Road Records Won’t Fade Away

I love the stories about the small, independent record stores- this is a just as much a part of our musical heritage as the records they sell. Here's a nice story from Ireland:


The owner of Road Records on Dublin’s Fade Street tells Niall Bourke about the changes he has seen from behind the counter of Ireland’s smallest record shop.

ROAD Records on Fade Street, off George’s Street, celebrated 11 years in the record business recently. It hasn’t always been easy. Dave Kennedy and his partner Julie have had to be very flexible and open to change in order to survive as the record market and music industry in general took a hammering from both the legal and illegal downloading of music.

“These days we steer clear of nearly everything in the Top 50,” reveals Dave. “It just wouldn’t be of interest to our customer base. It’s strange but most of our customers tend to be over 30. We don’t see that many really young people in the shop. It’s like they don’t see the reason or the need for a record shop as such, when they can order whatever they like online."

“In fact, some young customers would find the idea of an album hard to understand as they’re so used to ordering a track here and a track there online.”

One interesting aspect of the shop’s business is the revival of interest in vinyl records.

According to Dave it’s not unusual to have a customer in possession of an Ipod who is still looking to purchase a vinyl record.

“There’s a steady trade in vinyl and it’s getting bigger,” says Dave. “And you’ll always get customers who are looking for classic albums like ‘Sgt Peppers’ on vinyl. We’re also getting people who have down­-loaded a new album and now they’re in the shop looking for the vinyl version as well.”

Dave also points out that some of the smaller record companies have taken to issuing special codes with vinyl releases so that when the customer buys a record he or she can use the code to download a version as well.

“I also believe that people actually miss having the physical product available to them at home,” adds Dave. “For some people a little white box just isn’t the same.”

Providing local bands with an outlet for their product is also part of the general philosophy at Road Records.

“We try and help out as many local bands as we can here,” explains Dave. “There’s a great DIY attitude among some bands - you may get a band who record a record themselves and print up maybe 500 copies. Then they try and shift them through local stores around the country, or we get some groups who do only 50 or 60 CDs and just leave them in the shop with us.”

Dave also provides a space for local bands to perform in the shop, albeit acoustically, mostly on Saturday afternoons.

But how did Dave himself originally get into the business of selling records?

“Well I used to work in Borderline Records, that’s where I met my partner Julie, and knowing something of the business we just decided that we’d give it a go,” he relates.

Dublin has a tradition of having some great record stores over the years, like Pat Egan’s Sound Cellar on Nassau Street, Freebird Records and who can forget Advance Records on King Street, home to Dublin’s original punks. Does Dave see Road Records as continuing in this tradition?

“Well I believe people actually appreciate it if the person behind the counter in a record shop actually knows something about the music they are attempting to sell you,” he suggests.

"This is a wonderful job,” he adds. “I love coming to work, maybe I’ll never make a load of money from it but I really enjoy my job and Record Records is here for the long haul.”


SOURCE: http://www.dublinpeople.com/