Road Records to close
Jim Carroll
Of course, we have been here before, but this time, it’s for keeps. Road Records will close its doors on Fade Street in Dublin on July 24. It is the end of the Road for good.
Shop owners Dave Kennedy and Julie Collins have posted an explanation about why the shop is closing on their website. Despite their own best efforts, and a lot of goodwill from many in the local music community once the shop’s difficulties became known in January 2009, it now transpires that keeping a small indie record store open in the capital city in 2010 is one hell of a job and not something they can keep doing.
Per the statement, “it’s sad to have to admit that but this time, I think its true, we can’t blame digital sales, illegal downloading etc – the world is a changing place and I can’t see any room in it for kooky little indie stores like ourselves.”
Road is not the only record store to close its doors in recent years. As we saw on Record Store Day back in April, there are less and less indie record stores on our streets. We may argue the toss here every day about music. We may go to cheer on new bands when they play in a venue near us. We may travel to festivals all over the continent. But the nuts and bolts of acquiring music has changed to the detriment of the physical stores. The move to downloading and streaming, as well as a myriad of other socio-economic reasons from the price of music to a time-poor culture, means we spend less and less time browsing the racks in a small store in search of a CD or vinyl record to bring home.
Of course, some stores still continue in business here and especially elsewhere. Many OTR readers will have an anecdote about a holiday visit to a well-stocked, busy indie store in London, Amsterdam or Barcelona. As we saw the first time around when this debate was aired in January 2009, other countries can still support an indie retail sector, albeit on a much reduced scale than used to be the case. The fact that people have time to visit these stores in other cities is another example of how a time-poor culture has changed our relationship with the record shop.
It is a sad day for many reasons. The shop owners and their staff are losing their livelihoods. There is one less sympathetic space for local indie releases. There will be one less Irish-owned independent shop on Dublin streets. There will be one less place to send visitors to town looking for a record store.
But it does remind us, as the website statement puts it, that the world is a changing place and a record store like Road will struggle to maintain its status in the middle of such changes. Music will continue to be made. Audiences will continue to want to hear music. It’s the exchange between the artist and the audience, and how that exchange is brokered, which is changing.
And let’s reiterate as we said above that there are still record shops open for business in Ireland (see list here) and there may well be some new music retail enterprises coming on stream in the coming months. One shop closing is a blow, but that shop is closing because people are no longer buying music in the same way that they once did. Other means of buying and selling music will come to pass. Trade and commerce will go on.
I’ll leave the last word on this to Will Oldham. I interviewed him last week and when I was transcribing the tape earlier, this quote stuck with me and seems apt in the circumstances. “I don’t feel an exceeding amount of loyalty to the future of physical records”, he said. “I would never deny the past of physical records – the musical experience which are held in physical objects like CDs, cassettes and vinyl are not always repeatable. But the importance of music is how valid it is to the audience and if the audience find all the validity in music through downloads and abstract things then that’s the future of music. And I love music more than I love the music business or physical records.”
Truly terrible news
I was so sad to hear the news, mainly because I live in Cork and have not actually been in Road Records. I have got some stuff via post from them and lt was such a great service. I will do my utmost to make the three hour trek up before the 24th just to step into Road for the first and last time.
Last year we had Plugd close in Cork, now Road in Dublin. So so sad….
Very sad news alright. A real shame, but an inevitable outcome unfortunately. I’d like to wish those behind Road success and happiness with some other venture, be it onstreet, online or otherwise. And fair play for keeping it afloat for so long.
That Will Oldham quote is absolutely spot-on.
That is indeed a real pity and Will Oldham’s quote will be of no comfort to Dave and Julie i’m sure. Can’t thank them enough for the steers they’ve given me on tunes and every purchase, whether it was a ticket or a CD, always resulted in a conversation about said item. In truth i buy most of my music digitally now and if a technostic like myself is getting their tunes that way well then the digital format that music is now purchased in s the reality. I can’t help feeling that by taking advantage of the sale is a little like vultures picking through carrion though that might just be the mood i’m in right now. I’ll certainly be stopping by and i hope that whatever their endeavours are in the future that they are successful.
d’you know what… i love will oldham – he is a man of suitable absurdity… you did well to pick that quote out jim for it is excellent…
as for road, i need comment no more… it’s painful to watch an ideal you cherish be killed so softly and slowly…
Always popped in for a browse if I was up in Dublin, especially post Plugd closure, and availed of the online ordering.
