Harry’s Place Arts

Was Sister Ray once called reckless records? Whether or not it was my guess would be that it is just all part of the sanitation of Soho (and Berwick street in particular) which has been slowly going on for the past thirty years.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6707255.stm

No, Sister Ray seems to be mainly a new-releases shop. In fact, that’s them, the black shop at the left of the picture with the motorbike on the BBC article.

“Yes, my lifelong obsession with record buying has almost become self-parody. I reveal this embarrassing fact to underscore the point that people like me - for I am not alone in this obsession - are the life-blood of independent record shops.”

Well, yes. But I think you reveal why I don’t think you’re actually qualified to write about music - becuse the actual music isn’t that important to you*. I mean, really - needing software to know whether you’ve bought the same record twice? That’s not the behaviour of a genuine music fan - it’s the behaviour of a number crunching obsessive who may as well be collecting stamps or old Dinky cars. It’s nothing to do with music.

* Which was perfectly demonstrated with your recent Cliff better than Elvis nonsense.

“is just all part of the sanitation of Soho (and Berwick street in particular) which has been slowly going on for the past thirty years.”

IF there is some sort of plan or conspiracy, I don’t understand the mechinism by which this happens.

It is very easy to buy the same record twice, if you mostly listen to things in mp3 format. You don’t get familiar with the hard copy, because you only handle it once: when you import it.

“Well, yes. But I think you reveal why I don’t think you’re actually qualified to write about music.”

They way you go on Paul, you’d think you’d met me, or even had a serious conversation with me, or knew something about my background, but you don’t. So your theories mean bupkis.

“It is very easy to buy the same record twice, if you mostly listen to things in mp3 format. “

It’s very easy to do this if you’re collecting an artist’s work - eg Dylan - and you see a record sale and take the opportunity to plug a few gaps in your collection, or to upgrade from your vinyl to CD copy, or to replace a copy that was stolen or on ‘long loan’.

“They way you go on Paul, you’d think you’d met me, or even had a serious conversation with me, or knew something about my background, but you don’t. So your theories mean bupkis.”

Brett, you write about yourself often enough for me to get *some* idea of what you’re like. From the piece above, for instance, I now know that you’re an obsessive collector. And from an earlier piece (and your accompanying comments), I know that you don’t know the difference between genuinely great music and genuinely shit music. So really, it’s not that much of a leap to suggest that you’re not qualified to write about music. It’s hardly 2+2=5 is it?

“So really, it’s not that much of a leap to suggest that you’re not qualified to write about music. It’s hardly 2+2=5 is it?”

And yet here you are reading it. Funny old world.

I’m sure that some of your criticisms are valid, but to write off the effects of competition from widely available, free music, is perverse. Vinyl is hardly a burgeoning market, likewise, forty-somethings who like to fill their shelves with stuff.

Fopp used to be a fantastic store with a great selection; now it’s stack ‘em high and flog ‘em cheap. It’s not such a nice experience anymore, and let’s not forget that Fopp went into receivership recently, despite all this.

Amazon and eBay are driving down the price of music without the burden of running and staffing central London premises. You allude to this competition without stating how Sister Ray might have competed with this.

In short, this article seems to be a litany of complaints against Sister Ray, for not providing your perfect, bespoke shopping experience. Even if Sister Ray followed your advice and transformed itself into a second-hand shop catering to the over-forties, selling reduced-price vinyl, in a friendly and bright environment, it still wouldn’t last long.

It wouldn’t last long because most people prefer to access music for free from the comfort of their computer. People who buy new CDs don’t mind waiting a couple of days for the post, rather than paying twice the price for the privilege of shopping in Soho.

For all Sister Ray’s faults, there is a reason why so many record shops have gone out of business in the past five years, and why they will continue to do so. To call the blaming of downloading and online competition a misdiagnosis is to be wilfully blind. Obsessive, forty-something collectors are not, in fact, the lifeblood of the independent record shops. People who buy the odd record here and there serve that function, and when they’ve gone, you’re fucked.

“And yet here you are reading it. Funny old world.”

Don’t kid yourself Brett that you’re writing about music. You’re not. All you’re writing is ‘my life as a sad obsessive who collects records”. I’m sure you can see the difference.

“Fopp used to be a fantastic store with a great selection; now it’s stack ‘em high and flog ‘em cheap. It’s not such a nice experience anymore, and let’s not forget that Fopp went into receivership recently, despite all this.”

