On The Record »

• Why Record Store Day can’t bring the good times back

  April 27, 2012 @ 9:40 am | by Jim Carroll

  It’s Record Store Day tomorrow. And the day after that and all next week and all next month too. I know, you thought it happened last week, but that’s the problem. Record shops are not just for Record Store Day (or Christmas).

  As the annual hoopla about celebrating independent record stores fades for another year, many at the coalface will wonder, as they look at empty stores and bare cash-tills, if they will still be around for Record Store Day 2013. Having a nominal day which focuses on independent music retailing doesn’t change the bigger picture and an annual Record Store Day cannot and will not bring the good times back.

  The game has changed and your average music consumer, the lad formerly known as 50 Quid Man (€61.41 at current exchange rates), is not coming back. Special in-store performances and limited vinyl releases (as if you have to be a format snob to frequent record stores) are not going to save the sector.

  For those of us who grew up in those stores, spent all our money in them and can remember exactly where we purchased which album, it’s a sad state of affairs. You don’t like seeing your old haunts disappearing.

  Yet for those who still love have an habit for new music, the arrival of the internet means having a record store on tap 24/7. It’s at this point that some will mention the social aspects of stores and it’s at this point that we point them towards Twitter and gigs.

  Music has always been about community, but that community has simply moved elsewhere. While some will still frequent bricks-and-mortar stores, that diminishing number is probably not enough to keep the doors open in the long-run. Start planning now for iTunes Day 2020 and Beatport Day 2025.

  

• The Amazon shop? It’s up the street beside Boots

  February 8, 2012 @ 9:31 am | by Jim Carroll

  The Amazon shop may be coming to a street near you. The speculation about the opening of a Seattle store comes on the day when Amazon became the UK’s leading entertainment retailer, knocking the beleagured HMV into second place. Add in the huge success of the company’s Kindle product in ramping up the ebook market and Amazon’s continuing ability to disrupt traditional industries is something worth noting.

  While the initial plan is to operate “boutique” stores to sell Kindles and accessories, the news is still sure to come as another blow to traditional entertainment product stores currently struggling to survive. Just as Apple have demonstrated with their stores, a bunch of Amazon shops on Main Streets worldwide would give the company the retail space to showcase their wider wares and also hoover up more of the market. Should the initial toe in the water prove successful, it wouldn’t be long before the stores increased in size and stock. While the Kindle is currently Amazon’s only branded product, Jeff Bezos could well be envisaging a day when they carry other electronic lines and thus, the need for retail space to show these off.

  The refound interest in bricks-and-mortar stores is interesting. Amazon’s online operations are what have made them the gigantic force they are because they can use economies of scale to push volume and revenue. Yet for all that, the company feel a physical presence could help them push those sales even more. It’s one thing for people to read about these products online, but it’s quite another for them to get to push the buttons and hold the things in their paws before they produce their wallets. Remember that sales of Apple gear really only took off thanks to word of mouth recommendations from people who weren’t part of the Apple cult (DOI: I am a long-standing member of that cult) and the opening of Apple stores on busy shopping streets.

  For the shops who are still in the business of flogging entertainment products, it’s another warning about how the bigger players will continue to invade their patch. It’s one thing to have to compete with the Amazons and Apples when they’re online, but it’s quite another thing when they open a shop on the next street over (and there’s plenty of vacant commercial space around to make that move viable). Again, survival is down to niches and specialisations. As the collapse of the HMV model has shown, you can’t be all things to all men anymore in a High Street setting. You can try – and boy, have HMV tried – but you will probably end up as confused and bemused as your potential customers. While there will always be a market for specialist shops, the competition is likely to be even greater all round in terms of prices and stock in the future. Time to get smart, really smart, about the business you’re in.

• When times get tough, the tough get innovating

  February 3, 2012 @ 9:44 am | by Jim Carroll

  Innovation comes in many different forms. When you’re a record label operating at a time when sales and revenue are on the slide, you have a couple of options. You can do what the big boys are doing: sit on your hoop, hire legal eagles to commence court actions and give out yards about your situation. Or you can actually do something which recognises that the world and your business model have changed.

