This is a sad reminder for everyone to make sure to visit their local record stores. I have been down to Atomic many, many times and I am truly sad to hear of this. Buy Your Vinyl At Local Record Stores!
Music Aficionados Are Going to Lose a Gem
By Marti Mikkelson
March 9, 2009 | WUWM | Milwaukee, WI
A music lover’s paradise will close at the end of the week. Atomic Records on Locust Street in the heart of Milwaukee’s east side business district has been known as the place to go to get rare cuts of music you can’t find anywhere else. But the times have taken a toll. WUWM’s Marti Mikkelson stopped by the store and took in its going-out-of-business sale.
It’s Saturday afternoon at Atomic Records and an old Beatles video is airing on the TV. The place is packed, not only with customers but with merchandise. Every nook and cranny of the tiny store is crammed with cds and vinyl; everything from the Yardbirds to Timbuk 3 to The Osmond Brothers. Meghan Arnold is combing through one bin marked “everything’s $2.” Her arms are stuffed with music to add to her collection.
“I have Teenagers, Lavender Diamond, Manic Street Preachers. I got all those LPs and then um, just a ton of 45s, Stereo Lab, Blondie, Annuals, Eurythmics,” Arnold says.
Arnold says she’s been coming to the store once every few months for the past decade. She says it’s sad that the shop is closing at a time when the music scene is taking off in Milwaukee.
One local musician who’s just purchased a couple of rare finds is Damian Strigens. He says besides the availability of obscure music, Atomic Records has been the place for local musicians to gather. Sometimes they would step up on stage for impromptu jam sessions with national acts.
“Performing artists that would come through town would occasionally do little acoustic sets right over here on the small little stage. People like Frank Black, Camper Van Beethoven played here, Smashing Pumpkins played here,” Strigens says.
Strigens says those concerts drew big crowds, and it’s one thing he’ll miss most when the store closes. Rich Menning opened Atomic Records in 1985. He was 24 years old at the time and had recently moved here from Madison, where his only music experience was as a sales clerk at a record store.
“I have to give props to my dad for lending me a little money to get started and he never thought it would work out to be honest. He thought at the very least I would get an education in business and oh what an education I’ve gotten the last few years,” Menning says.
Menning says what he’s learned is that you have to respond to changes in the industry. Business boomed throughout the 80s and 90s, with his focus on local and alternative music satisfying a hunger unlike any other shop in Milwaukee. He sold cds and vinyl at competitive prices ranging from $10 to $20.
But by 2001, Menning started to notice sales tapering off. Then in the past couple of years, foot traffic in his store slowed to a trickle. He attributes the decline to the rise of the internet.
“It was kind of the one-two punch of illegal downloading and cd burners is what really kind of kicked our butt overall, and unfortunately now, there’s an entire generation of people that have never paid for music and think it should be free. I sell music and I think it’s worth something,” Menning says.
Menning says the final nail in the coffin was the downturn in the nation’s economy and he knew it was time to get out of the music business. He announced in December that the store will be closing.
He says ironically, the internet will keep him afloat for the next year or two as he sells off most of his record collection on ebay and amazon. After that, he says he doesn’t know what he’ll do. Another person in the store who faces an uncertain future is employee Mark Waldoch.
“I play music in two different groups. I don’t know, I mean I bartend. I’m trying to do more of that. Ideally, I’d like to do more touring and things like that but I haven’t done a lot of that with the band yet. I’m not going to start a record store, I’ll tell you that,” Waldoch says.
The closing of Atomic Records means there will be only a couple of independent record stores left in the Milwaukee area. As they’ve disappeared, music lovers have lost places to share their passion and are having a tougher time growing their collections.
Source: http://www.wuwm.com
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