RTP-area local music and culture

["Glenn Boothe / Local 506" <gboothe2 AT earthlink.net>]

Funny, Mac pointed me in the direction of this debate when I
coincidently emailed him to tell him about a CD I had bought for $7.99
at Best Buy.   It all started on another blog...

I remember as a kid, buying the first Lloyd Cole record used as a promo
- a double whammy, not only did LC make no money off my used purchase
(natch,) he didn't make any off the original since it was a promo.
But guess what, because I splurged $3 on that used album, I became a
life-long fan and purchased plenty of his subsequent releases brand
new...at independent stores, i'm sure.  That may have never happened
had I not bought that first record.

And isn't it better that you CAN buy such records at Best Buy.  When I
was kid, I had to mail-order or drive hours to get the albums I wanted,
rewarding the post office and the oil companies for my vinyl cravings.
I would have been thrilled if the Record Bar in my hometown carried The
Buzzcocks, Black Flag, etc.

Not to mention, if undercutting new CD prices is bad, then isn't
selling used CDs - a key revenue component of any indie store - equally
bad; stores rewarding themselves with profits in lieu of the artist and
label that releases the album?

And think about this, restaurants haven't disappeared, but actually
flourished, even though we can feed ourselves much cheaper at home.
And people pay good money for bottle water that comes cheaply unbottled
out of any home spigot.  Not analogies or metaphors, just stuff to
think about...glenn

ps: here is my post, since i'm sure someone is gonna come across it.
And for the record (I cut this part out and it'll make more sense once
you read the below,) I actually went to Best Buy Monday and realized
that the Cat Power album wasn' t out yet.  I left with no CDs - it
wasn't even worth my time to wait in line to buy the other five albums
since they were impulse decisions.  At that point, I had planned to buy
CP at CD Alley; however, a twist of fate put me back near Best Buy on
Wednesday per below...


>>>We have heard from labels and distributors and man have we heard from 
>>>retail, but we haven't heard from any of the bands involved.

It doesn't appear that you've heard from your average consumer
either. Okay, so I own a rock club (Local 506 in Chapel Hill) so maybe
that makes me above (or below!) average...

>From my perspective as a third-party consumer, everyone here seems to
be making the assumption that a sell at Best Buy is a lost sell for the
indie store...and I can attest with first-hand knowledge that that
isn't true.

Unaware of this post (and this pro-test,) I, for one, happened to
notice in my Sunday paper that I could buy the new Cat Power for $7.99
at Best Buy, plus some other titles that might interest me. Now, I'll
be honest, the last Cat Power album is one of my favorites of all time
so I'd been happy to pay more.

However, in the process of buying that album, I ended up walking out
with five others. Five albums that I had no interest in buying before
Sunday; not to mention, albums that I probably would not have picked up
at $9.99, much less $13.99.

One of which, Antony and the Johnsons, I bought even knowingly not
liking what I had heard...but thought, fuck it, it's cheap enough,
I'll buy it and spend more time with it and see if I get it...(and I
will say I'm coming round to it just two days later!)

Anyway, the point is I spent $48 dollars on CDs, $40 of which I
hadn't planned on spending...and all on indie labels! Based on what I
read, those artists and labels made as much off my purchase as if I had
bought them from CD Alley. That can't be entirely bad, can it?

As I've mentioned to people before, the music industry is having a
hard enough time selling CDs as it is, and now some people want to tell
the shrinking consumer base exactly which stores they can or cannot buy
the albums at?!?!

And, like most music fans, I haven't stopped supporting the local
indie store. In fact, I just walked out of CD Alley with a $32 Toy Love
import as well as local release Hotel Lights (which I probably could
have scored for free from the band if more patient.) 

glenn