I haven’t noticed a dramatic change at Fopp. It’s still the best place to go to get back-issue albums, and always was. Fopp went under not because they were unprofitable but because they got into cash-flow difficulties with their rapid expansion.

“In short, this article seems to be a litany of complaints against Sister Ray, for not providing your perfect, bespoke shopping experience.”

Indeed, because I’m the only person on the planet who would like a shop to have friendly staff selling products at a competitive price.

“For all Sister Ray’s faults, there is a reason why so many record shops have gone out of business in the past five years, and why they will continue to do so. “

Really, then how do you explain the fact that many of the other shops in Berwich Street - notably Music & Video Exchange - are packed, as is Fopp and it’s sometimes hard to move in HMV on a weekend… while the tumbleweed bloaws around in Sister Ray.

“Don’t kid yourself Brett that you’re writing about music. You’re not. All you’re writing is ‘my life as a sad obsessive who collects records”. I’m sure you can see the difference.”

And here you are obsessed with hurling insults at the alledged sad obsessive. Which is actually quite sad. Get a life, why doncha?

“And here you are obsessed with hurling insults at the alledged sad obsessive.”

Another thing I know about you is that for a bloke who writes about hismelf so often on a popular blog that has a comments facility enabled, you’re remarkably thin-skinned and have an odd ability to regard comments and criticisms as ‘insults’. Which, I suppose, explains why you’re so quick to hurl them out yourself when coversations don’t quite go your way.

“All you’re writing is ‘my life as a sad obsessive who collects records”.”

Paul, I’m not sure how that could be characterised as anything other than an unprovoked insult.

“Paul, I’m not sure how that could be characterised as anything other than an unprovoked insult.”

Hmm, yes - it is an insult, I suppose. But only the ’sad’ bit. Which I’m happy to take back. Even though I do think collectors of any stripe are a bit sad….

Brett, the changes at Fopp to which I refer, are over more than 20 years, and I was a regular at their first store on Renfield Street, in Glasgow.

I didn’t disagree with you that the staff could be friendlier, but that’s probably not why they went bust. I used to work next door at the Record & Tape Exchange. When I started their, my manager relayed all the horrendous working conditions and petty rules I had to endure, but then explained that one perk was that we didn’t have to take any shit from the customers. If you’ve ever had an unhappy experience with a particularly belligerent member of staff there, it’s probably as a direct result of this policy. Still, as you point out, they go from strength to strength. There are reasons for this, but it’s not because of friendly staff and a bright and appealing shopping environment.

Of course people want products at competitive prices. That’s why they’ve moved to shopping online or downloading for free!

I don’t intend to explain how and why some of the remaining record shops appear to be thriving, although partly this must be due to reduced direct competition. However, I’ve been predicting for the past seven or eight years that the record retail business will collapse, and everything that has happened since then appears to confirm that it is happening and will continue to happen. All I can say is that I don’t think there will much of a music and DVD retail business in five years’ time.

If you are the lifeblood of the music and DVD industry, then that industry has been reduced to an unrecognisable shadow of what it once was, and this will be reflected in many, many more store closures.

No, Paul. When you make a negative statement about all someone’s writing, it goes beyond what could be reasonably described as criticism, to pure hostility and insult.

Tim, my theory is that downloaders have simply replaced the people who would have taped tracks form the radio or copied their friends LPs in previous decades. I would be astounded if anyone still did this. Of course they download now instead.

But this is only one of the threats to the business, and by no means the only one. I’m suggesting ways to compensate. It’s free advice which people can take or leave.

Incidentally, I pop into Sister Ray about once a week. I rarely buy anything because I’m quite familiar with all the music shops in the area and have a pretty good idea of who is selling what, and for how much. There is pretty much a shop within 5 minutes walk of Sister Ray that will do better on them on every aspect: Cheaper, bigger range, better info, better for old, better for new, better for this or that…. They simply wouldn’t win on any score, particulary because there is so much competition in the area. They only shop nearby which is a waste of space and I think will be next to go down is Vinyl Junkes…. unless it’s actually a front for the Cosa Nostra or something.

“No, Paul. When you make a negative statement about all someone’s writing, it goes beyond what could be reasonably described as criticism, to pure hostility and insult.”

Oh, I see what you were referencing now, sorry. When I said ‘all’, I didn’t mean all of Brett’s, ahem, canon - I meant just this piece and, specifically, in reaction to his comment that suggested he was talking about music - rather than, as I said, being a collector of records.

That said, in the grand scheme of things - in the small scheme of things even - my use of ‘all’ is hardly something to get too upset about.

