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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | "Jeff" <Jeffrey@dol.net> |
| Subject | Re: Kemp Mill Records |
| Date | Wed, 2 Jun 2004 18:49:03 -0400 |
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Hey Mark E., Robbie W., John M. et al!
Mark wrote:
>Jeff and Robbie:
>I have fond memories of Kemp Mill Records...the Rehoboth store anyway.
Who
>knows, Jeff, you may have sold some CDs to me when I stopped in on my
trips
>to the Delaware beaches.
How cool is that!! If you were there at all from '87 to '89, there's an
excellent chance that we met there in the store at least once. The lions
share of the hours usually went to me (I was the only local hired at
first and I lived close by), and I managed (or co-managed) the store for
the last two years. I also made it a point to work (usually with Cliff
on nights he wasn't playing) most Friday and Saturday nights. Gawd we
had fun.
>I thought Kemp Mill had a pretty decent selection
>and great prices...with no sales tax!
Yup, we were the kings of the "every new cd for $11.99" deal (catalog
was usu. $14.99 for the most part). With 33 stores, we could pre-order
nearly every title CHEAP! And yup again, no sales tax in Delaware at all
(still).
>Kemp Mill was also pretty cool about
>giving away promotional posters. I still have a huge Annie Lennox
framed
>promo poster for Diva in my home office that the generous folks at Kemp
Mill
>gave to me.
Dude, I STILL have a big box of posters in storage that I really should
break out. I could frame a few and sell the rest! As you might guess,
staff snagged most of the great posters, but if a customer (friend)
wanted one, we gladly put their name on the back and defended the poster
against all future claims! If you asked for the Ziggy Marley poster in
June, we'd still have it for you when you came back in August! The
labels loved us back then and showered us with promo stuff, we were
quite fortunate.
>Do both of you remember a small (mostly Delaware) chain of stores
called
>Rainbow Records?
cut / snip
Yes, of course! We used to drive up to the one in Dover, Delaware and
shop! And Newark, Delaware was were I went to college (U of D), so THAT
Rainbow got loads of my student loan money! Unfortunately, I don't have
even a nick of knowledge re: "what ever happened to" the chain you so
accurately remember. I think Cliff's brother Roger would have that
information, though. He's kind of a walking encyclopedia of all things
Delaware-rock related. (Beth, don't you tell your brother-in-law I said
that! <grin> You KNOW what it'll do to his head!)
John M. wrote:
>I have fond memories of shopping at the Kemp Mill on DuPont Circle when
I
>lived there in 1997.
Yeah, I gotta admit, the DuPont Circle store was "the sh*t". Every
employee trained there and it was the chain's number one store in most
respects. It impressed the heck out of *this* country boy when I did my
couple-o-days training there. They had some SERIOUS in-stores with major
talent. Their long-time manager became our district manager, in fact. To
make a very long story short, management tried to turn the beach store
into "just another" Kemp Mill store (we felt quite separate for many
reasons, many of them simply geographical, we were mostly out of their
direct, everyday reach), and it all came to a rather abrupt end for me
and my staff soon after they tried to force the change. We had our own
way of doing things (and it was working, by all accounts) and couldn't
be reigned in by the money guys. No hard feelings though, they had a
bunch of stores to manage and we were certainly the black sheep of the
chain. From the owners perspective, they had 32 Kemp Mills in Maryland
all operating fairly similary, THEN there was the beach store in
Delaware, which was making money hand over fist, but operating way
outside the chain structure. We stood out like a sore thumb. Instead of
waiting around to be chopped off like a gangrenous appendage, we all
resigned en masse. Rebellion! Cool!
Great memories, guys, Thanks!
Jeff T.
De.
(sorry for the long post, folks, promised myself I wouldn't "get
started" on kemp mill daze. d'oh!)
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