ANN ARBOR (AP) -- Walking into Encore Records is like stumbling into a corn maze, a disheveled college bedroom and a natural history museum all at once -- just 20 times more overwhelming than any of those places. The walls are practically crawling with musical artifacts from the past century, teeming with an otherworldly sort of life that's completely missing when you're browsing for obscure records on allmusic.com.
But as daunting as walking into a "mom-and-pop" record store can be, there's also something incredibly warm and fuzzy about browsing records in a culture den surrounded by fellow music lovers. There's something magical about pulling a vinyl record from a shelf based purely on the merit of its cover art, handing it to the store clerk and having him play it for you.
This might all sound hunky-dory, but if the financial wallop peer-to-peer music sharing delivers to these stores continues, this experience could be gone faster than you can say "Lady GaGa."
It's disturbing to consider how much the market for these homespun businesses has collapsed over the years.
"Ten to 15 years ago, there were actually about 12 record stores in (Ann Arbor). There was a way oversupply," says John Kerr, the owner of Wazoo Records.
"And, slowly but surely, they've all crumbled and there's just four now, really," he says. "And probably all four of those stores, including us, are struggling. ... I don't really think there's too many people doing real well in this business."
But thanks to the sweat and blood of these record store owners -- and a miraculous stroke of cultural karma -- these shops are still around, although the payout is slim.
"You're not gonna get rich at this," says Matt Bradish, of Ann Arbor's Underground Sounds. "I am not rich. I work a tremendous workload. Most people wouldn't even contemplate the time commitment."
To Peter Dale, of Encore, Bradish, of Underground Sounds, Kerr ,of Wazoo, and Marc and Jeff Taras, of PJ's, owning a record store isn't a business -- it's a crusade. And if the record industry continues to slump, these precious cultural hubs of community-serving self sacrifice could become an endangered species.
In many ways, the Internet has been responsible for the economic pickle in which record stores have recently found themselves. According to Dale, the value of CDs has dropped at least 50 percent in the last three years due to the massive availability of albums online.
Prices are "gonna continue to go down," he says. "That's just the way it is."
And Kerr adds that Wazoo has certainly been outsourced by sites like Amazon.com that conveniently "sell legitimate CDs on the Internet and have unparalleled selections."
Still, record store owners have found ways to harness the Internet's vastness in their favor. Dale mentions how the Internet has made it much easier to advertise to international markets.
"There's just not enough demand locally to sell a 50- or 100- or 200-dollar record," he says. "You have to find the audience, and the audience is national if not international."
Back in the Stone Age, record store owners had to slog through the cumbersome process of posting countless ads in specialty collectors magazines and newspaper auctions. Now, they can simply put pricey rarities up for grabs on their Web sites and wait for someone anywhere on planet Earth to bite.
Dale says he also thinks the Internet has "made the prices of records truer."
In fact, both Dale and Kerr have even started selling merchandise on Amazon and eBay, despite the looming corporate cloud these marketplace conglomerates have cast on the "little guys."
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