INDEPENDENT RECORD STORES WILL DIE WITHOUT A NEW PLAN OF ATTACK.
You can have all the indie record stores in the world -you can have decades of em. As long as people aren’t buying hard copies of music, music stores have no purpose in life. They are useless.
It is all very sweet for rock bands to release seven inchers to help the side that’s losing but it won’t help anything.
If ANY KIND OF RECORD STORE is to become viable again the following things need to happen.
1. Record Stores need to cabaret licenses so they can present live music. I see no problem with record stores charging customers five bucks or something and presenting popular (well, semi popular acts) in their stores. With no alcohol and, say, weekend day shows, lotsa kids will get turned on early to live music.
2. The purveyors of mp3s, soul sucking grave robbers like Itunes, need to find a way to RETAIL MP3s. I don’t know how but maybe this is an idea. Why not give those gift certificates per band, at a retail level, albums only, for, say six bucks an album? This is a 40% break to get you window shopping and to open retail to the web.
3. Expand the concept of what a record store is. Why not make it into a rec room with hoops, table tennis, pinball, coffee and soda. A place to hang out with your friends and with the jukebox noppin with music. There are places in the States that are DEAD ZONES for kids. Fill the fucking void.
BC listen kid, this record store day blows. Sell vinyl? That’s their great plan???? That’s the plan to get people back in the stores? Is that really all they’ve got?
Record Store Day allows lazy rock musicians to pretend they are doing something when they are fucking not doing a fucking thing.