Good post….I was just lamenting the loss of so many other once-good record shops (in places far less favoured with high footfall outside than central London)…for example, one in Barking, that Billy Bragg used to advertise, has stood empty ever since it closed, perhaps 15 years ago…the other four (two of which, at least, were, really rather good) that used to be in Barking no longer give any hint of what they once were… Even Croydon doesn’t have the record stores that it once did…

Tim, my theory is that downloaders have simply replaced the people who would have taped tracks form the radio or copied their friends LPs in previous decades
Hmm… I dunno….I’d have thought they were the illegal downloaders

I don’t understand the economics of music retailing nowadays- quite apart from the added competition from downloads…or Amazon….or Amazon Marketplace…or GEMM…the price at which (not only extremely mainstream) CDs (and for that matter some movie DVDs) are sold in some of the chain stores (HMV…never mind the Tescos and Asdas) has dropped so dramatically - by up to two-thirds, I reckon, if not more, in real terms - over the last few years….I can’t see how many of those stores - even those with decent service - can be expected to survive. Surely they must be selling (some CDs) as loss-leaders….but without sufficient “accessories” or so on to go with them….where are the profits coming from?

I think the way things are going, record stores, outside of big chains and extremely specialist stores that are well-run and have found a particular niche, both in the centre of major cities, will be extinct in the UK within 5 years - or less.

Sorry, Paul. I misread (or assumed you’d misspelt) “you’re”, thinking you meant “your”. I think Brett deserved to be pilloried on that Cliff Richard thread, but sometimes your comments seem openly hostile.

Logging one’s music on a database may have nothing to do with music appreciation, but it doesn’t preclude it. I’ve bought several LPs more than once. I remember most of the stuff I bought, but if you’ve bought enough, there’s invariably some that you haven’t got around to listening to, and you end up buying it again.

Brett, there’s simply no comparison between home taping and illegal downloading. A cassette copy of an LP was inferior in many ways to the original from which it was copied. On the other hand, when so many people listen to music primarily on their PCs and iPods, there is no added value to owning a shiny disc. For most people, the music experience is identical regardless of whether the the music was found in a store or on Google.

I think your rather quaint fetishism for shiny silver discs precludes you from being able to analyse the recording industry with anything resembling objectivity. Your inablilty to acknowledge the redundancy of the CD - based on the fact that you happen to still buy them and the misplaced assumption that you represent something other than a dying breed - leads you to write strange articles like this, and that one where you claimed that Sandisk was the future of music distribution.

I’d be wary of anyone who made bold predictions about the future of the music industry, but I’ve read nothing more implausible than your analyses.

“Brett, there’s simply no comparison between home taping and illegal downloading. A cassette copy of an LP was inferior in many ways to the original from which it was copied. On the other hand, when so many people listen to music primarily on their PCs and iPods, there is no added value to owning a shiny disc.”

Unless you are downloading FLAC files and burning these to a CDR to play on your HiFi, then frankly a tape sounds better. Of course a tape is inferior to an LP (well, that depends on the LP and thetape) but an MP3 is alsways inferior to the CD. And playing it through speakers normally connected to PCs isn’t going to help either.

“I think your rather quaint fetishism for shiny silver discs precludes you from being able to analyse the recording industry with anything resembling objectivity.”

I don’t fetishise shiny silver discs. I like music to sound as close to what it sounds like at source as possible. MP3 doesn’t cut it. Nine Inch Nails released their last album in a lossless format for download, but frankly it would have been less effort to buy it. It involved downloading almost a gigabyte of data and then burning it, and if one wanted to enjoy the liner notes and artwork, printing that out. Sure, it could have been played straight frm the PC, but (a) most PC’s aren’t capable of decent playblack and (b) the environment my PC is in is not one conducive to enjoying music.

“where you claimed that Sandisk was the future of music distribution.”

I claimed that? I certainly did not!

I don’t think there is a conspiracy to clean up Soho (except perhaps by Westminster council) and I’m not altogether sure it hasn’t been a bad thing, but when “edginess” moves elsewhere so does rock n roll usually.

I’m given to buying more than one copy of a cd too. Most recently I discovered I had three copies of the Red Hot Chili Peppers “californication” (and to be honest I don’t even like the band much.)

Have to agree with Brett re the home taping - copying vinyl onto a chrome tape from a good turntable produces something much better than any MP3 (though I hear that the “brickwalling” - particularly on the album that i referenced above) adds another factor to the equation.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2008/sep/17/death.magnetic.too.loud

Thanks for the info Chris by the way.

