Independent Record Stores - They're Fab
Where do you buy your music of choice ? There's a myriad of options for todays discerning music lover. All the stats suggest its probably from one of the countries Mega Chains and why not. They offer all the genres from ''classical'' to ''country and western'' in all the formats CD, DVD, Mini Disc, Video, Laser Disc, Digital Hyper Disc (I made that one up). OK you may have to pass the banks of Kylie and Robbie albums, to get to your hidden treasure but at least you know it's most probably going to be there at the end of the rainbow. Increasingly however many record buyers are turning to the independent sector for something different , something not so corporate or constructed like huge sausage machine. If you're like me you probably have a few of misconceptions about independent stores, for example are they really run by characters like Robert Fleming and his two pals Dick and Barry in Nick Hornby's ''High Fidelity'', are they forever ruminating about the top five Pink Floyd B sides, or the top five films Elvis ever made. Well the only way to find out is ask so we talked to some of the countrys most successful independent record store proprietors and got some very amusing and inspiring replys. We wanted to know why they do it, what do they do, that the mega stores don't, what do they think about the current crop of roots artists, will we all be downloading from the internet in the future, here's what they told us.
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