Sunday, February 15, 2009

Will be back soon!!

For those who are regular followers of the blog, I certainly appreciate that you stop by and read my posts.

I will resume my regular schedule as soon as I can get the bug out of my computer, some sort of virus called "360" which prompts me to buy some software to remove the viruses from my computer.

This is a pop up window thing and I cannot seem to figure it out, so I have called in the professionals who will, hopefully, be able to fix my computer.

So, stay tuned, I wil be back with my regular features very soon and I appreciate that you stop by each day :O)

Bid to keep rarest record in Scotland

The Holy Grail of soul records will be sold on the internet on Motown's 50th anniversary

By Stuart MacDonald

It is regarded as the Holy Grail of soul records. Now the rarest single in the history of Motown will be auctioned by a Scots collector on the 50th anniversary of the iconic record label.

The internet auction of one of two surviving playable copies of Frank Wilson’s "Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)" is expected to spark a bidding frenzy.

Collectors believe the vinyl, which was bought 12 years ago by Kenny Burrell, a disc jockey from Fife, could fetch up to £75,000 when it goes on sale in April.

Read the rest of the article here:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article5733428.ece

Brick-and-mortar record stores are trying to get their groove back

Tuesday used to be sacramental in the world of music. It was new-release day, the day faithful music fans stopped by their favorite record store to buy something they’d been waiting for weeks to hear or to discover something they hadn’t heard.

Back then, record stores were the best places to hear new music and mingle with other music fans.

“Record stores used to be neighborhood hangouts,” said Corky Carrel, who co-owns an online record store based in Johnson County. “They were like bars without liquor. You’d go in and browse and talk about music.”

Tuesdays aren’t the only days that aren’t what they used to be — for record stores or their customers.

Like so many industries caught between two seismic sea changes — the Internet revolution and the great recession — stores that sell new music are in a fight for their lives. The chains are dying, independent stores are closing, and the record labels that feed them merchandise are running out of ways to make money.

The stores that are surviving are performing balancing acts. Most rely heavily on the pre-owned — “used” — business: Buy it cheap, sell it cheap. Some have turned to niche marketing, selling new CDs to one or two refined segments of the music world. Others rely on a combination of the two: Sell CDs and vinyl, new and used, to a defined demographic. And others have been helped by the recent revival of what was once considered a relic, the vinyl record.

Steve Wilson remembers the good days, back when record stores offered surprises and mysteries and employed people who had strong opinions about most of them.

“When I started buying albums in earnest, I went to Kief’s on the Mall (in Lawrence),” he said. “I remember talking to the guys who worked there. They were there to educate you — as long as you were there to listen, not talk.”

He and Carrel became career guys in the record-store industry. Wilson has been with Kief’s since December 1973. That was about the time Carrel started working at a local electronics store that sold recorded music. From there he went to Caper’s Corner, a fabled record store at 47th Street and Mission Road. In 1987 he opened his own store, Corky’s Records.

Both men are still in the business. Carrel and his partner, Bill Lavery, run VillageRecords.com. Wilson works at Kief’s Downtown, one of two record stores on Massachusetts Street in Lawrence and the satellite outlet to Kief’s, the electronics/music retailer south of downtown.

Some store owners are optimistic about what lies ahead, but none is willing to say for certain where they or their store will be in five or 10 years.

“The game has changed,” Wilson said. “Now it’s all about survival.”

The long, slow fade

The music business is in a free fall. Sales of new albums have dropped more than 45 percent the last eight years. In 2000 consumers in the United States bought 785 million albums. In 2008 they bought 428 million.

In 2000 the 10 best-selling albums comprised 60 million albums. In 2008 that figure was 18.8 million.

The decline in sales coincided with the explosion of home computers, the Internet and the sharing of music files via Web sites such as Napster.

But long before online retailers, digital music and file-sharing entities started eroding sales at brick-and-mortar stores, the small retailers were fighting other forces.

Carrel said the decline began in earnest when a store like Caper’s had to compete with large chains like Peaches in the late 1970s.

SOURCE: http://www.kansascity.com/