Well I for one enjoy Brett’s eccentric posts about records. He’s spot on about crappy service in record stores. Even back in the 80’s when I bought most of my vinyl records, the store staff were a bunch of snotballs. The fucking owner (he had three or four shops in the county) actually wore a cowboy hat! You know the type. He was way too ‘cool’ with his long hair, gold chains and bracelet to fraternize with his lowly customers.

If I owned a record shop, I would treasure a customer like Brett. If you’ve got a bloke giving you steady business, would it be so difficult to strike up a friendly conversation? Perhaps even give him preferred status? Jeez.

“Unless you are downloading FLAC files and burning these to a CDR to play on your HiFi, then frankly a tape sounds better.”

I do download FLAC files. Burning them to CDR does not make them sound better than tape. What is important is how you decode them, whether on a CD or on a sound card. A high quality sound card will sound better than a low quality CD player. All other things being equal, a tape will not sound worse than a lossless decoding of your music, as it involves generational loss not inherent in playing back music on a CD or direct from your computer.

“Of course a tape is inferior to an LP (well, that depends on the LP and thetape)…”

No. In the context we are talking about, tape is always inferior to vinyl, because of the generational loss. We were talking about home taping, so the copy (cassette) will always be inferior to the original (LP). As it happens, the specifications of cassette are very limited compared to vinyl, and so you’d have a hard time arguing that even chrome cassettes came anywhere near to vinyl.

“… an MP3 is alsways inferior to the CD.”

Yes and no, but this isn’t the issue. For sure, an MP3 contains less data, and so is in some senses inferior to the original. However, a double blind test will show you that people cannot hear the difference between a 320kbps MP3 and lossless. Regardless, it’s irrelevant. What is important to my argument is that, if people listen to music on their iPods or PCs - in lossless with the best soundcard money can buy, or on their iPods at 64Kbps - they can download at their preferred sound quality and their listening experience is unaffected by possession of the shiny disc.

“And playing it through speakers normally connected to PCs isn’t going to help either.”

If this is how people choose to listen to music, then it’s still correct to say that there is no added value to owning the original. You are confusing your value judgement (with which I happen to agree) that people will have a better listening experience using better equipment, with the argument that, all other things being equal, it makes no difference to that experience where the files are sourced from.

“I like music to sound as close to what it sounds like at source as possible… Nine Inch Nails released their last album in a lossless format for download, but frankly it would have been less effort to buy it. It involved downloading almost a gigabyte of data and then burning it, and if one wanted to enjoy the liner notes and artwork, printing that out. Sure, it could have been played straight frm the PC, but (a) most PC’s aren’t capable of decent playblack and (b) the environment my PC is in is not one conducive to enjoying music.”

Well, if you insist on converting everything onto those silver discs, of course it will be an pain to download music. Likewise, if you have a shitty soundcard or a “computer” environment that is not conducive to listening pleasure. But all this rather begs the question. If you habitually downloaded all your music, you would find that it is rather quick and simple to download a few gigs of flacs that would arrive in your hard drive already in your chosen format. You would have either a decent sound card, or a dedicated server designed as a media centre, and so you wouldn’t have to use your desktop PC, or even look at Windows in order to access music. You would use a remote control and access your music from a little display on top of your telly, or something like that. But if you insist on playing shiny discs, anything sourced from elsewhere will be a relative hassle!

Incidentally, if you want to get as close to the source as possible, the best way of doing so with the NIN album would have been to buy the Blu-Ray edition which was mixed down to a higher sampling rate than your version that you burnt to CD. Of course, if you don’t have a Blu-Ray drive, you could only have done this by illegally downloading at file-sharing sites, and you would not have been able to listen to it on your CD player without downsampling (i.e. reducing sound quality).

“I claimed that? I certainly did not!”

You recently wrote an article entitled “This is the future of music delivery?” I only just noticed the question mark - apologies!

Correction:

All other things being equal, a tape will always sound worse than a lossless decoding of your music, as it involves generational loss not inherent in playing back music on a CD or direct from your computer.

Some of this is irrelevant because, on modern recordings, the “master recording” never saw tape to begin with. Was the latest Matallica album recorded on magnetic tape for its superior audible qualities? Fuck no. With disk drive storage capacities where they are today (1.5 terabytes), sampling rates can be so fucking high that there is NO WAY you could distinguish between a vinyl record and a digital sample of the vinyl record.

