The co-founder of a global event to celebrate independent record stores has vowed to fight off the nightmare scenario of closing his own store.
Eric Levin in one of the people behind Record Store Day, which has grown into a worldwide opportunity for music fans to buy limited edition products which big-name acts only sell via non-chain outlets.
But his
Criminal Records business in Atlanta, Georgia is under threat after experiencing challenging conditions for the past three years.
Levin moved to a bigger store in 2008 just ahead of the world financial meltdown, tripling his overheads, then last year was faced with a repair bill believed to be around $14,000 following an ice storm.
Now he says he’ll either find a solution to his firm’s problems by November 1 – or shut up shop.
He tells Spin: "We were doing what we were supposed to do – growing. We bit off more than we could chew and we got too big." He believes Criminal’s situation is not connected with those experienced by the wider independent store community, who are suffering through chain-store pricing policies and the decrease of physical media sales.
Levin says he’ll "pay the man" or leave on his deadline day, and he’s working on a campaign to save his firm. A Facebook support page has already gathered 5500 likes.
Record Store Day is celebrated in mid-April. The fourth event last year involved over 1000 outlets and hundreds of bands.
Thanks for the report to RockNewsDesk.com.
