Institute of Contemporary Arts

Guess who's back?

Date: 21 February 2007

Well, 3 days back in London and my vinyl-fuelled road trip is fading fast. Apart from relishing not having to wear the same seven pairs of knickers on rotation again for the next three months, my feelings at being home are mixed: on the one hand, I wish we could have continued our journey for weeks more, making stops in Austin, Portland and Seattle - all serious music hubs in the US, promising dozens more fascinating interviews and eye-catching record stores. On the other hand, I might have bankrupted myself, I am really excited at the prospect of catching up with friends, family, work colleagues, and anyway, any more vinyl and cds in our suitcases, and the plane wouldn't have taken off.

Alongside 350 digital pictures and 15 rolls of 35mm stills film, we ended up capturing around 35 hours of footage and approximately 70 interviews on our trusty HDV camera, which it has to be said, has been a dream. We've looked back at some of the material already, and with some joy and relief, the picture looks great and the sound is pristine. I am somewhat terrified at having to now edit this all down into a compact 90 minute package, but hope that we've captured enough entertaining and interesting footage to tell a compelling story, and illustrate it amply with all the great stores we've managed to find.

When we started out, one of our main inquiries for the film was into whether technology has impacted with detrimental effect on the independent record store. While I would say in brief that yes, this is absolutely the case, the question has not been answered in quite such a simplistic way. The arrival of mp3s to the market place has undoubtedly proved challenging for the independent store on the street, but we have also seen many, many examples of stores embracing these changes and developments, moving forward, and as Marc Joseph, photographer and author of New and Used pointed out to us in a recent review of his new book, 'defiantly thriving'.

It is evident that a significant number of stores have closed recently - even when we returned to New York after two months in other parts of the States, one store had closed, another had moved location, and one of our final interviews left us with a very bleak looking prospect for the shop in question. It's sad to see on returning to the UK that the picture looks similarly grim, with Reckless Records in Soho finally calling it a day, having already closed its Islington and Camden stores, after 20 years of business.

However, it also feels like many of these stores have got a lot of life blood left in them yet, and are ready to fight the good fight. Vinyl sales are more healthy than ever; online sections of these businesses are being improved and taken advantage of in order to support the neighbourhood shop, and lots of stores have plans for expansion - venues, labels, promoting. While music exists, and people continue to love music, the independent record store, surely has a chance - the format we consume it with might change, but there is still a role for a store owner / tastemaker / expert, in this context.

The other story that emerged however, and proved an additional, real threat to these businesses - unlike the ability of a record store to adapt and refine in the light of technological advancement - was the runaway train that is real estate and property value. It is this which looms like a dark and recurring shadow, reflected in the rapid gentrification of less refined areas of the American city (and beyond) - from New York, to Chicago, to Boston, to LA, to San Francisco, all of which are seeing luxury apartments rise like mushrooms overnight - and in the homogenisation of local areas through the arrival of chain stores such as Starbucks, Radio City, Best Buy - our equivalent mega-supermarkets making the UK headlines last week in the same negative light. Not a new story, but one which is playing out with an unhappy ending. When these corporate chain stores move into a local area, the property prices shoot up, pushing out long-established local businesses and all the history, character, and specialist knowledge that they might offer. And it is this which appears the truer villain of the piece, and might provide the final nail in the coffin for the independent record store, now only one example in a whole spectrum of local and individual businesses under threat from the corporate machine. The moral of my story? Support your local record shop while you can; there's a slice of cultural history disappearing. Or, as a spokesman on a BBC News report said last night, 'Soon we'll all be living in Tesco'.