Is it safe to assume that the online presence is also to go?
If so can sale stuff be ordered online?
Just saw on the site, no more online sales either. I’d say this is a loss that will be felt well outside Dublin 2.
Couldn’t get Hunter-Gatherer anywhere bar Road’s online service, for example
always sad to see an indie store go but i think road may ultimately have lost out to tower rather than downloads/hmv/etc. there’ll always be a market for one specialist store in every big city, it is just a case of survival of the fittest. tower will last longer than hmv in dublin. if you look at new york and chicago as examples, the big mega-mart record shops like hmv and virgin in prime locations are gone but the better indie stores have survived. same with london. tower is our rough trade and it is where people buy their records now cos it is relatively cheap, well-stocked and embraces younger music fans. There are always as many under 20s flipping thru the vinyls down the back as there are older beardy blokes. road, unfortunately, wasn’t as enticing for the non-beardy, huggy student types. or girls. only girls i ever saw in road were julie and my girlfriend who stood at the door looking bored on record store day.
I feel the same as Will. And yet I used to be the biggest defender of physical music formats. Then one day I realized I didn’t miss broken CD cases taking up space, I didn’t miss the liner notes, I didn’t miss my self-induced paranoia around snobby record store clerks, I didn’t miss accidentally buying a bad album AGAIN because I wasn’t able to sample it first. I love having all my music in a machine the size of a pack of smokes, and I love anonymously purchasing music over the internet. Things change, and the market has spoken. I’m very sorry these nice people are losing their livelihood, but hopefully they can find other ways to still work in the business of music and help keep things weird.
great quote from Will Oldham. while i feel very sad for road records, we do live in a different age and now it so easy to get music online from anywhere in the world at the click of a button.
it may be a case where we look back on record shops the way some people remember blacksmiths.
releasing music to the masses has never been easier but it’s whether you get bucks for your bang is another thing.
This has probably got more to do with the general recession than anything else. I’ve only bought about 3 brand new albums this year. Purely financial reasons.
@9 I know quite a few girls who would be disgusted to hear you say that Peter
So, so sad to hear this news. Dave, Julie and the lovely shop they made have been one of the last bastions of a community that’s sadly grown smaller and smaller over the years, while the variety of music we listen to has grown, making it impossible to be all things to everyone.
Road and everything it stood for will be missed badly by many of us, and I wish Dave, Julie, Dyland and Gib all the very best.
It was also very sad to hear earlier this week that Pure Groove in London is closing down. The tone of the post is upbeat, but friends who work with the shop say that the physical store will no longer be operated.
http://www.puregroove.co.uk/pg-blog/10-07-12/Pure_Groove_-_Important_News_July_2010.aspx
Fiona – didn’t know that Pure Groove was shutting down. In fairness, though, they only ever carried a small amount of titles in the actual shop – I think I remember one of the guys telling me it was 50-100 titles only in the shop when I was last in – and the space was really for the cafe/gallery/live stage. Thank goodness, they’re still keeping their online store going. I think this also shows that there really is only a small market for physical record stores right now – in the case of Pure Groove, the giant Rough Trade East is located nearby and, even though it doesn’t do “deep” catalogue (again, you’re pointed towards the online store), I’d imagine it covers a lot if not most of the same ground as Pure Groove.
Sad news indeed, although of course I realise now I probably didn’t support it as much as I could have. But lovely staff anytime I went in there, always very helpful and knowledgable but not intimidating, like you can get in some indies. Peter – have to agree to an extent with you, I think Julie was the only woman I ever saw in Road Records and my wife for example loves music but hates record shops. Great apt quote Jim from Will. Off topic but only just remembered his upcoming gigs in Whelans. Both seem to be sold out. Anyone know if they’re actually completely sold out or any chance of a ticket somewhere ?
