Westwood Boulevard’s Rhino Records, a time-honored musical
landmark for more than 30 years, faced extinction last week after a
recent decline in record sales and an expired lease.
What was once a wonderland for copious amounts of rare musical
gems and playful trinkets is now shedding its leopard-print
trappings, and through the glass windows remain shoddy boxes and
duct tape to send the music off to storage. This leaves Westwood
with no remaining independent music stores.
“Unfortunately for us, the store’s ambiance
doesn’t pay the bills,” said Marcus Kagler, general
manager of Rhino Records, which was located on Westwood Boulevard
about a mile south of Wilshire Boulevard.
“Throughout the years we’ve had customers that come
in and I know them by name. I consider them friends. They like to
come in not just to shop but (to) talk about music and hang out.
Now a lot of them have been coming to the door while I’ve
been packing boxes to ask what is going on,” Kagler said.
The store will have a reopening sale the weekend of Jan. 21 and
22 not only to get rid of as much used inventory as possible, but
also to commemorate the store and allow a final congregation of
friends and loyal customers to give it a “last hurrah,”
according to Kagler.
Students, who should have been the largest consumer group for a
record store located in such close proximity to UCLA, did not, for
the most part, shop at Rhino because of cheaper music options like
downloading and larger retailers like Best Buy and Amoeba
Music.
“We were always amazed by how few students were coming
in,” Kagler said. “There was certainly a drop-off of
students over the last few years.”
Third-year economics and art history student Kim Ear, who admits
to downloading most of her music, nevertheless spoke fondly of the
record store experience.
“There’s nothing like going to a quaint little music
store, especially the one in your college town, and digging through
crates to find that album you’ve been dying to get the CD
booklet for to find out what you’ve been singing along to.
Just to find out that the lyrics were “˜Gonna have to tell her
tonight’ and not “˜Gotta have Nutella
tonight,'” Ear said. “But (downloading is) so
easy to do even for a tech-unsavvy person such as
myself.”
While many current music consumers rant about how great local
independent record stores are, many also do not partake in the
buying process ““ a problem further illustrated by the recent
shutdown of Aron’s Records and Westwood’s Penny Lane.
With the growing popularity of downloading music, it’s
difficult for some younger music listeners to conceive of the
benefits of possessing a hard copy of an album, Kagler said.
“There’s definitely a decline of collectors as far
as the new generation (of music listeners),” said Kagler.
“I don’t think that a lot of the younger people collect
music that much, as far as hard copies. They don’t really
need to because they can just download everything.”
Jason Stern, a second-year psychology student and avid online
music collector, expressed guilt over not supporting record
stores.
“I feel bad for not buying records but I can’t pass
up free music,” he said. “I don’t purchase any
music because I can easily download full albums in great quality
for free. A lot of students don’t buy records because most
are very tight on cash, and the average person doesn’t care
about rare finds in record stores. Then again, anything rare still
comes up online.”
And in a digital age, who needs the personalized experience of a
record store when virtually every kind of music guidance and rare
footage is available at your fingertips? Even the
music-encyclopedia clerk has become a relic, having been replaced
by databases such as the All Music Guide. The best example of
customer-clerk interaction now remains in movies, such as John
Cusack and friends in “High Fidelity.”
“A lot of people feel that it’s the end of an era,
and it’s sad but it’s true. A lot of independent record
stores are really close to people whose drug is their music. A lot
of people come in and hang out for hours,” Kagler said.
“It’s a difficult time, we’re very sad about it,
but I don’t think it’s too surprising for anyone who
has been to Rhino recently. Business was down and there
wasn’t much else to do but shut down.”
And unless the Rhino closeout event next weekend turns out like
the epic concert-charity event-to-save-the-local-record-store
ending of “Empire Records,” Southern California’s
independent record stores are all as endangered as Rhino.
Record stores are out in 2006 ““ literally. Check out
the A&E insert to find out what else is out of style with 2005
and what’s in for 2006.