Wrong side of the Tracks

We've just had an email from James Waterson, recording the loss of another indie music store:

"Just popped over to Track Records, a fairly large independent store that's provided the backbone of York's music scene for the past 30 years. It's the sort of place that gets in every seven inch released by any tiny label in the country, where they have great stocks of obscure 80s indie and 60s r'n'b - in short, just what every music fan needs. A local group could press up a few hundred records and sell the whole lot to likeminded souls, anyone could write a fanzine, leave on the counter and guarentee that it would be read and appreciated. What's more, the staff encourage such actions for the greater good of the scene.

But it doesn't count for anything when the sales decline combines with rising rents. Moved from its high street location to a position on the edge of the city centre Track has finally run out of cash and as of this week launched a fire sale with a view to shutting down its once successful mail order business and shop with the month. The staff are distraught - when one pondered "what am I going to do?" he clarified it by meaning "about getting music, never mind my job". They are genuine fans of music, always recommending releases and assisting start up record labels such as myself. Within a month they will cease to exist and head the way of Spillers et al as our indie stores are subsumed.

Afterwards I wandered down to Virgin/HMV on our highstreet, the only remaining music shops in York. Only the latter made an attempt to stock singles, proffering a half shelf's worth of battered White Stripes seven inches and top 10 CDs. Local bands don't get a look in while trendy adverts try to convince me to buy Credit Cards and 'Entertainment packages' for my HDTV. The album selection is wide, but you're unlikely to find The Fall's entire back catalogue nestling between Felt reissues and current underground indie pop, let alone with staff who will provide honest appraisals. I've often scoffed at those who bemoan the 'death of the music industry' and the end of alternative culture. Yet today York's slowly-reviving-post-Shed-Seven music scene has been irrevocably damaged. Almost all of my current music taste was informed by rarities grabbed from the shop during my teenage years and yet, were in the same postion now, it's a good half hour on the train to the nearest non-highest music shop. Quite frankly, I simply wouldn't bother."

James tells us that the shop has been replaced with a sandwich shop. They'd better be bloody brilliant sandwiches.