  Los Angeles-based Stones Throw are not the first or last label to come up with the idea of a subscription model, but their offering is one we can expect many others to imitate.

  For $10 a month, you’ll get every new release from the hip-hop label which has released records in the past by Aloe Blacc, Mayer Hawthorne, J Dilla, Madlib, The Stepkids and many more. Upcoming releases which will soon be hitting subscribers’ in-box include an EP from Homeboy Sandman and an album from Quakers, the hip-hop project from Portishead’s Geoff Barrow.

  

  It’s a great deal on many different levels. The price is a snip for those label obsessives who know Stones Throw will always produce the goods, while the casual fan is also likely to be enticed at that price point. The label are probably making better dough from the deal than they’re getting from eMusic or the streaming sites. The acts will attract new fans. Everyone’s a winner.

  All of which begs the question why more labels don’t move in this direction. Some have, in fairness, worked up similar plans – for instance, there’s the Friends of Richter Collective scheme from the Irish label – but not as many as you’d expect. While the majors seem to be caught in a permanent state of inertia, perhaps we’ll see more indies heading for the innovative side of the street.

• The OTR Xmas shopping special

  December 14, 2011 @ 9:27 am | by Jim Carroll

  
  The queue for the Youth Lagoon album was getting out of hand

  It’s that time of year. Of course, it has been “that time of year” for a few weeks now – a few months if you’re one of the poor saps who has to work in one of those shops where the Christmas decorations went up in September – but we only realised it was “that time of year” and that we’d yet to put up this post yesterday.

  Anyway…. over the next 10 days or so, most of you will be out on those mean streets looking for presents for folks and keeping eyes peeled for bargains and deals. This post is where you, the clued-in shopper, can tip off your fellow readers about where to go to get the best prices on box-sets, DVDs, books and other entertainment yokes and pieces of kit which will pop up on various lists.

  We’re particularly keen to hear about good deals and finds in local independent shops because this is the Christmas when those shops do need our support as campaigns like Irish Indie Xmas demonstrate. While you’ll probably find most items cheaper online, if you do come across an Irish store who deserve a mention, please let everyone else know. OTR’s Xmas 2011 find: the shop in the Science Gallery in Dublin, a tiny treasure trove of really excellent stocking fillers. And the flipside also applies – feel free to point out any glaring price discrepancies which you might come across as well.

  The bargains, the deals and the ones to avoid: the floor is yours.

• The new goldrush: box sets & deluxe editions

  October 7, 2011 @ 10:00 am | by Jim Carroll

  They are the last refuge of the record label scoundrels, When all else fails, when you can’t sell enough albums or downloads by new acts to pay the bills, stick out a luxury deluxe edition or box set and listen to those cash registers go “kerching”. Given the number of music fans keen to snap up these lavish productions, it’s no surprise that there’s ample supply to meet demand.

  For the fans, the attraction is that they get a closer look at a release by their favourite act. Look at the spectacular job U2 have done for the forthcoming 20th anniversary reissue of “Achtung Baby”.

  Five different physical formats will go on release, which will contain (depending on how much you pay) videos, remixes, B-sides and documentary footage. It’s all you need to recreate the band’s Hansa Studio experience. Indeed for $420.49, Amazon.com will currently sell you the “uber deluxe” edition, which contains all of the above plus a pair of Bono’s sunglasses.

  We’ve seen similar instances of deluxe-mania of late (albeit without the sunglasses) for Nirvana’s “Nevermind”, Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” and The Smiths’ “Complete Super Deluxe Set”.

  For the record labels, it’s a no-brainer. The material is already recorded and they own the rights to it, so employ a decent archivist, throw in everything a dedicated fan would want and get the package onto release schedules before Christmas.

  It’s also easier to market because there’s an established audience for the act in question. Why bother investing time and money in finding and developing new talent when you can milk the cash-cow one more time? Music sales may be down in general, but the labels have discovered that a heritage band’s diehard fanbase are the exception to that rule.