It’s pure nostalgia, which is truly cool.

All of this is irreleavnt. The main point here is that Tim said there was a built in disadvantage to taping in that it didn’t sound as good as the original. My reply is that neither does an MP3.

You can argue that the average person can’t tell the difference between an MP3 and a CD - and that is true, but the average person can’t tell the difference between a Tape and an LP either.

“Of course, if you don’t have a Blu-Ray drive, you could only have done this by illegally downloading at file-sharing sites…”

Actually no. NIN gave the files away to registered users of their website. These were legal downloads.

“So, here’s some tough-love for Sister Ray: Your shop is too dark. Your prices are stupidly high and your staff are unfriendly. There, I’ve said it.”

No it’s not, you can get a whole bunch of decent CDs for £5-£6 (including a great selection of classic Island reggae), and in years of going there I’ve never found the staff surly or rude. Basically Indie shops can’t compete with eBay, Amazon sellers and bitTorrent.

Closing at 7 is stupid opening hours? You do a 10-hour day six days a week do you Brett? Thought not.

“Closing at 7 is stupid opening hours? You do a 10-hour day six days a week do you Brett? Thought not.”

Ever heard of shifts? Or perhaps opening later?

Dolby Laboratories got their start trying to remove the ‘hiss’ from magnetic tape recordings, did they not? I shouldn’t say that. It was MY first experience with Dolby that involved tape hiss. I thought it was crap. It butchered the high frequencies. Back then, I wasn’t listening to high dynamic range classical music but it destroyed high frequencies even on rock music.

We really are in the golden age of sound reproduction. I say the heat is on the microphones, nowadays. They are the weakest link. They weren’t always, but they are now.

“Dolby Laboratories got their start trying to remove the ‘hiss’ from magnetic tape recordings, did they not? I shouldn’t say that. It was MY first experience with Dolby that involved tape hiss. I thought it was crap. It butchered the high frequencies. “

The conventional wisdom was always record with Dolby ON and playback with Dolby OFF.

While I was sad to hear of the fate of Sister Ray, and while it was the one record shop that I would make a special trek to whenever I ventured down to London, it was only because that seemed a good place to pick up some jazz vinyl re-issues at reasonably good prices. And I spent some money.

And then on my fourth visit it struck me that the stock was not changing at all. The records I had bought on my previous visit had been replaced, and there was really nothing in there I hadn’t seen before. That may be down to the fact that nobody seems to be producing any brand new classic jazz recordings from the 1960s and 70s (obviously)… but it did make digging through the bins a bit of a deja vu experience.

And then I began to notice that it was really only a couple of bins of records, most of which I either already owned or don’t want. And as I looked around, I began to pay attention to how dark it was in there. And how surly everyone seemed. And how the prices actually weren’t all that flash, all things considered.

And I haven’t been back in these last few times I’ve gone down to London. Just seemed a bit out of my way.

Picked up some cracking bargains on eBay though - where I download most of my vinyl…

I’d remind any shopkeepers thinking of heeding his advicethat despite Brett rating the shopping experience, friendliness and knowledge of richer sounds he trundled off to the supermarket to get the ‘compatibility king’ dvd player a few weeks back.

“All of this is irreleavnt. The main point here is that Tim said there was a built in disadvantage to taping in that it didn’t sound as good as the original. My reply is that neither does an MP3.”

Brett, you originally said this:

“Tim, my theory is that downloaders have simply replaced the people who would have taped tracks form the radio or copied their friends LPs in previous decades.”

Perhaps I confused things by getting involved in a discussion of the various available formats, which is irrelevant to your point.

Many people, whether they buy CDs from the shops and then convert their music, or whether they download illegally in the first instance, listen to their music primarily on the iPod or PC. To those people, there is no loss in quality whether they bought the item legally, or they downloaded it illegally. This makes it very different from a situation where one records an LP to cassette and ends up with something different in several ways to the original.

Illegal downloaders are not the home tapers of the day. The distribution of copies from legally purchased music used to be very limited. Someone had to own the LP, and then copy it each time for every friend who wanted a copy, and it involved a lot of effort.

The differs quite markedly with the current situation, and you would have to be wilfully blind not to realise this.

Availability: you can get pretty much any music you want, without having to know someone who owns the original.

Immediacy: you can do download music far faster than you could hope to play it, as opposed to having to record it in real time.

Quality: there is no generational loss associated with downloading. A tape of an LP always sounds worse than the original. Illegal downloads are available in whatever quality you prefer, right up to lossless, CD quality.