Off topic but only just remembered his upcoming gigs in Whelans. Both seem to be sold out. Anyone know if they’re actually completely sold out or any chance of a ticket somewhere ?
part time punk – I was talking to Leagues from Foggy Notions yesterday and he said both gigs were sold out. It reminds me of another discussion here about leaving it to the day/night of the gig to buy tickets on the door – there are some gigs which will still sell out way ahead of time.
Very sad news indeed. Thanks for everything Dave and Julie, legends pair of ye!
Of course it is sad, but entirely foreseeable. The recession was only a catalyst. The guys seemed to have wanted a physical store first and foremost and that world is simply dying out. The “blacksmith” comparison is apt. They also remind me of Kerans willingly following an impulse to head southwards to his inevitable demise in JG Ballard’s “The Drowned World” (not as harsh as it may sound…).
I try to buy as much as I can from independent sources still (or directly from the artists). They all just happen to be online these days, which is vastly more time- and cost-effective for me. I wrote a long comment about this following the ALT gig last year, but the crux of it was that there has to be the basis for an Irish store of this nature and Road Recs had the brand name and product expertise to make it happen. However, it entails a whole new style of marketing and customer / musician relationships to make it work to everyone’s benefit. I guess that their heart just was not in such an approach and that they just wanted to make their familar model succeed.
Good luck to them anyway. It will be harder now to find out abot the obscure Irish artists that they championed when few, if any, others did.
JD – that comment of yours is #42 at http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/ontherecord/2009/03/16/the-randomiser-says-anyone-for-some-breakfast-tacos – still a brilliant comment, full of commonsense and good ideas
Part time pink @17 … Without trying to be funny, have you tried Road for tickets to Will Oldham ?
Awful news. I only ever picked up the one album in there to be honest. By the time music became an obsession to me, online was already the way to go so i never so the good times for an indie shop. Still though, there’s a lot to be said for speaking face to face with a fellow music enthuastist which can never be achieved online…
I’m also quite interested by a number of the comments above…a lot of people about seem to indicate that they “buy” their music online. I understand that some people are well off, paranoid of getting caught, paranoid of admitting to piracy here, not very tech-savvy, and that these people may use i-tunes and other legal means to buy music. I feel myself, that most people (nearly all if i’m honest) get their music for free off of the internet (or off of a friend who got it for free off the internet). I don’t think there is much point pretending that people are purchasing off the internet instead of in the physical form. People are getting free music everyday on in many different forms.
Going to head over to Pure Groove today to check it out. nice one for the tip Fiona.
I don’t think there is much point pretending that people are purchasing off the internet instead of in the physical form. People are getting free music everyday on in many different forms.
There are some people who buy physical copies of records over the web, direct from the band or label. Until digital retailers start selling lossless versions or music at a reasonable price I’ll never pay for a digital download.
Off topic, but EP has announced its comedy line up –
“Mario Rosenstock (Gift Grub), Ardal O’Hanlon, Phil Jupitus, Jim Eoin, Ed Byrne, Reginald D Hunter, The Stars of Who’s Line is it Anyway, Colin Murphy, The Rubberbandits, Dead Cat Bounce and many many more”
Not bad at all IMO
that is a nice quote.
“However, it entails a whole new style of marketing and customer / musician relationships to make it work to everyone’s benefit.”
I agree with JD here… maybe they just didn’t know how to market themselves properly. These days you have to be very savvy about your online presence and promotion to reach out to new customers. As well as the fact that they weren’t in the best of locations either.
@ 22 i’m not sure what you’re trying to say there. i buy one or two records every week through online record stores. doubt i’m alone in that.
It is sad to see Road Records go but it is a sign o the times (as the diminutive internet basher would say). It was inevitable. Personally it would be nice to imagine that the Road Records brand name, the spirit, the customer relationship, and the expertise could be kept alive through some medium. What that is (DJ night? Website? Radio show? Road Records themed coffee shop/restaurant?), I don’t know.
