Ouch! I've never shopped in their physical store. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 9:39 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: 313@hyperreal.org Subject: RE: (313) US Mail Order
LOL - I just was in that shop this weekend with a 313 lurker after not going there in well over a year (at least) that store is in such a miserable condition granted they've gone mostly online but they've always had problems with the brick & mortar First off - they've always filed the records by artists FIRST name so you'll find your Derrick May, for example, in the "D" section - not the "M" now how often do you recall the first name of an artist but always remember the last name? For me it's about 98% because I'm afflicted with record store amnesia. You know, you go into a shop and forget not only the names of the records you are looking for but your name as well. For some reason the owner thought he had to reinvent the wheel but he made it square. Second, the shop was always (actually still is) packed to the gills with multiples of the same mediocre records. The bins are so full it's hard to flip through them. And it looks like they might have tons of different records but they don't. They have anywhere between five and ten of the same records. I kept coming across the same titles again and again this weekend. Third - they rarely if ever seem to be able to get anything you special order At one point they were incredibly disorganized. Never knew what they had in stock. It would show up in their online database but then it wouldn't be where it was supposed to be in the shop. You'd have to dig and dig and dig and dig and dig and dig and dig... I've spent nearly an hour looking for one fuxking record on multiple occasions. The staff would help but then give up as well. Their deep house and house sections - I can't tell what the hell kind of criteria they are using to differentiate between the two. I found MAW in the house section and really cheesy "tech-house" in the deep house section along with other MAW selections. It makes no sense. On top of all this they used to have DJs playing some of the most obnoxious trance music so freaking loud you could barely hear what you were listening to in the headphones at the listening stations - of which they only have one now Now this last time we were in there I was looking for some things they said they had online. I couldn't find them so I went to the shop owner who was in the middle of either tearing apart the walls of the store or rebuilding it (seriously). He looked the items up and said they had them but they were downstairs (in the employee only basement area). He asked me if I wanted the items because he'd have to go look for them and that it was easier if I just placed the order online! Fer fxck sake - I'm in the gd store! How much easier can I make it for them? Put the damn thing out on the shelf and you won't have to pull the records for me. Seems like they're selling primarily overpriced streetwear clothing now in the store. Oh, he also said he wanted to concentrate their stock primarily on new releases. So I guess he's going to continually be discounting records. That's the only positive side of things. Give me a big fat discount for putting up with all his crazy b.s. so, if you come to Mpls don't count on finding much in store at Vital Vinyl (the name is a joke - most of it is NOT vital) shopping for techno/house/etc. records in Minneapolis has become a pain since the last good shop closed to make way for a high-rise condo MEK "Anton Banks \(www.antonbanks.com\)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote on 01/22/2008 07:33:06 PM: > I'm glad this topic was started. Paying $20 per record after taxes, > shipping, and the miserable exchange rate is a bit much. It's pretty sad > state of affairs when this much effort can only drum up a list of two US > stores (Gramaphone and Forced) though. > > For what it's worth, check out www.vitalculture.com (formerly Vitalvinyl) > out of Minneapolis, MN. *Some* Detroit stuff comes through there but it's > probably far less than what people on this distribution would want. > > Hope this helps... >
