What's going on with the Music & Video Exchange shops?
The Soho one never has the bargain basement thing open (the best thing about it), and I heard today that the Camden one has shut. Are they struggling, like?
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saw that the camden one was shut about a week ago
looks pretty permanent,
where is the one in soho??
and how's the notting hill one doing?
Soho one is on Berwick street, on the markety bit
This is pretty shitty news all round, I'd imagined these lovely dingy old places would be some of the last to go.
The Notting Hill ones are certainly open as usual, cos I was there today.
Bagged a stack of bargains. I'll really REALLY miss these places if they're on the slide...
I went in those ones for the first time ever a few weeks ago (have been in the Soho one loads even though I didn't live in London before)
The indie/rock/pop one was a bit nothing-y, but the way the other one combines a soul/funk/hip-hop/dance downstairs shop with that INCREDIBLE classical upstairs shop makes it possibly the best (still open) music shop I know.
But yeah, I noticed the basement in the Soho one was closed when I was in there t'other day. Still, I managed to get Kinny's Can't Kill A Dame With Soul for £3 so can't complain.
The Camden one shut?!
:(
Rubbish news
But I've been wondering how they stayed open for ages. There always seemed to be about 5 people working there, 5 of whom weren't doing anything most of the time.
Is there any record shops at all in Camden now?
The very excellent Sounds That Swing on the Parkway
Is Out On The Floor still there?
It is, yeah
all ages records
from what I understand*
none of the shops actually make much money apart from the clothing exchange ones
*which is very little; the information I have is badly remembered and 4th hand, so you can probably disregard this entirely
I used to shop there a lot when I lived in London
and then visited whenever I came back (but by some massive coincidence they always seemed to be shut on the days I was able to visit) - and the bargain basements have been shut for years (they need enough staff to do up and downstairs).
My 'favourite' experience was hearing Tim Hecker's Harmony In Ultraviolet in the Soho one for the first time, asking what it was, and picking it up. They told me I wouldn't like his earlier stuff because it was too noisy. I was impressed that they could tell that just by looking at me.
Needless to say I like his earlier, noisy stuff.
A year ago, the Soho & Camden bargain basements were open every time I visited,
but the Soho one has been closed the past half-dozen times I've tried. Greenwich & Notting Hill still have them open.
I got a summer job in the Notting Hill M&VE
....
in the early nineties.
To get the job I had to pass a convoluted "music knowledge" test, which revolved around which musicians play for which bands.
to be honest, that, and my experience above
reaffirm my worry that they're staffed by tosspots who alienate the casual punters they need to stay afloat.
Yes
I was one of those tosspots.
But I got the sack after 5 weeks, as I literally spent my whole time browsing the bins for records for myself.
good show on getting the sack
I didn't mean to imply you were one of those tosspots ;)
Properly shady outfit imho
Worked a couple of "trial days" there, with the aim of getting a job with them. The people on the floor are properly alright, but the managers who work upstairs are complete twats. They only come out of the woodwork when people are trying to sell them their stuff and invariably offer them pennies for what is usually worth over £50 because they claim it's "damaged". This works way more frequently than you'd think because they have a "no haggling" policy.
At the end of my "trial days", I didn't get the job because I "wasn't right for them", despite the fact I'd been folding clothes unsupervised for the whole time, which sort of leads me to think that they were just happy to have the free labour. This is furthermore backed up by the fact they have signs in the window advertising for "unpaid internships" which I don't get at all given it's a second hand records/vintage clothing shop.
I bought a rare copy of a record from MV&E
for about £45. Then tried to sell it back to em a year later in the same condition and they offered me £3 for it.
Would be sorta sad to see em go coz you do find some gems, but then... internet.
The fuckers...
"stole" the Manics flexidisc of UK Channel Boredom for under a fiver from me once. It goes for about £100 on discogs these days (and was worth considerably more then too, but there was no other way of selling your stuff).
Did you consider, y'know, not selling it?