The reality is that many people who previously bought CDs have realised that once the shiny discs end up in the attic via the iPod, there is no value in owning them. These are not today’s “home tapers”; they are simply not CD fetishists like yourself. More importantly, younger people just don’t bother to buy CDs.

Your assertion that illegal downloaders have just replaced yesterday’s home tapers is bizarre and wrong. The numbers are far higher, the demographics are different and far wider spread, and the sheer quantity of what they are grabbing shows that your statement is nonsense. Presumably you don’t really believe it, or you wouldn’t be getting your knickers in a twist about illegal downloading.

You’ve stated that today’s illegal downloaders have replaced yesterday’s home tapers, in order to back up your ridiculous claim that record shops are closing because they’re no good, rather than as a result of the undeniable revolution in music distribution that we are witnessing.

“I’d remind any shopkeepers thinking of heeding his advicethat despite Brett rating the shopping experience, friendliness and knowledge of richer sounds he trundled off to the supermarket to get the ‘compatibility king’ dvd player a few weeks back.”

You know, honestly, such binary thinking is becoming tedious.

As it happens, I have the cheap “compatibility” player in my bedroom, but my main player, which I think I referred to, a Denon which cost much more, plus much of my home cinema kit I got from Richer Sounds. Does it now follow that I should buy everything from them regardless of my onw needs and preferences?

I really am puzzled by these kind of remarks.

“You’ve stated that today’s illegal downloaders have replaced yesterday’s home tapers, in order to back up your ridiculous claim that record shops are closing because they’re no good, rather than as a result of the undeniable revolution in music distribution that we are witnessing.”

Tim, I think you’re doing a little fetishising of your own. You desperately want to believe that downloading is so ubiquitous because you want to morally justify taking things that don’t belong to you.

Were that not the case, you’d be purchasing your download music instead of grabbing illegal torrents. Everything you say seems to be to justify your own behaviour.

But be that as it may, let us say ofr arguments sake that the pool of potential purchasers of physical music is shrinking. Let’s say it is in fact becoming a niche market. Shouldn’t that imply that sellers of physical music should heed my advice on how to compete in this changing environment rather than pretending the world is as it was 20 years ago before the Internet?

I’ve worked directly across the road from Sister Ray for about 12 years. In the late nineties I was always going over in my lunch hour to buy something for a reasonable price (in comparison to HMV on Oxford Street which was then selling new CDs at £16-17).

Now I order all the CDs I want from a small shop on New York’s Bowery, and even by the time I’ve paid shipping on them, they’re still £3-4 cheaper than at Sister Ray. And as Sister Ray would have to order them from the States too, the wait is neither here nor there.

The staff there have never been quite as unfriendly as the sneering sanctimonious High Fidelity wannabes to be found behind the counters of the second-hand stores on Berwick Street though.

It’s easier now than it ever has been to buy the music you value direct from the artists - the money doesn’t need to go to these middle-men anymore. You can directly support the people actually creating the work, rather than surly nerds and greedy landlords. Sister Ray’s staff are only being made redundant because they are redundant.

What! You didn’t even take the ‘compatibility king’ back to the shop after moaning about it on here?

“What! You didn’t even take the ‘compatibility king’ back to the shop after moaning about it on here?”

I did take it back, got refunded and bought a different brand.

Brett, I’m not sure there’s much point in continuing this if you respond to my arguments by making psychological projections about me. Countering your uninformed opinions is neither interesting nor productive.

Despite a worldwide trend that has seen the recording industry dwindle across the board, and has seen retailers suffer in particular, in indirect relation to the growth in illegal file-sharing and availability of cheap and effectively unlimited hard drive storage and very cheap recordable media, you seem to think that the primary problem is that record shops haven’t taken your shopping profile and adopted it as a model for target customer.

Some of your criticisms of Sister Ray are perfectly valid, but your prescription for future prosperity in record retailing amounts to no more than a personal wishlist. If you’re prone to filling in customer satisfaction surveys, this could be valuable stuff; but it’s dull for an arts blog.

Your orignial article stated: “I don’t think [Sister Ray's demise] has anything to do with digital downloading.” I’m not going to argue against this or that detail of your advice to record retailers, when you’re unable to see the elephant in the room.

As for my own supposedly self-serving moral justification for illegal downloading, I don’t think I’ve particularly tried to justify it, and generally try to take a pragmatic approach rather than a moralistic one. Perhaps you’re right, but as you have even less insight into my own psychology than I have, it seems more likely that you’re speculating on my mindstate because you don’t have answers to my actual arguments.