I just hope that Dave, Julie & Co are snapped up asap by some aspect of the Irish music biz to carry on their work. If not, that is the biggest loss of this story…
@9 – Here’s one girl who shopped in Road at least once a month – I would buy an album there as often as I could (my way of assuaging guilt over the amount I download). Usually Irish music like Rednecks, etc, but also other odd bits and pieces. Heard about Swans and Godspeed…! playing this winter just from being in the shop when Gib (I think!) was telling another customer about it – those are the sort of things I’ll miss. Have my tix now anyway!
Agree @14 that the variety of music people now listen to makes it difficult for a specialist store to keep up and provide everything – same is happening to bookshops. If you can get that odd book you just read about on your favourite blog at The Book Depository (free postage at any price, unlike Amazon), when you would have to order it, wait two weeks and then collect it, paying a higher price, at Hodges (not independent anyway), sure why wouldn’t you just click through a few pages and have it sent to your door in a matter of days?
I do get a lot of music online now – both paid and unpaid, physical (shout out due here to the Psychonavigation guys who have a great, v personal online service) and as mp3s – but often find it leads me back to buying a physical version in a shop – I just discovered Perfume Genius last week and for some reason am pining to hold the record in my hands, not just listen to the various tracks I sourced online. There is some music you want to be have a ‘real world’ version of – maybe just to be able to hug it close!
Best of luck to Julie, Dylan and Gib – I’m guessing whatever they do next, they’ll do it with passion.
@27: I understand that a certain amount of people buy music online (i have done so myself but not often). My comment was a response to the fact that a couple of posts in the thread seemed to imply that legal music downloads have made a large impact on the physical sale of music in stores. Obviously it effects these stores, but the truth of the matter is that the vast majority of downloaded music is downloaded illegally (am i alone here?); as such, downloads via warez etc have a much much bigger impact on the music stores than what i would see as a small proportion of people who now purchase online legally…
Oh…wow.
Im a girl who has bought records for the past 10 or so years from Road Records AND I buy stuff online from labels.
Please no one imply that neither thing takes place, because it makes you sound really stupid, im not saying that because im paranoid about getting caught, im saying that because its true and I understand the concept of someone creating something and if i want it enough ill pay them for it. Its pretty simple. I know how to download (i often d/l live bootlegs/things that are no longer available to purchase/free legal d/ls) but I certainly wouldnt take things for free if I can buy them somewhere..but now isnt the time for a debate about illegal downloads..
If anything the sales of vinyl have increased since the physical side of the music industry started to deteriorate, with chain stores closing,indie stores carry vinyl mostly, which would imply there is business being done elsewhere, like Peter mentioned above.
Its really sad we cant manage to sustain more than one or two stores, and that Road are the ones to go. Dave and Julie truly love music, and have been a bottomless well of support for irish bands. Ill be breaking out all my road relish goodies this week to give them a listen. This might sound very emo and dramatic but to me and a few others it really feels like a part of Dublin has died along with the closure of Road.
Mick @ 22 I think that Jim covered this report here at the time. However, Google gave me this link right away: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/21/study-finds-pirates-buy-more-music
This might sound very emo and dramatic but to me and a few others it really feels like a part of Dublin has died along with the closure of Road.
Niamh – actually, no it’s not emo or dramatic, just a very sharp observation. Every city is changing right now – look at the amount of independent-run shops of every kind which are disappearing and getting replace by some take on the StarWayBootsDeben&M multinational corporate beast. The bigger stores can survive rent increase and slower sales through economies of scale which the smaller shops can’t do. There have been parts of Dublin disappearing every year since I came to this city over 20 years ago – it’s the way things go – but it’s the way smaller shops are going so quickly which worries me. Do we, as citizens of this city, want this to be city we live in? And what can we do to stop it? Even if we all decide to go shop in those stores and support them at the cash register, is this enough? The closure of Road is part of a much bigger and more macro-economic and social question about the kind of city we want to live in.
