[kj] More bitching

[Karen Weil]

Hi. I would say I now learn about 40-50 percent about music from you good people. The rest I acquire via more traditional media (books, mags, the occasional newspaper feature, documentaries and good radio).
Oh, and that World Wide Web, too.
Given that most record shops seem to employ youngsters with very little true musical knowledge, I gave up on that venue years ago. 

Cheers,

K.W.
the States 


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: sade1 
  To: A list about all things Killing Joke (the band!) 
  Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2010 7:18 PM
  Subject: Re: [kj] More bitching


  Like both local television stations and newspapers, record stores need to rethink themselves and once again appeal to[today's] people's local and immediate needs and tastes. 
  How about a shop that sells anything out there but specializes in the local music/video/arts scene or some underserved niche, maybe even helping to promote local gigs, clubs, festivals, etc.  If they can become locally relevant, knowledgable (become 'authority figures' or 'experts') and trustable to know, provide, and be able to 'hook up' people's gig, tkt, pre-order, band-updates, release dates and similar needs, they'd become an unsubstitutable local focal point and prized local resource. If they can get industry-'insider' access, and even priviledges, they'd have a place in people's lives again. 
  It's sort of what dj music stores provide now, and why some are valued (and some more than others). Radio stations (Pirate radio, Indie 100.3 in Los Angeles, for example) are trying this to some extent.  

  That all said, I am not saying record stores/mgm't. did it all wrong or got lazy; they didn't.  I loved them stores and miss them lots. The only thing they got wrong was how fast changes would come and how to stay abreast of it all (that said, i'm sure the Much More Powerful Forces still would've crippled the local music shops, methinks). I think they still have a niche to fill, and I think with the right mind and gameplan, they will come back. 

  How to make it all profitable, fuck if I know, but I hope someone figures it out. 

  Question to Gatherers:
  how much of your music-knowledge/product needs that you used to satisfy at your local record shop do you now turn here to the Gathering (and Gatherers' associated websites) for?



------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  From: Alexander Smith <vassifer at earthlink.net>
  To: A list about all things Killing Joke (the band!) <gathering at misera.net>
  Sent: Wed, September 29, 2010 4:23:23 AM
  Subject: [kj] More bitching


  I think the sticking point that really burns my toast this time around is that time was when US release dates and UK release dates didn't matter. Invariably the Brit edition would come out first, and I could stroll down to any one of several independent mom' n pop record/disc shops here in the great C of NY to buy the imported version only days after its UK release.

  Nowadays, with very little exception, ALL THOSE INDEPENDENT DISC SHOPS ARE GONE. Sure, there is a tiny clutch of them left, but they're struggling.

  Both the culture and the very way we "consume" music has changed so much that the old methods of obtaining albums is completely outdated. Hell, albums THEMSELVES are completely outdated in many people's perceptions.

  LAZY, SPOILED YOUNG PEOPLE & TECHNOLOGY RUIN EVERYTHING.

  Alex in NYC


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