I'd guess people have been buying less physical stuff for a while now. Enterprises like this are going to be partly founded on people's mistaken purchases, but in a world with Spotify and on-demand films / illegal downloads, no one has to buy anything they aren't sure they'll keep.
CDs and DVDs aren't even worth much now.
nowadays most of their vinyl is way overpriced
probably puts off a lot people buying anything
the book section is easily the best one at the minute
really pissed me off when they closed the book section on berwick street
can't find the right one so just have this instead
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vJBBpadaGg
looking it it holistically, i can't say it's particularly a bad thing for music as an ecosystem
a lot of labels and independent stores lose money to shops flogging their wares second hand (I found LOADS of promos of things I'd put out, being sold in there... even for things like Youthmovies)
In theory, buying a record from a secondhand shop, is as bad, if not worse for the music business, than piracy. It's not money going back into the food chain that re-invests in music. Meanwhile, people buying records from shops like that do so without really thinking of anything but the bargains they're getting. There's very little thought as to whether money spent there, is potentially a lost sale / money taken away from a small label or artist or even a record store.
I'm not saying secondhand shops should be outlawed and people shouldn't be able to flog their records if they want to, but just that this isn't as bad news as it sounds. And that Real Music Fans (for want of a better term) should maybe think twice before getting too glum about this.
looking at it*
what about the uncalculable number of records that go out of print?
I can appreciate what you're saying and it must be frustrating for small labels etc, but
talking about REAL MUSIC FANS is utterly stupid
+ a lot of it functions on exchange (i.e. selling old records you don't want)
which potentially* gives money back to REAL MUSIC FANS to spend on new releases
*I realise that since they give such a small amount that it's unlikely to work very effectively but w/e
RMF was not a serious-serious point
They totally make sense for put of print stuff.
I just know a lot of people who go in there to get new albums (especially as in Camden for instance, it's the only actual record shop)
I do as well
there probably is some kinda problem with people how are against illegal downloading (I'm not tho) who then go into secondhand record shops etc
but yeah it still is stupid to say that people shouldn't be getting to glum about secondhand record shops closing because there's more to it than that
It's not really. He just means that if you're the sort of person who doesn't steal music
because you feel like artists deserve that money then you shouldn't buy second hand records for the same reason. Whether there are a lot of people like that, I'm not really sure. I think no one's that 'clean' in terms of not ever getting free or cheap music.
I can't argue with that; it's a good point
BUT it's still not the only reason people go into second hand record shops and that's worth noting
indeed
Are Real Music Fans therefore the ones who buy records with the sales figures and business models of the music industry constantly in mind??
Sounds pretty dull to me. What is I just want to go in a shop packed with old records I maybe can't find anywhere else and flick through them, even buy them? I guess if that money doesn't go to labels or whatever then it doesn't count as real appreciation, huh.
*What if
Music is an ecosystem
I'm not saying Record & Tape Exchanges are pond scum or fat frogs.
Nor that people who download music for free are leeches.
But that in a time where money is scarce, and small labels are shutting their doors, the bigger labels are becoming even more risk/investment adverse and record shops are struggling, that it mightn't be such a bad thing if people thought about where their money goes.
I've met quite a few people who didn't realise the artist doesn't see a dime from the sale in a second-hand shop, yet these same people argue that Spotify doesn't pay artists enough, etc, etc...
There is no such thing as a Fake Music Fan, therefore they can be no such thing as a Real Music Fan. I was just saying, that there are people who think they're supporting music by spending their money, when all they're really doing is propping up a parallel business. Of course, people who buy secondhand records and download torrents, also buy other music, merch and gig tickets, it just seems for a certain sort of i'm-a-big-music-fan-i-spend-all-my-money-on-vinyl types, that they don't really think where that money is headed.
Is that clearer now?
No no, I understand
and I agree with what you're talking about.
My only protest is to the overarching assumption that the whole State of the Industry approach should necessarily be at the forefront of every single discussion, as if music fans of any degree of, um, realness, are necessarily wringing their hands over the matter all the time, or even ought to be. I dunno. I guess I don't really care that much.