• Record stores return to the capital

  September 30, 2011 @ 9:48 am | by Jim Carroll

  Is this a record shop revival in the capital I see before me? Last week, E2 Music announced plans to open a pop-up shop on Dublin’s College Green in the space formerly occupied by Habitat.

  This week, it’s the arrival of Elastic Witch which is making the music retail headlines. The store will be based in the Twisted Pepper on Middle Abbey Street, a space which is now home to a club, live music venue, the 3FE coffee shop, the Loft book store and the Boxcutter barbershop.

  Elastic Witch will be run by Gib Cassidy, Logikparty drummer and formerly of Road Records. Aside from selling CDs and vinyl from Irish and international independent acts, Cassidy hopes Elastic Witch will be a “social space”.

  It’s not just E2 and Elastic Witch who are throwing caution to the wind and ignoring the widespread belief that record stores are a dying breed. HMV announced plans this week for 20 pop-up stores in the UK in the run-up to Christmas.

  There’s no doubt that there is still a market for music on vinyl and CD, once the retailers involved accept that it’s now a niche rather than a mass market. There’s going to be no repeat of those recently unearthed photos from the 1960s of masses of people flocking to HMV stores.

  But if numbers are down, there’s still enough dedicated music fans with cash to sustain a shop which knows and responds to this audience.

  Changes in the retail environment also help – neither E2 or Elastic Witch will be paying Celtic Tiger rents – but the ability to identify a customer base and get them into the shop matters more. After all if Cork can support a shop like Plugd, surely there’s also enough music fans in the capital to keep the newbies in business?

• Off the record: are record stores on the last track?

  April 11, 2011 @ 11:35 am | by Jim Carroll

  Ahead of next weekend’s Record Store Day, you’ll find a piece I wrote for the paper at the weekend about the current health of the music retail sector here. It’s probably the most pessimistic I’ve ever been about the record store sector because I really don’t see any future for the record shop as we’ve known it. There are no white knights in shining armour who are going to come to the rescue. There’s no magic solution. There’s no way back.

  While there will be plenty of obituaries to come for the sector, we should remember one thing: even as record stores downsize or disappear from the retail landscape, there has never been so much music on release.

  As I say in the piece, “It was often felt that a vibrant record-shop culture was essential for the health of a local music ecosystem…this does not appear to be the case. It’s true that some independent record shops played an important part in promoting and highlighting new acts and releases. But most shops were not so proactive when it came to supporting new acts and preferred to concentrate on mainstream acts and releases. Even trying to persuade these stores to stock an independent Irish release was a Herculean task.

  “Last year, as important Irish shops such as Road were pulling down the shutters for the last time, more than 200 new Irish albums went on release. Some of the albums were only available as downloads or streams, but many releases were on CD and vinyl and could be purchased from the bands’ websites and at live shows. It turns out bands at every level can survive without the shops, as fans find out about the bands and acquire their releases elsewhere.”

  There is still, of course, some life in the old dog yet. We still have some great record stores out there – the piece lists what I consider to be 10 of the best Independent record stores around the world right now (not the 10 best, music nerds, but 10 of the best) – and, as I write in the feature, some will survive. We’ll see more innovations like the Independent Label Market (Domino, Tri-Angle, Rough Trade, Heavenly, Moshi Moshi, Bella Union and other labels selling their releases direct to the public at a market in central London in May) in the months and years to come, as well as stuff like Jack White’s big yellow truck and Gilles Peterson’s pop-up record shop. We may even see more new shops like Beats Working in Limerick and Head in Belfast. But they’re going to be the exception rather than the rule – and let’s not even go near HMV and its woes. The game as we have known it for a couple of decades is over. Time to move on.

• Another one bites the dust: Comet Records goes out of business

  March 28, 2011 @ 8:23 am | by Jim Carroll

  Comet Records has become the latest Irish record store to close its doors. Comet was a presence on Irish streets for 27 years with stores in Dublin (the most recent outlet was on Cope Street) and Cork.

