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| From | David Pearlman <dap@vrtx.com> |
| Subject | Re: Another chain store on the precipice of the abyss...? |
| Date | Wed, 05 Mar 2003 17:27:05 -0500 |
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You know, this isn't the first time this chain has been on the ropes.
Back in the early '80s, they came close to going bankrupt as well.
There was some big money sucking problem with the small chain of superstores
they opened, "Big Bens" that contributed, but the whole chain was in bad
shape. Back then, they were listed on the stock exchange as "Integrity
Entertainment". I remember in the early '80s buying stock in them
near their nadir of $3/share. When it got to $6 a share later that year,
I sold out thinking "I'm not going to be a dope and ride this stock back
down like I always do...I'm going to take my 2x money and be happy." And
I was happy, sort of, as I watch Integrity Entertainment go from $6 to
$27 and become the biggest gainer on the American Exchange that year...
But anyway...Someone else mentioned Record Factory. Wherehouse actually
bought them out in the late 80s...That reminds me of one sad progression:
Leopold's (in Berkeley) -> Record Factory -> Wherehouse. Leopold's was a
great indie store...one of the last of a bygone era of indies, actually.
Oh, and I definitely remember Wherehouse having a great cutout section in
the mid '70s. By the 80s it was pretty much crap, however. One thing that
the CD era has really destroyed is the cutout market. Labels have gotten
more shrewd about cutouts, so the cutout bins at a retailer, if there are
any at all (and there usually aren't many) are filled with mostly the
dregs of the earth (and I ain't talkin' about the Dixie Dregs).
Funny what someone else mentioned about the Record Factory getting in bed
with the Mafia and buying counterfeits. In the late '70s, I was managing
the record department of the Stanford Bookstore (which, at the time, was
still an indie bookstore, with a wholly owned record department). I had
carte blanche to order what I wanted and in whatever quantities I thought
I could sell. It was fun. I had all the cutout catalogues (amazing stuff...
like Christmas when boxes of this stuff would come in), Jem's import stuff,
etc. Our front line product came from a distributing company that was part
of Record Factory. There was a point where I started to get some product
from them that looked kind of dicey...Things like Columbia Records titles that
clearly hadn't been pressed in a Columbia Records factory (a subtle thing that
I could tell from the label, but most people wouldn't know). Kind of weird.
I wonder if they were supplying us with counterfeits?
dap
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