Boycotting Certain Record Shops -- do you do it and, if so, why?

Platinum Records - they're a bunch of fucking morons with major attitude problems. a bit better these days than it was in the past but i've got my revenge. i regularly stroll in, listen to a stack of records then put them back in the crate and write down the titles i want to buy. restock this you fucks!

Zions Gate - i've heard horror stories of the owners refusing to pay his employees their whole salary. he insists on staff taking a third of their pay in trade. a trade that is no more then a 15%discount on the retail price. so if he buys an album for 6 and sells it for 16, you would pay 12. you have to take a chunk of your wages in trade that he weights heavily on his side. he regularly sells used records as "new" on ebay and has no problem with cheating customers.

I occasionally go to Bleeker Bobs, never had a run in with the man himself, but my friend Cowboy Mark works there and now the disco/electro used section is pretty well stocked.

I DO boycott Rockit Scientist though, because after shopping there regularly for many years, and spending many dollars there, I just got fed up with the attitude.

If you're going to boycott a store, at least grow one pair, and be open about it. Unless this were Kim's, I doubt any store has a mafia. Jesus.

XPOST - Bleeker Bob's already sucked when I last lived in NYC, and that was in '98!

Is the anonymity just so you don't burn a bridge? I mean, if that's your experience, what do you have to lose?

Owner is a complete ass and sally.

I have stories to back it up and has been documented on other boards.

I take my business elsewhere.

maybe it's silly to be so angry at that but i really am.

(Honestly, I can't believe they're even still in business - especilly given that their doppelganger-in-overpriced-nastiness, Midnight, had to close its Chelsea location some years back.)

http://reasoner.experiencethis.org/archives/325

reason for a $2 difference?

I managed to pillage a bit of the Second Coming basement before they closed, but the best stuff had already been pillaged.

And yeah Bleeker Bob's blew back then too!

In Chicago, Vintage Vinyl in Evanston is ridiculous. I hate that place. More personal museum than record store.

In Los Angeles, I've stopped going to Rhino Records. Not for any personal beef (their prices are a little too much) but because I live near Amoeba and Aron's. Before Amoeba I'd make the trek to the west side to do some scrounging, but not these days.

I'm not a fan of Atomic Records in Burbank, because I saw a couple of the guys who run the place digging through Record Surplus once with a list, probably to buy one of their $1.85 records and sell it for $20.

Any and all record stores on Melrose are useless.

I once went to a record store on Brand Ave. in Glendale and found an old Muddy Waters live LP for a decent price, but the guy was a dick so I never went back. It's not there anymore, they're doing some renovation along that stretch and tore the place down.

I've picked up $5.99 domestic stuff at Zion's... recently, too. *shrug*. Seems to match the other stores, more or less, depending on what I'm looking for.

I'm sorry you had to work for someone who's business practices you didn't like.

Strikingly accurate.

It hasn't been the same since the move. Last time I stopped in there it's half taken over by some kind of vintage pinball machine and neon sign store.

"boycott" is being used as a verb not a noun here!

Haha, Vintange Vinyl is exactly the store I was referring to!

I'm beyond baffled that place still exists. But as a friend pointed out to me, all that guy needs to do is sell 5 or 6 $250 records a month, and that's enough for him to stay afloat.

I mean ffs, I've seen CD-Rs go for $25 there.

Someone mentioned on another thread where we railed about that shop that the dude who runs it is supposedly independently wealthy via other means.

Makes sense/is the only plausible explanation. Dude managed to outlast no fewer than seven record stores in downtown Evanston in the last 25 years or so. Fortunately, there's still 2nd Hand Tunes.

Sorry, make that eight (forgot Dr. Wax).

Oh yes, thank god for 2nd Hand Tunes, even if their selection can be hit or miss. At least the prices are entirely reasonable. When I first moved to Evanston we also had Dr. Wax, but that went downhill really fast in the year or so before it closed.

And occasionally at 2HT you'd find stuff priced way way way below what it should've been priced at, probably because they weren't sure what they had. A friend of mine bought some Deutsche Gramophone records for $15/each which could've easily (and reasonably) gone for $50/each. But I liked that you could walk in with $10 and walk out with 10 (or more) records, and none of the folks who worked there ever copped an attitude.

otm

red house painters vinyl is really hard to come by in the states. 4AD put most of it out in the u.k./europe. and even then not a lot of people bought it cuz everyone was buying CDs. that's why a lot of 90's vinyl is so expensive now. cuz they made small runs and nobody bought them. so, in some cases, there just aren't a lot of copies to be found and nowhere near enough to meet modern demand.

heh, those dudes on the old 4AD forum that bought literally every single release on 4AD on vinyl are sitting pretty right now.

dead can dance vinyl for a while on ebay...good money. just saw a really pretty dcd vinyl box that someone was selling. forget what label put it out. they have two out actually.

in my store i have two boxes of LPs and two boxes of 45s that are discogs stuff and i have a store price that is much lower than my discogs price. i definitely want people to buy records in my store. in some cases the price is 20 dollars cheaper than my discogs price! i do what i can. i don't get a ton of traffic and it would take forever for me to sell some stuff in the store. i got great reggae in and almost all of it will go on ebay. i let people know that i had it, but i would have to sit on it too long here. and i can't afford to do that.

jah gotta love it

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/318648_10150397137257137_686202136_8417899_2075906006_n.jpg

It comes down to "Who are your passing trade"

If a lot of reggae dudes were to be where Scott has his shop, he would not need to ebay.