  Yes, I know this feels like deja-vu because we have written this story a number of times in the past while. Irish record stores have had a tough time in the last few years with familiar names like Road Records, City Discs, BPM, Zhivago, Redlight and others going out of business. We’re now at a situation where there are a mere handful of retail outlets where you can purchase music in a physical format. Those shops have had to diversify into flogging other merchandise – or use the retail space for other purposes, such as the cafe in Dublin’s Tower Records – to keep the wolf from the door.

  But Irish shops aren’t alone in this regard – record shops worldwide are taking a sizable hit as music fans change their buying habits. Shops which were once part and parcel of the music business furniture in cities worldwide are now just a footnote. Yes, there are still shops open for business – Picadilly in Manchester, Waterloo in Austin and Other Music in New York City, to name three I’ve been in recently – but even they will admit that the business is not what it used to be. Yes, there have been some innovations (including pop-up shops and Jack White’s mobile record store), but the genie is out of the bottle and we’re not going to see a return to the good old days.

  Speaking to this paper on foot of the shop’s closure, Comet founder Brian O’Kelly pinned the blame on “a whole generation who have never paid anything for music and I don’t know if they will ever be prepared to pay anything for music.”

  Comet is unlikely to be the last victim of this change, but the question now is what does this mean for the greater music community. No doubt it will survive without the shops which were once an essential part of the ecosystem, but what, if anything, will replace those shops?

• A new chapter for record stores?

  March 11, 2011 @ 10:00 am | by Jim Carroll

  Another week, another story about record stores closing down. This week, BPM Records announced that they are to shut their stores in Wexford and Waterford.

  No prizes for guessing why these outlets are going out of business: competition from internet outlets and especially multinational supermarkets is killing off the music business as we’ve known it for the last few decades. The way things are going, there will be only a handful of stores open by the time Record Store Day rolls around in April.

  But while there may be a limited future for the traditional record store, this doesn’t mean some folks aren’t fighting back. Last September, New York hip-hop mecca Fat Beats shut its bricks and mortar store and concentrated on flogging tracks online. Once every few months, though, Fat Beats returns to the world of physical retailing via a pop-up shop at its Brooklyn warehouse.

  It’s not the only music retailer in the pop-up business. Since yesterday, The Vinyl Factory has taken lodgings in London’s St Martin’s Lane Hotel where it will be selling records for the next three months. Those who drop by to the pop-up shop can buy limited edition vinyl releases by Massive Attack, Pet Shop Boys, Bryan Ferry, Duran Duran, David Lynch, Grace Jones, Hot Chip and others. And then, there’s the Third Man Rolling Record Store, Jack White’s big yellow truck which will double as a mobile record shop and debuts at SXSW in Austin, Texas next week.

  Such retail innovations really are the only way to go. Sadly, there’s just not enough demand to warrant keeping a store which simply flogs music open, unless you have a generous, deep-pocked patron paying your bills.

  There is still a demand for music but, as with so many sectors who’ve seen their business models upended by the internet, the shops can no longer rely on customers coming to them. If you want to stay in the game, you have to change how you play the game.

• Cashing in when rock stars cash out

  February 15, 2011 @ 9:29 am | by Jim Carroll

  John Caddell presents Key Cuts on Phantom 105.2 every weekday night. On Tuesdays before I do The Far Side, the two of us shoot the breeze about the musical news and views of the day. This usually involves semi-coherent rants, anti-Morrissey jibes, references to Marillion, smart alec comments about what I’ll be playing on the Far Side and anything else which catches our eye.

  Last week, John was talking about the late, great Gary Moore and this brought us onto the issue of dead rock stars. John was fairly aghast to hear me point out that we can probably expect to see a rash of repackaged Gary Moore Greatest Hits albums as those who own the rights to his back-catalogue cash in on his death. The record shops would soon be full of these albums, I predicted, as the rights-owner sought to make a fast buck. John remembered walking into a record shop after Stevie Ray Vaughan’s death and having a row with the spotty herbert behind the counter about the prominent display of Vaughan’s back-catalogue. The clerk shrugged his shoulders. That’s business.

