be countered in some ways. Greg specializes in having what no one
else does and his customers ranging from ages 16 to 60 ask for some hard to
find things.
Greg openly admits how he stays afloat: "I make my
sells on the bands Best Buy isn't selling because it isn't the cool thing
right now." His biggest sellers include Led Zeppelin, the Police, the Who,
Fleetwood Mac, Phish, and The Grateful Dead to name a few. Noting that most
of Record Den's sales come in the form of already established artists, the
state of current music could be to blame as well for the lackluster sales.
As music becomes more and more corporate people are driven from buying new
things and stick with the older stuff (like the one person we all know who
won't hear it unless it was made prior to 1979). Greg said it himself as he
commented on the state of modern music, "Does it tell you how bad music is
when people pay for good radio? People put money into satellite radio
because music is just manufactured garbage these days."
Music Vault (Mentor)
Within two miles of Record Den is Music Vault. Owner
Jeff Thomas has been in business for almost a decade and a half, first
selling behind a hair salon and now at his current location right next to
All Tattoos on Mentor Ave. Jeff also sells entirely out of love for tunes
and contempt for day jobs. Fortunately he specializes in a market that has
maintained a constant interest lately: rap and shock groups. His biggest
sellers have been Eminem, Bone Thugs and Harmony, 2-Pac and lately
Metallica. He cites the kids who come in as the reason he fills his shelves
with what he does. "Sure I want to sell the Who and the Beatles, but I've
still gotta pay the rent with Twiztid and Insane Clown Posse," says Thomas.
“I was situated in an area where lots of kids were really captured by rap
and continue to be still. I figure if they ask for it, I had better get
it." So get it he did, eventually deciding that to serve more people he
should move to a locale more conducive to business. "I saw the deal on this
place and moved my operation down here. Now I get a lot of purchases from
people waiting for tattoo appointments or who are with a friend getting a
tattoo," he explains.
Although business has been bolstered by the location
change, Thomas admits two factors have hindered his business: internet
downloads and the mall. Thomas explains his logic: "Eight years ago you
could buy a single, not just a whole album. Now with MTV and Radio playing
such a small amount of what is really out there people only want the one
track they see on cable so they download it. While this helps the listener,
no one gets much out of it; not the band, not the store, nobody." Not only
that, but the advent of stores like hot topic that sell the flavor of the
week type bands with merchandise and clothing hasn’t helped. Neither has
the tidal wave of subpar clones of popular bands. Thomas rationalizes, "It
really sickens me how Nirvana makes a killing, so then the rest of the world
is subjected to copies for another decade. I mean, how many nu-metal/boy
band/grunge/child prodigy acts do we need to follow the originator, or
instigator if you will? I think people don't want to spend money on music
sometimes out of the sheer fact it sucks!" Regardless of the state of
music, hopefully there will always be people like Jeff Thomas and Greg
Beaumont to provide music to the serious music fan.
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