For what it's worth I've never got ecstatically worked up about the M&VE shops either way, but I think it'll be sad on its own terms if somewhere that I've made a few good finds with some friends, or just spent a few minutes here and there each month gawping through racks of old records disappears to be replaced by a Tesco Metro or yet another Macbook 'n' Lattes joint. Which now appears likely.
»I've met quite a few people who didn't realise the artist doesn't see a dime from the sale in a second-hand shop«
If these cretins exist (which I really really struggle to believe), how do they think that any money on second hand sales would reach artists?
»propping up a parallel business«
So what? I've seen you gripe about this before. The moment a physical product is sold, is the moment a second hand market for that product exists for the usable life of that product. Every sale of a record or CD will (or at least should)have had that essential fact built in to the business model. If you don't like the idea of someone else being able to resell something, don't sell it in the first place... or take control of the second hand market yourself.
The act of participating in a second hand market isn't really comparable to torrenting. The only way it comes anywhere close to something like that is when people rip their collection, keep the mp3s, and then sell the CDs. But, judging by the second hand prices on Amazon marketplace (and second hand prices in general, compared to new prices) that period of flooding of the market seems to be nearing it's end. Most of the 'old' CDs seem to have filtered through to their ultimate destination and final reading shelf prior to entering landfill and, as Theo mentions upthread, new physical purchases tend to be less likely to be made in error due to the ability to try before you buy with Spotify and elsewhere.
And speaking of Spotify, try before you buy levels of promotion is all an artist should ever hope for from it. Paying for Spotify isn't the noble act that some people like to claim it is. When you pay for Spotify you pay for the convenience of no adverts, or (if you pay a bit more) the ability to go mobile. Piss all goes to the artists.
Also, sean, on the subject of monetisation, I asked you a question in a thread the other day that you probably missed, so I'm still wondering about it: The ability to block people who use adblock is a trivial technical issue, so why don't you block out those DiSers who do use it?
ARE RECORD STORES KILLING MUSIC?
There's a second hand/exchange shop near me
that's recently gotten rid of the whole CD display in the middle of the shop, but still has a shelf stacked full of VHS. MUSIC IS DEAD.
I never realised second hand music was a thing
unless it was a rare vinyl
I'm actually surprised its never been bigger over here
pretty much every independent record shop in the US (that I've been to, anyway) has a second hand section, and in places like Amoeba the used stuff is often in as good a condition as the new.
Also, why do they close the bargain basements
Even though there's always four or five staff chatting behind the counter upstairs? Surely the majority of customers would like to spend some money down there? I'd like some INSIDER INFORMATION please, what's going on?
because they don't give a fuck.
Real Music Fans
Greenwich one is the best!!
my mate's dad owns a few, i'll ask him what's going on
i've said it elsewhere but i'll say it again
Last time I was in the Camden one many months ago I was pretty much given pennies for a big bunch of CDs and the grump who served me obviously detected my distaste and said it was because 'nobody is buying CDs anymore' (at the same time, one of only three 7" singles they were flogging at the counter was Rumble Strips, hoping to fetch a lofty £3. I think The Rakes was another. Again, this is in 2012). They were in the middle of revamping the downstairs 'bargains' section into a clothing section. Because obviously what Camden needs is more places selling dodgy clothes.
There's just signs on the door now saying they're shut forever and to go to Soho instead. For nostalgia reasons it's pretty sad to see as I have to walk past it every day but that's about it.
The outpouring of grief from journalists and DJs on Twitter for a few days after it announced its closure spoke volumes about the clientele (the first time I ever went in there, Eddy Temple Morris was flogging a massive pile of 12"s).
I bought a Cable CD promo for 50p downstairs about 10 years ago but that was it I think. I might've bought a copy of 'Shoreditch Twat' in the Soho one. Or maybe that was free.
isshadyadiekillingmusic, etc.
That Adam And Joe Show clip needs to get on Youtube immediately.
and this is what it looks like now
http://twitpic.com/bcvxao
sad but inevitable
:(
a pretzel bar?!
how the fuck is that even a thing