Buy More Records

What we did and Didn't do has lead about something that rather depresses me. I have such an intense dissatisfaction with the way the current music industry runs, I am always more than tempted to run around and pull out all the ties and let slip the anarchy. I have often allowed myself to dip freely into the mp3 hand basket and cull forth whatever nugget I found reasonably needed. The article which follows brings to light one very sad fact of our brave new industry, and my above mentioned dipping represents in part my guilt for things that maybe didn't help. The record store in this article is the only record store that mattered to me. I am not saying matter lightly, I mean in the beginning there was GB Records and Tapes, and it was good. I come from a small town in western Kansas, my chances of having been exposed to decent music were very slim, and my chances of having that music available in pre-internet era where basically 2 in 1,000. I was blessed to live near GB Records and Tapes. It started with my brother, who spent hours there, who new the alphabet how it corresponded to pop artists. I joined in my own time, a little later and just as strange. Looking through the N section because I had no idea when people released music, and I always thought there may be a new Nine Inch Nails record. Mike and Gary at GB were always there, always subtle in their nudging, and always aware of what the customer was into. They would lead gently not by some ego driven need to turn young folks onto their wonderful taste, but because they Loved music and wanted everyone to feel that. I feel that love of music, and they are no small part of the foundation it's built upon. I'm going to miss GB, but I am not going to feel too guilty. I am angry at the industry today, because I believe they shoulder the biggest part of the blame, not the independent record store and not the music fan. I feel bad for the young people of Hays, Kansas, who is going to tell them which Bob Dylan album to buy first? Who is going to tell them when it's time they give London Calling a listen? The internet can help but it's not the same. It does not smell of incense. There is not the music someone else chose playing through a hi fi in the back ground. Web windows do not make the sound that cds make when you are flipping through them remembering almost all of them from the last time through, just looking for that one new thing.
GB Gone
The University Leaderfhsuleader@gmail.com
The era of independent music in Hays is about to meet an ignominious demise. Downtown’s GB Records will shutter its doors around this June 30 and serve its music-loving public no more.
GB Records first burst onto the Hays scene in the early ‘80s when its first storefront was opened on the Hays Mall. It served as the community stop for musical refreshment at that location for five years before making the transition to its longest running home at 10th and Main Street in historic downtown. Since then GB has served as a hub for local bands to sell some records and collectors to get that one elusive LP.
The GB manager, Mike Ferguson, explained that they chose to set their closing date near the July 31 end of the fiscal year. The midsummer closing will also leave storeowners time to perform any renovations that are needed over the summer.
But the era of the music store in Hays will end and end soon. The closing of GB is likely to leave a void in the character of Hays, as it is the last true record store.
“I won’t find another place like this to come; I’m going to miss the pleasure of coming in and listening to the music,” said Ferguson. “I think the thing that most people are going to miss is the expertise [of our staff]-we know our shit!”
Ferguson fondly muses on his time at GB while vintage Elton John wafts over the store speakers. “That’s what is probably the most fun about working here, is when somebody comes in and asks for something particular and we say ‘Yeah’ and put it on for them ‘cause you know you have it. That’s fun.”
Over the last five years, business at the store has fallen by more than half. “We’re still in the black, it’s just that business keeps falling,” said Ferguson.
The decline in the store’s profits can be attributed to the same two factors that have coalesced over the past few years to severely challenge a majority of our nation’s independent music stores.
Wal-Mart has cut a swath of bankruptcies and closings of small businesses. Its large inventory and ability to sell products at warehouse prices have served to undercut many an independent store’s clientele. However, major damage wasn’t done by Wal-Mart until the late ‘90s when it moved to its new supercenter location north of I-70.
“[People] flock to Wal-Mart like maggots to a dead roast,” said Ferguson. Now people can merely get off the interstate, get all they need there and get back onto the interstate without having to even glimpse the stone Hays sign.
The final death knell of independent music arrived with the phenomenon of free music downloading, which in itself has been responsible for a large portion of the steady drop-off in GB’s sales.
Ferguson commented on statistics about this trend, “The general public, by a 2-to-1 margin, think there’s nothing wrong with copying copyrighted material…among younger people that rises to 4-to-1.”
This has led to a fundamental change in the way the music industry sells music and the way people buy it. “The percentage of college students who buy music has declined, as opposed to downloading. Especially now that downloading is legal song by song…you can totally bypass the old network.
“The majority of college students do not support independent stores; you’re a generation that by-and-large shops at Wal-Mart,” said Ferguson. Unfortunately, his statement proves to be true for the majority of college students.
Since the 1960s, Hays has seen a gradual gravitation of commercial businesses away from the downtown district and out to the Vine Street corridor.
In the ‘60s, downtown businesses were fueled by a student population without cars who were forced to walk. As the percentage of students with cars exploded over the course of the ‘70s and the ‘80s, undergraduates found it easier to use the five to 10 minutes that would be spent looking for downtown parking to drive up to Vine and its guaranteed spaces.
Because of this, “Anyone who is doing retail downtown is fighting hard,” said Ferguson. “It’s been a long run and we have lasted much longer than other similar stores in small towns. I’m surprised we have lasted this long.
“I don’t want to give the impression that the college hasn’t been a very good thing. Without the college, this store would have probably never been here. Right up to the present, we have always employed at least one college student, sometimes two or three back in the good old days.”
All the good times are soon to be over for the GB Records manager, and he leaves the readers with a farewell, “Thanks for the support that we have had from the college, and for the rest of you, buy independent!”