  A few nights later, John emailed me a photo. Seems he may have to go to the HMV store in London’s Piccadilly Circus to have a few words with some lad behind the counter. The shop must have run out of Gary Moore albums.

  
  Photo by Ian Wade
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• It’s all in the game: Zhivago, We7 and On Air, On Sale

  January 18, 2011 @ 10:07 am | by Jim Carroll

  Three music business stories in the ether this morning which may not look connected at first galnce, but are actually all part of the same conundrum. Zhivago Records in Galway has gone into liquidation with the loss of 15 jobs, the We7 online streaming service with six-and-a-half-million tracks is now available in Ireland and Sony and Universal are making a big fuss about On Air, On Sale, which will see future new releases on sale in download outlets on the same day as they’re available for radio to play (it’s in the lap of the gods if this great brainwave will mean radio will actually play the tunes or if anyone will want to buy them).

  The closure of any record store is bad news because it means one less outlet for recorded music and a rake of job losses. But we’re becoming used to hearing stories like the Zhivago one because the market for recorded music is shrinking at a rapid rate. As we wrote last week, bricks and mortar shops who want to remain in the books and music selling business need to innovate. Sadly, it looks as if Zhivago didn’t or couldn’t do that – I was in their store before Christmas and couldn’t believe the amount of tourist tat in the racks at a time of year when there were very few tourists in the town – and it has been forced to close.

  There’s a line in the news report where the owners say the popularity of online music sales impacted on their business, which is a bit like saying that the arrival of the motor car had an impact on the sale of horse-drawn carriages. If you can’t deal with innovation in your line of business, you’re going to get found out. There is no going back to a time when the only way you could get your hands on music was via your local record store. Those days are over. But we’ll still have to probably write this story every time another Irish record shop goes out of business in the coming year and years.

  Yes, it’s a given that many or most former Zhivago customers have moved online for their musical kicks. They might be buying their music from the iTunes store, they might be checking out the Eircom Music Hub, they may have cracked the Spotify code or they may well be just going to YouTube (I’d love to see some figures or a survey about the amount of Irish people who are using YouTube for their musical requirements). From this week, We7 will be hoping that a lot of Irish people use their online service. Like Spotify and Eircom Music Hub, you have a couple of million tunes you can listen away to all day long. If you put with the ads, the service is free or, if you don’t want to be a targeted consumer, you can pay €4.99 a month for We7 on your computer or €9.99 for it on your phone and computer.

  Services like We7, Spotify, Eircom Music Hub and YouTube are really what are putting record shops out of business. The Average Music Fan – ie the ones who don’t read OTR, don’t go to see new buzz bands in the Workman’s Club or Roisin Dubh or Pavilion and don’t rely on record shops to find their way around foreign cities – are happy to stream their music. They’ve decided that they don’t need CDs or vinyl records any more and now, they’re beginning to realise that they might not even need MP3s any more (that may well be the case once Apple launches some new snazzy cloud-based yoke) and that streaming will do just dandy for them.

  Which is where the record labels come in. Streaming services need to do deals with the labels, but the business affairs’ boyos in the labels know that the money from the streaming lads is never going to be enough to offset the loss of revenue from falling physical sales. It’s not even going to be enough to make up for the Average Music Fan not making those 99-cents-a-download purchase at the iTunes store any more because s/he can stream Lady Gaga, The Script and Coldplay. But right now, this looks like where the business is going. It’s certainly where technology companies are going and, if the business has reluctantly had to learn anything since the mid-1990s, it’s that technology companies now call the tune. They may not pay the piper as much as the piper thinks he should be paid but, well, the piper has to get used to it and probably ask someone else for more money.

  Such logic makes the On Air, On Sale move smack of Spiralfrog and flexidiscs to me. Sure, it may well help dampen down some pockets of piracy, but the Average Music Fan will more than likely hear a tune on the radio (provided, of course, that radio will play those new tunes), Shazam it and check it out on YouTube. If the Average Music Fan wants to hear the tune again, he’ll go back to YouTube. Maybe s/he will buy it, maybe s/he will wait for the album or the gig. But I really can’t see how having a tune on sale the day it goes to radio is going to be a gamechanger. As with so many record business initiatives, it’s too little, too late. This should have been done YEARS ago. But instead, we’re seeing someone putting a latch on the stabledoor after the horse has ran off to Mullingar. The need for an industry-wide reset is long overdue.