I’ve got friends who were major music buyers, who would never again buy a CD, and I’ve got an 18-year-old brother who, like his friends, owns a couple of dozen CDs, but hasn’t bought one in years. None of them pays for downloads. I also read quite a bit on the music industry and the future of music. I’d like to think that this experience has informed my opinions, but of course I can’t altogether write off the possibility of being influenced by prejudice, as you are so keen to infer at the first instance.

Brett, I’m not sure there’s much point in continuing this if you respond to my arguments by making psychological projections about me.

Tim, remind me who started down the road of Freudian analysis? Telling people they fetishise discs, yada yada…

I was just thinking, “ooh, is Sister Ray the record shop on Berwick Street I used to go to all the time, that sold loads of fanzines and was really good?”, but that was Selectadisc. Sister Ray is the one that I ordered “Clang of the Yankee Reaper” by Van Dyke Parks from recently, and after a month hadn’t delivered it or explained why.

But I’d have thought Amazon Marketplace makes these shops obsolete now.

“I was just thinking, “ooh, is Sister Ray the record shop on Berwick Street I used to go to all the time, that sold loads of fanzines and was really good?”, but that was Selectadisc.”

Brilliant shop, Selectadisc. Nottingham born and bred, like me. I spent many a happy hour - and many a few quid - in there. Of course, if I were a teenager now I probably wouldn’t go in there much at all. But I’d still be obsessed with music. And when I say music, I mean music - not shiny round objects, bits of cardboard and interesting serial numbers.

“But I’d have thought Amazon Marketplace makes these shops obsolete now.”

It does kinda, except where vinyl is concerned. Records are expensive to post, so an LP on eBay starts at a base price of around £2.75 just on postage. Even if the bidding starts at 99p, that’s £3.74 for a very ordinary LP you could expect to pick up for a pound or two at a shop in Berwick Street.

I’m sure I’m not alone in finding it fun and relaxing spending an hour or two on a Friday evening rummaging through stacks of records and finding the occasional gem - like Billy Bragg’s first three solo albums virtually new (one autographed by the man himself), and at only £1 each. Or the entire Shreikback back-catalogue, also at £1 each. And that after years of hunting down a copy of Big Night Music… only to find it in a bargain bin in Greenwich!

In other words, shops that find a way to compete on their stregnths rather than taking on the Internet on an adversarial manner will have better success.

Makes sense to me that there’s plenty of reasons why chasing a shrinking market down the plughole might not look so clever… But if you’re such an expert in making money in the record shop game…

If only they could take a leaf out of Nando’s book…

I’m sure I’m not alone in finding it fun and relaxing spending an hour or two on a Friday evening rummaging through stacks of records and finding the occasional gem

Hand on heart moment alert.

Ever since I was a kid something about the act of flicking through records has given me attacks of flatulence (yes it was me who made that awful smell as you were considering buying that townes van Zandt album I’m afraid.)

I’m not sure if it was the excitement of handling records or the angst of deciding which to buy or the very idea of being surrounded by “cool” people who always seemed to know much more about music than me but it nealry always happened and I am rather glad we now have ebay and amazon which have never given me cause to emit a bottom burp.

Sister Ray never had any of the music I wanted. Resurrection are much better for that (and for music didn’t realize I wanted), and I use them in preference to Amazon or eBay because of it.

What Sister Ray did have though were dodgy copies of bootlegs for sale, at the previously mentioned silly prices. And it was a complete pain to search for a CD there because their layout made the average charity shop CD section look coherently organized. I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about.

So really, it’s not that much of a leap to suggest that you’re not qualified to write about music.

How does one go about getting qualified to write about music? Had I known, I’d have dropped Latin and done that course.

Off but kinda on topic, I used to work at the Nottingham branch of Selectadisc between 95-00. I worked with a great bunch of people who I felt were mostly friendly and polite to customers, but in our defense everyone has an off day where you can be a bit of a grump (can’t we all?) or nursing hangovers…or sometimes in a huff bexause of the hangover…but I don’t think any of us were particularly snobbish.

Whereas I know that whole High Fidelity attitude does still exist in SOME indies I think some of them have been tarred by attitudes from years previously - I know Selectadisc has a bad rep around Nottingham and when people found out you worked there they would often ask “Why are you all a bunch of wankers?”

