NBrid

Indy Record Stores vs. National Chains

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Written by: klamkilla

Yesterday I went to Spinikers (a local, small, indy music store on the
Cape), and I bought a Less Than Jake CD (Hello Rockview, it's great,
I highly recommend it) and a Get Up Kids sweatshirt. I went up to the
kid at the register, and he rang my stuff up. The total came to $29.45.
$29.45 for a sweatshirt and a CD. "Wow!", I thought to myself,
"This is pretty cheap." So I went back and picked up a new 22
CD (no not Catch-22, it's a Canadian band).

For Christmas I got a $20 gift certificate to Record Town, a BIG NATIONAL
MUSIC CHAIN. I thought, "Oh well, I can get like a CD and a poster."
So I went into the store to look for a Dropkick Murphys CD, and I went
to pay for it. I brought it up to the line, waited for like 20 minutes
total, and gave it to the guy at the register (by the way there were 6
registers, and only 1 was open) and the guy was like, "$16.99 please."

OK OK OK, what's the deal here? A small indy record store that has maybe
1/10th of the CDs that a national multi-million dollar corporation, can
afford to charge 1/2 the price for a CD???

Anyone who has bought a CD from Record Town, Wal-Mart, Tower Records,
or any of the other major record stores knows what I am talking about.

Some people (like Hybrid I believe) have no indy stores near them, so
they are forced to buy stuff from big companies. In turn the companies
can charge whatever they want because if you want the music, you have
to pay for it. I guarantee that if Hybrid had a store like Spinikers in
his area, his "big list o' bands" wouldn't be so big.

Also these record stores are the same ones complaining about Napster
and other music sharing programs that cut into their profits.

So what do you do? You could boycott big companies, but then you wouldn't
get some of the music you want. My advice is order online. Go to a record
label's website like Epitaph, Vagrant, and Doghouse. You can get CDs for
like $10, and they ship relatively quick. If you don't have access to
a credit card, send a money order.

Well that is about it for this week. So till next time, "Keep your paws
off of me you damn dirty ape!!! "

[Hybrid's Note: Klam is right, I don't have an indy
store near me, and I usually buy CDs from Strawberries or Record Town.
Also the only band posters I can find are bands that suck or are played
on MTV. My band list is about 20 bands now, and there are more out there
that I just don't know their names.]

[Editor's Note: I guess I never knew how lucky I was.
Here in Milwaukee we have some really cool indy record stores. Atomic
Records can't be beat. Have Smashing Pumpkin's pisces iscariot? In the
picture under the CD, you can see Billy Corgan wearing their T-Shirt.
And if you're ever in St. Louis, Vinyl Records is another great place
to check out. Not only do the clerks actually know what is worth listening
to, but the overall atmosphere is just much "cooler".]

~Keep the Faith~