• What shops have to do when their products go digital

  January 10, 2011 @ 9:02 am | by Jim Carroll

  Some of you may already have read my piece from Saturday’s Irish Times about how stores selling books and music will have to find new ways to attract customers through the doors if they are going to survive in an increasingly competitive environment.

  The feature was written on the back of last week’s news from the HMV Group which will see it shut down 60 HMV and Waterstone’s shops in 2011 (there was some unconfirmed online chatter about redundancies in HMV’s Dublin stores over the weekend, but the tweet from the band Sweet Jane which kicked off this speculation has since been deleted without explanation, though the retweets remain). It includes contributions on future retail models from Irish Publishing News’ editor Eoin Purcell and Mindshare consumer researcher Finian Murphy.

  This is a topic which has been discussed here many times in the past and few readers will disagree that innovation involving a better customer experience is probably the only way for music and books’ retailers to go to futureproof their business. However, as Eoin points out, “it will be tough to be innovative in a retailing environment where customers are not being flaithiulach with the cash”.

  It’s also worth differentiating (again) between the fanatical music fans (ie probably those who read OTR on a regular basis) and the more casual music fans (the five albums a year brigade, for instance) when it comes to discussing the future – Eoin made reference to “the heavy reader”, the book world’s equivalent of what Finian called “the music junkie”. Unfortunately, there’s just not enough of the big-hitting music and books’ fans flashing the cash to ensure that life can go on as normal for the retail sector or, indeed, that we can go back to how things once were. You’ll also find that any exceptions to this state of affairs – Rough Trade London reported a rise in sales over Christmas, for instance – are the ones who already have embarked on a process of in-store change and innovation.

  As both Eoin and Finian alluded to in the piece, selling books and music must also incorporate some sort of social aspect, something which Willie White from Dublin’s Project Arts Centre picked up on in his tweet about the piece: “books & music are social artefacts. Future is in social not artefact”.

  Piece after the jump and, as always, your comments are welcome.
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• The OTR Christmas shopping special

  December 9, 2010 @ 9:35 am | by Jim Carroll

  Yes, there was a budget the other day and yes, the economic catastrophe is still rocking away, but it’s December and that means Christmas, presents and shopping.

  
  Wonder could I get away with cancelling Christmas due to unforeseen circumstances?

  Over the next fortnight (it’s that close), most OTR readers will be out on those mean streets looking for bargains and deals. This post is the place where you, the clued-in shopper, can tip off your fellow readers about where to go to get the best prices on box-sets, DVDs, books and other entertainment yokes and pieces of kit which will pop up on various lists.

  We’re particularly keen to hear about good deals in local shops. While you’ll probably find most items cheaper online, if you do come across an Irish store flogging the new Bruce Springsteen or Orange Juice box-set at a decent price, let everyone else know. And the flipside also applies – feel free to point out any glaring price discrepancies which you might come across as well.

  The bargains, the deals and the ones to avoid: the floor is yours.

• It’s a black friday when a Take That album costs a quid

  November 26, 2010 @ 10:44 am | by Jim Carroll

  While every day has been black these last few weeks in this country, today is Black Friday across the Atlantic Ocean.

  The day after Thanksgiving is when Americans hit the shops and malls to avail of special offers, price reductions and other retail teases.

  US record shops will also be making the most of the rush. As was the case back in April with Record Store Day, indie store shoppers will find rarities from U2, Metallica, The Black Keys and many more in the racks today.

  But it’s also an opportunity for the bigger online music players to offer deep cuts. Amazon.co.uk has imported the Black Friday wheeze this year and, as part of a campaign ahead of the busy Christmas period, are flogging the current Take That and Susan Boyle CDs at a quid a go.

  Of course, such big-ticket loss leaders persuade those who come to snap up the deals to shop for other bargains, such as new-release MP3 albums at very low prices.