Generally it was the people who worked in the singles shop who had the no nonsense attitudes, but that helped them deal with the dance djs who all wanted to listen to a pile of 50 records then buy 2 of them, and those ordinary punters got caught in the crossfire of that attitude. Having worked briefly in that department I can understand how quickly soul sapping it comes to pull out and put away piles of records all day long and be treated rudely by dance customers more surly than the staff.

But our department was different - as my boss pointed out, how could anyone think we had an attitude problem when people would walk in off the street and see us ull prancing around like fools behind the counter to some classic Mercury-era Rod Stewar? Hardly the epitome of indie record shop cool!

On the prices front, everyone knows that the second hand business is an absolute mugs game - you can pay a pittance and sell at what you like, so I don’t think you can compare Music and Video Exchange (which I could be wrong, but it is all second hand, isn’t it?) to a shop which is predominantly first hand, so the counter argument of buying power of HMV, Zavvi etc is a valid point.

I wonder if Music and Video Exchange benefits from having a constantly changing second hand selection of stock - it adds an element of excitement and randomness, which is perfect for people who are browsing and aren’t looking for something in particular…probably a reason why so many people enjoy scouring charity shops and car boots for records, as you never know what you might find and could well get an absolute bargain too. As HMV are going to begin doing second hand video games and Virgin attempted to bring in second hand deliberately to add that random excitement into their usual range this is something that retail are probably aware of, or should be.

However, I’m aware of several shops who do great business with second hand cds and dvds and their profit margins are humungous compared to first hand product, but the sales of the second hand have emasculated sales of their first hand product, as their customers now look for everything in the second hand section first. Personally I think this can be detrimental to the perception of what the shop is and stands for - these shops could easily become known as “second hand tat shops” (Ironically, not to boast, but the prices in Selectadisc were massively competitive back then, simply because they asked for a fair mark up, not the old crazy HMV double mark ups, plus we used to pick up a fair amount of bargains, but would often be accused of selling second hand cds as people could no believe they were that cheap, or there was something dodgy going on for selling them that cheap - talk about devil if you do, devil if you don’t…)

DVDs are notoriously quick to devalue and initial cost prices of DVDs are massively out of proportion to retail prices - on your example Sister Ray are probably sat on a DVD which cost them around £12 +VAT from the release and 18.99 is, in an ideal world, the correct mark up, therefore they would have to sell at a £4-£5 loss to match the Zavvi price (which also might be a short lived sale promotion, after which could go back up to a standard £19.99 catalogue price) I can see how that price perception is damaging to a store’s reputation, but its difficult to sell something at a loss when times are as tough as they are for retail.

As some people have rightly pointed out though, a physical retail shop has to turn over enough PROFIT to pay rents, business rates and utilities (all of which are shooting up as many consumers know), staffing costs (again, which are under pressure to rise due to higher cost of living) and this is all against a decline in volume, tighter margins due to price cutting in supermarkets etc (where they don’t have to sell a cd or dvd for a profit, just as long as it draws you in) and with this a general devalued perception of music, where many stores can struggle to sell a cd for over a tenner these days as to do so is seen as being a rip off, even though the store might be trying to make an honest mark up.

I’m sure there are many indies who wish they still had money left over to spend on advertising, tart up the shop, make it more appealing…but as they also cut staff (due to issues above) they have less time to spend with customers or have much time to look at how the buying public perceive their shop, nor the time to analyze those results.

Lastly though, don’t feel I’m defending every criticism you’ve made as I think there are some valid points, not just for Sister Ray but for many indies across the country. Something to consider though -some of the points raised (dirty, dark, stinky shops with surly staff) could be made against Gamestation and many games shops, but it doesn’t seem to be affecting their business and as Nintendo have brought in a much broader range of customers with the Wii and DS, you can’t use the old argument that the shops are for dirty, stinky, teenage gamers.

Good stuff, Fozzie Bear. There’s enough detail and insight in there to be the basis of a guest post on the subject, should you be interested.

How does one go about getting qualified to write about music?

Well, given that today’s Guardian music supplement is stating that:

The indie-pop scene now is just posh people who don’t have to get up in the morning to go to work, wandering around London being idiots, not saying anything of any depth or value, and existing in this self-absorbed bubble.

Going to Oxbridge might be a start!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/oct/03/popandrock.foals

By all means, happy to fly the flag!

The indie-pop scene now is just posh people who don’t have to get up in the morning to go to work, wandering around London being idiots, not saying anything of any depth or value, and existing in this self-absorbed bubble.

Couldn’t this be similarly applied to music TV presenters?