No More Record Stores Down Here
It’s been a good day, but I am gloomy about one thing: As of today, as far as I know, now that the Sound Shop stores have closed at our two malls, there is no record store in the Mississippi Gulf Coast region. I had already gotten downright excited about the prospects for the music industry when the Sound Shop started having new LP’s and used LP’s to go with all of those CD’s. When I moved here 12 years ago, there were two great used record stores – one overpriced one that didn’t survive Katrina (but had already just about closed up anyway), and the other one that I haunted all the time until it closed up in October 2008 – plus another CD store in the strip mall opposite the big mall in Biloxi (that one didn’t survive Katrina either), and maybe one over in Pascagoula as well. It is a problem nationwide I guess – Tower Records in New York City closed up a decade ago I guess, and the Virgin Records store in New Orleans was yet another Katrina casualty. I order a lot of my music from Bomp! Records’ online Bomp! mailorder business and other online sources, but I gotta say that it isn’t the same as flipping through a nice rack.
* * *
After thinking about it, I realize that we sort of still have a record store or two here. The Barnes and Noble store at Crossroads Shopping Center has a tiny little music section, and the two Best Buys stores no doubt sell plenty of music like the other ones I have been to. Still, it's not just the same.