  Some in the record industry have reacted with horror to the move, claiming that such low prices devalue music.

  The problem for the industry, though, is that much of the damage when it comes to devaluing music has been self-inflicted. For instance, a lot of the problems at retail level have been caused by labels happy to make short-term profits through deals with supermarket chains, leading to cheaper prices in Tesco than in the indie shops.

  Then there’s the fact that many labels are keener to market blue-chip heritage acts (look at the recent ridiculous palaver over The Beatles being sold on iTunes for the first time) than find and develop new talent.

  Of course, catalogue pimping is easier and cheaper than breaking new talent, but it shows a skewered set of perspectives. Yes, we all agree that music has a value, but that’s not just confined to The Beatles.

• This just in: the Russians are going to save your local record shop

  November 12, 2010 @ 10:02 am | by Jim Carroll

  It’s just what you need to see in the morning before you butter your toast: a Russian oligarch taking a slice of your business.

  HMV’s shareholders discovered this week that Alexander Mamut, the 655th richest dude in the world according to Forbes, had spent five million pounds taking a three per cent stake in the entertainment retail group.

  Once known as “the Yeltsin family banker”, Mamut’s varied business interests include blogging site Livejournal.com, Russia’s Evroset mobile phone retail chain, the country’s Spar franchise, a publishing house, an arthouse cinema, bookshops, silver production, restaurants and assorted media bits and pieces.

  A keen football fan, he was said to be interested in buying Blackburn Rovers a few years ago but, unluckily for Big Sam Allardyce, didn’t follow his close mucker Roman Abramovich down that road in the end.

  While Mamut’s move into HMV stock is said to have caught the company on the hop, it does highlight that the entrepreneur sees untapped value in the company. He’s certainly not buying those shares because he fancies getting a discount on box-sets for the Christmas.

  In recent times, as revenue from what was once its core business of selling recorded music has fallen, HMV has diversified by moving into live music through its takeover of the MAMA group of venues.

  However, given that Mamut has experience in the retail and technology sectors, analysts believe it more likely that his focus will be on these areas.

  It also goes to show that a record shop’s best friends may not, after all, be a bunch of fortysomething male record-buyers looking for rare vinyl releases, but rather a rich Russian with five million quid to spare.

• Farewell to Road Records – and hello to Rough Trade?

  September 9, 2010 @ 9:37 am | by Jim Carroll

  It’s the final hurrah for one of Dublin best loved record stores tomorrow night with the Road Records Farewell Party at the Button Factory starring The Redneck Manifesto, Female Hercules, Legion Of Two, Patrick Kelleher and his Cold Dead Hands, Cian Nugent and Road Records’ DJs. It’s on at the Button Factory, doors open at 8pm and admission is €16.

  Meanwhile, in other retail news, the folks at London’s Rough Trade store are conducting an online poll about where they should locate their next store. The out-and-out leading city at the time of writing? Surprise, surprise, it’s Dublin.

• Plugd gets back into the record selling business

  August 13, 2010 @ 8:30 am | by Jim Carroll

  Cork’s Plugd Records is set to re-open later this month.

  The record shop’s new home is at the Triskel Arts Centre’s temporary location in the ESB Substation on Caroline Street. Plugd will then move with the Triskel back to the latter’s renovated and expanded space in Christchurch in 2011.

  Plug’s Jim Horgan says the hook-up between the two has been a possibility for a few years.

  “I had a few tentative conversations with the general manager, Ben Cuddihy, and it seemed we both wanted something to happen. We had been co-promoting occasionally and the Triskel hosted a few Plugd gigs.

  “Last year, the Triskel relocated for renovations and Plugd closed. During this time, we talked more, until the Triskel director Tony Sheehan brought it together and made it happen.”

  Horgan explains that it was increasing rent and rates, not a dip in sales which caused the shop’s demise.

  “The main reason we closed was less to do with a decrease in sales and more because of continuing high overheads and rent in a limited space. The new rent for twice the size works out at about a quarter of what we were paying previously.”