However, if 4AD dudes pass by, he can price his stock at 'lower than ebay' and the records will turn over reasonably quickly.

RE: The Real Estate and M83 LP’s; nope they hadn’t ordered them in on CD. The owner basically told me that he didn’t like the bands so, on that basis, he’d speculated that they wouldn’t sell.

Wow, Real Estate the talk of everywhere right now and M83 - top 20 in the States and top 40 here - and he still didn't want to order them? Sounds like someone too old and jaded to be running a record shop. Think I'll stick to Morningside Oxfam next time I'm in town.

I want to be where Skot has his shop.

i really have to take that king sporty album home...i try to be good, but it's too cool to languish on my wall. and the french don't deserve it (been sending a lot of reggae to france. just kidding, france. luv ya). funky disco reggae! i don't own too much funky disco reggae from the 70's. or any maybe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfXv8yyuxos

in my store i have two boxes of LPs and two boxes of 45s that are discogs stuff and i have a store price that is much lower than my discogs price. i definitely want people to buy records in my store. in some cases the price is 20 dollars cheaper than my discogs price!

Now that, in my humble estimation, is how you run a proper record shop. Good work Scott. Bet you actually value the trade, and opinions, of your regulars too!

Scott's a good guy and we all know.

there is a record shop in Edinburgh on the way to Arthur's Seat which is so unfriendly it doesn't even let you look at the records

idea of boycotting a record shop sounds insane to me, in an age when all record shops are supposedly over a cliff. like fulminating against the hegemony of Latin in our society or campaigning against vintage trams.

(I like record shops)

At work so can't hear King Sporty :-(

The Pinefox - That'll be Backbeat Records on East Crosscauseway up the Bridges. The guy who owns the shop is notorious for, as you said, not letting people into the shop to even look at the records. What he tends to do, if you dare visit his shop, is interrogate you about what specifically your after then tell you to come back later. I made the mistake of doing this years ago when I was after a copy of 'Blonde on Blonde'. Upon returning to the shop the guy proceeded to pull out dozens upon dozens of copies of the records ranging from £15 to £150 price wise. I'm sure I bought the cheapest copy just to get the guy off my back and get outta there. The guy obviously has some collection but it's just so disorganized. Boxes upon boxes stacked on top of each other to the ceiling.

Also, don't mention trams please . . .

there is a record shop in Edinburgh on the way to Arthur's Seat which is so unfriendly it doesn't even let you look at the records

The clue being that it's in Edinburgh

Oh, I remember that one.

I did look at a record, didn't buy, went on my way. They had a bunch of "John Peel Festive Fifty" CDs, obviously taped off the radio.

Apart from that...

Anyone been to that new record store on stoke newington road? Went in briefly, and its nice to have a record store in the area but I didn't buy anything because they didn't have anything I wanted:/

It's all for Wire readers and Dissensus types so I haven't been tempted to return to the street of horrible dogs and prats in porkpie hats.

why don't you read 'the wire'?

Reading it is like going to school and I left school more than thirty years ago.

Manuel Gottsching's on the cover so, fuck it, I'm buying it

So you have nothing to learn from it? Wow. I learn new things from it every month.

xp

The only thing I learned from last reading it was not to read it again.

I wish my school had had lessons about Zomby and Delia Darbyshire TBF.

I've not been into the Notting Hill MVE since i had a trial shift there and found the staff members in the soul and dance section to be the rudest, most twattish people I'd ever met.

really? I've never had any problems with them but then again I've never worked there.

Yep.

When I asked one of the guys to talk me through an average day in the shop - a fairly standard question for a boy on a trial shift to ask, I thought - one of the grumpy sods looked at me for about a minute and then said, 'we buy records and sell records, what do you think we do?'. Most of the day I was ignored. Then I got sent home for putting an acid jazz record in the jazz section.

where / what's the place on Stoke Newington Road?

Then I got sent home for putting an acid jazz record in the jazz section.

Sackable offence, imo.

emil.y would have put it in the bin on the stereo

Last year I offloaded some funk/reggae doubles I've not been into the Notting Hill MVE since i had a trial shift there and found the staff members in the soul and dance section to be the rudest, most twattish people I'd ever met.

They have a copy of "Last chicken in the shop" in their window, been tempted for a while...

When I asked one of the guys to talk me through an average day in the shop - a fairly standard question for a boy on a trial shift to ask, I thought - one of the grumpy sods looked at me for about a minute and then said, 'we buy records and sell records, what do you think we do?

LOLled at this tbh

maybe he was observing a minute's silence at the time?

"Do you have anything by the Doors?"

"Yeah, a fire extinguisher and a bucket of sand."

where / what's the place on Stoke Newington Road?

― sunn :o))) (Merdeyeux), Thursday, 10 November 2011 18:5

http://www.kristinarecords.com/about-us/

xpost LOL

I love a good Doors joke.

I too enjoy waiting for the pun.

That MVE, they keep leaving copies of the fourth Spandau Ballet album against the radiators to warp. You know, the soft Parade.

nothin...

http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kqln9zMXCO1qa3gf8o1_400.jpg
"I thought I told you to turn the bloody Doors off!"