@32 I can tell you for a fact that the study presented in that article is skewed to represent a particular reality It’s findings as presented by the Guardian don’t make a lick of sense – eg “10 times more likely than whom to buy music?” People who just buy music? People who neither download or buy? The vast majority of teenage school kids that I’ve spoken to about this say that they would not dream of paying for music and download everything they listen to.
O MAN, how can you bemoan the corporatisation of our souls and yet still use the phrase “on stream”? You’ve got the virus, baby. Quarrantine time!
jim @ 33… ‘allelujah!… perhaps we’re not a million miles away in our thinking after all…
I’ve asked this before, but I’d wonder how much impact there is from bands selling themselves at shows, or via a site like band camp, that isn’t felt on charts, or is never mentioned in arguments about torrenting etc…I mean compared to 20 years ago. I don’t know because I’m not around that long, but 25 years ago, would any band have sold their own recorded music at a show, bar the odd very independent minded act?
Bandcamp is great IMHO, lossless music and bands have options to sell physical products, do promo type things and gather stats about their fans if they so wish.
@33 / Vinnie
The vast majority of teenage school kids that I’ve spoken to about this say that they would not dream of paying for music and download everything they listen to.
Heh. 100% of unverifable surveys support the view of the person who cites them. Are you David Quinn in disguise?
You do have a point, but not much of one, unless you have actually read the source report and can quote authoritatively from it to show what you mean. The article above is a mere snippet of information and something that I quickly pulled from the Internet.
There is one basic, irrefutable reason for indie music stores dying out. They are going the same way as small bookshops, small fashion outlets, small video shops (remember those?), even corner grocery stores… even the pub trade…
It’s a simple fact of retail life that if you are selling goods that can be sourced elsewhere for less then the only chance you have of surviving is providing a quality of service that far outweighs the cold figures. For small ticket items like records / cds your chances, ultimately, are nil. For all the goodwill of the posters above and the people they know and the anecdotes they have that’s not going to change. Road would probably need 1,000 people a month to have Mendozy’s attitude of trying to buy something there every month.
As regards downloads I use legalsounds.com. It’s Russian. I believe copyright law doesn’t apply there, so albums are about $1 each. The legalities of being in Ireland and using it I’m not sure of.
Just a word on Roads marketing approach after the last near closure.
They became super active on twitter, continued to send the weekly mail out, and answered emails very promptly. I dont know any other record store in the city that were as personal as they are with their customer base. The small space that they operated in obviously didnt allow them to have instores on the same scale as Tower but I think they more than made up for that with their customer service online and in the store. I really now think that if people are going to buy records, they will, and for those that do not, no amount of clever marketing will make them get off their arses to come in to a store.
Someone told me the other day that HMV grafton st have moved all their music stock on to one floor now, with 70 percent of the store carrying non music products now pretty much. Sadly i think in the long term, if Tower are to survive, we may see a shapeshift of the music:other stuff ratio on the floor. Maybe in order to keep selling music shops will need to sell other products as a way to support their desire to provide physical music to those that want to buy it. Its a scary/weird time and i guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Jim-I certainly want to live in a city where I can stroll around, meet my friends, discuss some records and go in and buy them in a store where the people behind the counter love music as much as I do. To be able to browse around and go, shit, someone borrowed that and never gave it back and id forgotten about its existence, there it is, ill buy it now. I guess to a lot of people it sounds overly sentimental but thats how my relationship is with music. Im feeling really sad about this. Its crap.
Vinnie-I agree, most of the people i know who illegally download, do it exclusively, with a very teeny number of them does it lead to any kind of purchase, physical or digital. So i think that statistic is distorted at best.
@38 That’s exactly my point. I work in music retail and my long term findings completely contradict their findings. It means that the chances are that neither of us are right but I’m not publishing my data to be assimilated as fact by those who would read a very badly worded article in the Guardian.
Also, have you read the source material? Because if you have not then you don’t really have a point in publishing the link to the Guardian.