  It will be business as usual for Plugd at the Triskel from August 28. “It will be same range of music as always”, says Horgan. “We will take advantage of the extra floor space by introducing elements of visual art, design, film, magazines and books into the shop”.

  And Horgan believes the link with the Triskel will be positive for both parties.

  “If you ask anybody in Cork about the Triskel, they will give varying opinions on what they would do differently, yet everybody has been to something there they were into.

  “There is a sense that the Triskel has a lot of potential that hasn’t always been realized. By hosting ourselves, the Black Mariah and Corcadorca, I think the Triskel is well on its way to reaching its potential.”

• The changing face of Main Street Ireland

  July 19, 2010 @ 4:11 pm | by Jim Carroll

  Last week’s news that Dublin’s Road Records would be closing for good caused a predictable wave of sadness and regret. Another record store bites the dust. Another essential component of the Dublin music community disappears. Another small independently-owned and operated store goes out of business.

  That last point is one which doesn’t just apply to record stores. As Niamh noted, “it really feels like a part of Dublin has died along with the closure of Road”. The same feeling applies to streets up and down the land. Small shop owners are putting up the shutters and throwing away the keys. Social and economic changes mean they just can’t compete with the bigger stores. The streetscape is changing and we don’t seem to be able to do anything about it.

  And it’s not just happening in cities. Driving around the west and northwest at the weekend, I lost count of the number of villages where the only shop now is the local petrol station. Main streets which once had a few thriving wee shops are now empty, with all commercial business kept to the outskirts of the town. It’s probably not as pronounced in the cities because the trade continues despite the change of owner – foreign brands or chains simply move into spaces which were once occupied by indie businesses – but the overall trend remains the same as the small, local store gives way to the bigger operator where economies of scale and profit margins are all that matters. Staying in business is hard work – see Alexia’s post about her mother’s bookshop, for instance – but some continue to persevere in the face of diversity because of customer loyalty.

  “Customer loyalty”, though, is easier said than done. When a shop like Road closes, we wring our hands and bemoan the loss. Of course, we’ll say, there are reasons why we didn’t shop there any longer ourselves, but we’re still sad to see ‘em go. We wanted them to remain because they provided an intangiable feel-good factor. But the feel-good factor about having an independent bookstore or cafe or grocery on your Main Street will never be enough to keep those businesses open. If we’re really serious about local, independent shops, the ones which are different from the pack, we need to spend money in them. And at a time when value-for-money is the new national mantra, that may not be as easy to do as we might hope.

• Road Records to close

  July 14, 2010 @ 5:19 pm | by 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.”

• New sales figures reveal an industry in perilous shape

  May 21, 2010 @ 10:25 am | by Jim Carroll

  We knew things were bad in the record business, but this bad? Last weekend, the National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM) had their annual shindig in Chicago. Music retailers of every stripe schmoozed, supped and sang their hearts out to Cyndi Lauper, Taylor Swift and Melissa Etheridge.

  But it wasn’t all fun and games. Over the weekend, Nielsen Soundscan, the company who collate US sales figures, gave what amounted to a state of the nation address to the gathering.

  Per Soundscan’s numbers, 98,000 albums were released in 2009, with only 2 per cent selling over 5,000 copies. Yep, that’s right, most albums racked up less than 5,000 sales. There was also a sidebar that three-quarters of sales are still physical, but let’s concentrate on the marquee statistic.

  While there is much headline focus on mainstream frontloaded acts like Lady Gaga, Susan Boyle and Justin Bieber, the bulk of album acts just aren’t getting off the block. It was always a given that the majority of acts signed to major labels never went into the black, but most of them could at least shift 5,000 copies even on their very worst day.

  Of course, there are caveats to all of this. There are, for instance, sales which are not counted by Soundscan (ie albums sold at a band’s gigs) and there are also many bands who can quite happily survive and thrive on 5k sales.

  But such a low number means it’s high time for the record (and live) business to realise that there are problems aside from the net slippage in sales. After all, if acts can’t get over the 5,000 sales mark, where are the breakthrough acts and venue-fillers of tomorrow going to come from?

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