London 5 December 2011 - part 1: Sister Ray misery

Whee! Despite having to get up at stupid o'clock, it is always lovely to get a day out in London.

We arrived about 8.20am and headed off for our usual breakfast at Bar Bruno - yummy!

We then headed around the corner to Sister Ray (aka Selectadisc of the South) a favourite haunt if we're not in the vicinity of Rough Trade. We loitered outside the store - we were a good 15-20 mins too early for opening time - and then were let in by the owner/manager.

Between us we spent a goodly amount of money on pre-Xmas goodies and things we had been watching out for: certainly enough to make it worth opening for us, and several other folks came in whilst we were there and seemed inclined to make purchases also. So it was a bit dispiriting to find the store owner starting up the conversation as we excitedly enter with the gloomy line "why do you buy CDs anyway?"

I get that such general stores covering a range of music are dying out like dinosaurs; I get that their diversification into DVDs etc has been futile at best. I get the physical object (certainly the CD) is not going to last my lifetime (probably) - although vinyl will undoubtedly last as long as there are nerds for its sound quality. (I mean that in a good way: I know that vinyl sounds better for all its difficulties).

But why would you want to dismiss the energy of your customers before they've scarcely walked in the door and started to browse? I suggested about the idea that could/should have probably happened with record stores, that being able to download IN THE STORE could/would probably help... but it was all to no avail. Record stores were doomed and it was frankly just odd why we were bothering.

*sigh* - last record shop standing indeed. I'm not sure if the shop will be there when we next go. Will it just end up as a 'novelty store' as he described it, selling vinyl only?