On Black Friday, as local and national media focused on obsessive Target and WalMart shoppers, over two dozen music fans gathered in front of South Tampa's Vinyl Fever shortly before its 10 a.m. opening, poised to exploit a plethora of deals available only at independent record stores.
The Back to Black Friday promotion was put together by organizers of the annual Record Store day, and featured exclusive special releases at indie stores from major acts like Metallica, the Black Keys, U2, Dr. Dog and Killing Joke.
Julianne Draper arrived too late to get the special Metallica live CD, the only "physical" release that the San Francisco-based heavy metal band was distributing from a live 2008 concert. But as she pecked her way through a selection of mostly used DVDs, she said that even though new music can be accessed by hitting "send" on a home computer, she has faithfully patronized the Tampa record store, going back to its previous location on Fowler Avenue, for over 15 years.
"I'd much rather go in, pick it up, see it, examine it, anything — CDs, movies, books — than just to just look at it online," she says.
A few feet from Draper, Gainesville resident Jay Crown rifled through a stack of record albums. He discovered the indie store via Google while visiting family members over the Thanksgiving holiday.
He was there to check out the store's selection of vinyl, which he says he and his friends listen to and buy almost exclusively. "It sounds great and it hasn't gone anywhere, and it's not a fad."
Let's not pretend it's been a smooth decade for local independent record stores; it hasn't. But while such businesses may have fewer employees than they once had, they're still standing. Meanwhile, their big-box competitors have fallen by the wayside: Virgin Records closed down its empire (including a superstore in Orlando) last year, chains like Circuit City have gone out of business, and Borders has removed its deep catalogue of music selections.
The back-to-the-future renaissance of vinyl has been one factor.
Doug Allen is the co-owner of Bananas Music, a two-story warehouse in St. Petersburg off of 16th Avenue N, which houses nearly 3 million records. Until very recently, Allen had mostly done business on a mail-order basis, with little emphasis on human contact. But he says that the resurgence of vinyl means "people keep finding us," and he's now expanding his operations to include a new store on 22nd Avenue, where he also hopes on occasion to host performances by local bands.
Melanie Cade and Danny Drummond opened Mojo Books & Records in a Fowler Avenue strip mall in Tampa back in 2007, when reports of the demise of the independent record store were already becoming regular features in the New York Times. They didn't go into business initially to sell records, but new and used books.
But with the renewed popularity of vinyl, and a ton of his own records he had collected for over two decades, Drummond said he told his business partner, "You know, let's dig out all those old records that we used to sell at collector conventions." He said he's been surprised by the resurgence, which, combined with the sales of used books as well as the t-shirts and posters and other rock and roll merchandise he sells, is now allowing him to move to a bigger space at the same strip mall near the USF Tampa campus.
Vinyl Fever owner Lee Wolfson acknowledges that the revival of vinyl sales has helped, but it can't make up entirely for the loss in CD business. That's where local store owners see the most profound effects of the digital revolution; music buyers don't feel compelled to acquire hot new releases through their stores anymore.
CD album sales have seen a steady decline since peaking in 2000, and that trend continues. In August, Billboard reported that album sales were down 12 percent compared to the same time a year ago.
"We no longer sell as much volume on popular releases, which in the past helped to support our stocking the more unusual, esoteric releases," says Wolfson. He says Tom Petty's Mojo was his store's top seller in 2010, but guesses that it sold only a quarter of what it would have sold a decade ago.
Manny Kool, of Daddy Kool Records in St. Pete, says he no longer even gets many major new releases from the record companies. He says the top-selling individual CD at his store this year was probably Kings of Leon's Come Around Sundown — which sold all of 10 units, he estimates. "It's much more of a struggle to sell," he admits.
The great migration away from record stores began around the turn of the century, as programs like Napster and Gnutella made the sharing of music files cheap and easy. The development of the iPod and iTunes only exacerbated the trend.
WMNF DJ Scott Imrich says that he started collecting music online at the beginning of the decade, and now programs his Saturday afternoon radio show almost exclusively on his laptop computer. Imrich worked at the old Alternative Record store on Nebraska Avenue in the 1990s, and later put in some time at Vinyl Fever. But he admits that he doesn't frequent those stores as much as he used to, because record companies and bands send him music electronically.
But if you can't beat 'em…
Record stores have learned that selling through the Internet has to be a part of their business model. Though such stores don't sell digital music that can be downloaded to an iPod, they are selling their wares on the net. Vinyl Fever sells and purchases via Amazon Marketplace. The owners of Daddy Kool expect a lot more revenue to funnel through with the development of an enhanced website (scheduled to go live anytime now), which will put up every single piece of inventory for the store.
And the other secret? Do more than just sell records.
For Daddy Kool, the ancillary income comes from selling tickets for shows produced by its parent company, No Club Productions. At Mojo, books were always a major part of inventory.
In fact, Mojo's Danny Drummond says the economic downturn has been a boost for used bookstores like his. "People bring a lot of good stuff to us who need the money," he says. "In my opinion, people will try to find a book through us or online and pay $5, vs. Barnes & Noble where it costs $25."
With the recession not due to end anytime soon (despite government assurances to the contrary), it may be that indie record stores are in a prime position to take advantage of the situation. Vinyl that's either cheap or rare or both, personal contact mixed with savvy use of the Internet, business plans that go beyond selling records — all are factors that could mean that the demise of the indie record store has been greatly exaggerated.
This article appears in Dec 9-15, 2010.