I’m extremely sad about this, but I’m honestly not surprised and was amazed at the tweets of shock yesterday. Surely everyone knew that two years ago, the business model was wrong -it had to be. So, with the cash injection that Road got from the benefit gig, they got a second chance. Apart from the record of the month club and a higher Twitter presence, what really changed? I don’t have any bright ideas on how to sustain a little gem like Road and it seems like Dave and Julie tried their best, but it just wasn’t good enough.
The game has changed forever.
Surely all Road needs right now is another benefit gig with David Kitt, Patrick Kelleher, The Jimmy Cake and Jape? Right?
Well I can only add to the other comments here and say I’m pretty gutted by that news. I was in there just last Saturday for a browse, came away with the Hunter-Gatherer and Three Tales albums, and I did remark to myself that apart from their wide selection of independent Irish releases there wasn’t a whole lot on the shelves, but didn’t think it would come to this, at least not so soon.
All the best to the guys behind Road for the future anyway, they’ve done themselves proud over the years. I can’t pretend I knew them personally but they were always extremely pleasant, helpful and knowledgeable any time I went in. Thanks for everything Road.
i was just actually thinking about how i used to plan my route around dublin by the record shops start in comet , on to borderline then to virgin then up to abbey disks and have my wages spent by the end of it
Vinnie, to go back to your remark at #34, when I was a young ‘un, virtually all of the music that I owned was bootleg, ripped off the radio, or copied via a twin cassette player. The only thing that has changed these days is that kids do not know the suffering that was a cheap C90 tape getting all mangled up, thus destroying your precious recording of Luther Vandross singing “Never Too Much”, which ended twenty seconds early to avoid Tony Fenton talking all over the back end of it. But now I have said too much!
On surveys, a 2006 one conducted by the Canadian RIAA actually had broadly similar findings to the Norwegian one above and they are hardly an unbiased agency! At the same time, there has yet to be a truly authorative one in my view because people do not always ask the right questions. For example, you read the reports on the IFPI website and they always blame illegal downloads for collapses in sales of this, that, and the other. Now I am sure that they are right to some degree or other – it makes good intuitive sense. However, perhaps it is also because Spanish or French kids do not like local pop stars as much as they used to. Alternatively, do people in general listen to as much music as they used to? Or has gaming, DVDs, etc. bitten into how people now spend their time? What impact is the ever-increasing use of music streaming having?
Blech. The cIty’s a worse place for the loss. I suppose that’ll turn into another hairdresser/nail salon/frock seller? Not having a lot of money to spend on music meant the money I’ve spent has been on Irish releases, and Road was where I bought those (You couldn’t illegally download them if you wanted to I’m guessing). My last purchase was the Noveaunoise album (playing tonight in Shebeen Chic then Kelly’s in Galway, would like to be catching them but I’ll be elsewhere). Have picked up loads of good Irish stuff over the last year or so, Patrick Kelleher, Holy Roman Army, Hunter Gatherer, Channel One etc etc. Crappity crap. I hope to Road crowd keep involved in music somehow, Dublin would miss them if they don’t.
This is a real shame.. They deserve the plaudits they get for having friendly, knowledgeable staff and for supporting Irish indie acts. I’d made an extra effort to shop there in the 18 months or so since their difficulties were announced but I suppose this just confirms that the business model which worked for small music shops for the past 5 decades or so is now a dead duck, or at best an extreme niche where a city like Dublin can only sustain 1 or 2 outlets of this type at most (and maybe only as a subsection among the books and DVDs like with Tower). Hopetully the owners and staff can move on to something equally fulfilling that won’t have them worrying every night about balance sheets and how to keep putting food on the table.
The loss of Road Records truly is a loss for the music scene in Ireland. I was so heartened to hear of all the support Road received after initially announcing their closure back in January 2009, and was very sad to hear it didn’t work out after all. Dave and Julie – you are both legends. We wish you the best of luck in whatever your next steps are. No doubt Dave and Julie will pour their special blend of music passion and dedication into their next endeavour. God speed. – your old neighbours.