As I sit here and listen to the new Jack White vinyl that 'side a' moves the needle outwards, i'm annoyed with the store where I purchased it at. Music Millennium.
So one of the weirdest things in a town that likes to keep it weird (two foods, bacon-maple bar. aka best donut ever.... grilled-cheese cheeseburger, two grilled cheese buns caressing 1/2 lb of locally grazed beef and of course a fried egg, but don't forget they key beer: bourbon aged IPA) is an established business using kickstarter to expand itself. (okay a third food to help keep it weird, alligator mac-n-cheese) I love this store, not because I have a long history with it, really because of the other store that they closed down a while ago that I was in love with. This is a store where I'm browsing vinyl next to Art Alexakis from Everclear, who was outside earlier smoking the biggest cigar i've ever seen and I assume he is scoping out the next hot band out of Portland... like Smooch Knob, Six foot Sam, The Shins or The Decembrist. You probably get the picture with two of the four bands, feel free to look up the first two bands...
So THE, and I mean THE last great music store in Portland, Oregon; Music Millennium, recently used a kick starter to expand the business to open a cafe and bar along side the store and also repair the roof. Sadly what this tells me this place is either horrible mismanaged or their extreme mark up still isn't covering the cost. Keep in mind I paid $28 for the nifty, three-speed Jack White vinyl where I could have ordered it for $20+shipping (roughly the same) from Third Man Record's website. If you look up their kick-starter, they managed to get funded but how does this play out in five or ten years. If you look at the rewards for funding, it's rather inadequate compared to other kick-starters. You spend $250 and get about $25 worth of random used vinyl? Seriously? I'm all about the ten year sweatshirt from Flint and Tinder, not at all excited about buying crappy used vinyl....
The other day when I was making my purchase, the cashier was telling me about him and his wife playing a jazz set at a local bar. He was integrated by my new but fairly late discovery of Lester Young. We started to talk about various places and jazz and how I couldn't find Summertime by Lester Young in neither the used or new CD sections or the Vinyl sections.... (come on MM).. And he mentioned something that i haven't been able to verify with a google, but Nirvana's first live performance was there. I seriously doubt that, but even if they played there before they were huge, is still huge to me. This place has history, and I hope the budding jazz musician is correct but either way, this place is still a huge influence.
The fact is that these stores are still disappearing even after the big box stores are pretty much abandon CDs, weighs heavily on me. There are other good stores in Portland as well, Jackpot Records, 2nd Avenue Records and Everyday Music. Jackpot Records, as ridiculed on Portlandia, closed one of their stores this month so they can focus on their record label. As the local fish wrapper suggested, most likely they couldn't afford rent in a trendy area next to Powell's Books, a city block of books...seriously.. a city block... and four stories... what else are you going to do when it rains outside all the time...
As I'm glad to see the big-box and the mall stores stop selling music, I really wanted to see the local vinyl stores recover. Especially since i"m listening to the vinyl that broke all of the 'vinyl' records. I want these store to prosper and I want to show up with a garage band playing in a corner, even if I think they suck. I don't mind paying a small premium for the vinyl since I will be having an IPA shortly after, (even starbucks sells beer here) but I want to walk in with one record in mind and walk out with two or three.
Here when I thought the local companies outlasted the big-box stores, I see a top store using kick-starter as a way to survive. I guess I need to buy more music from them....
Anyone else feel like there is still little hope for the local music stores?
Jim
