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Record store takes final spin
By Ana Rivas / For The Chronicle
Thursday, February 9, 2006

Mojo Records' colorful lights and naked Bjork window poster are now covered with big black and white signs announcing that yet another Mass. Ave. record store is going out of business.
Skyrocketing rents and online sales have already closed half of the 20 record stores that once formed an imaginary line from Central to Porter squares. Pipeline Records and HMV Music Superstore are examples of the business that closed in the last five years.
"This actually was the last vestige of a cool Cambridge block," said Mike Feudale, the manager of Sandy's Music, a store specializing in musical instruments, a few steps away from Mojo's. Feudale fears the closing will affect his business. "We get a lot of sales from their clients and they get some from us," he said. "Now that Mojo is leaving, the cool block is shrinking."
Mojo's has been in business at 904 Mass. Ave. for five years; prior to that, it operated under a different name closer to Central Square. The store will close March 19.
Mojo's building is for sale. Potential new locations either asked twice the rent, or offered half the space, said Mojo's owner Mike White. And sales are down. Or, more precisely, they went online. White said he would not follow the trend. "I did that for a year, but it wasn't the same."
But beyond sales, the Internet presents another threat to the long-time cachet of these stores that were once meeting places for music fans, college kids and collectors. Along with the records, something else is going online: the space to cultivate a passion for music, and find advice and information.
While flipping through the half-priced CDs bin in Mojo's going-out-of-business sale, Philip Clendaniel tried to remember the name of a band. He saw them when they opened for the Rolling Stones in 1966. "It was a group called - let me think," he said.
But another customer anticipated the answer: "Tradewinds!"
Proudly, Clendaniel corroborated: "He knows!" It was his first time in Mojo's, but after meeting a stranger willing to start a conversation on a forgotten band from the 1960s, he said, "This is a great place."
The Internet works in the same way. A Harvard University study of consumer habits predicts that by 2010 one in four online music purchases will be driven by consumer-to-consumer "taste-sharing applications." Playlists and ranking tools built into online music stores and other music-related sites are replacing what music lovers used to look for in the stores: information.
"Customers have far less need to ever step into a record store today," said Derek Slater, co-author of the report released by Harvard's Berkman Center and consultants Gartner Inc. "Not only can they acquire the music online -whether used or new, illegally or legally, on CD or downloaded - they also have myriad sources of information to become exposed to new music."
Hernan Patrich, a 26-year-old music fan, agrees. "I read 80 reviews before buying a disc online," he said. "Having access to what other consumers think about the product is priceless."
But while automated recommendation engines appeal to many, some music fans might still prefer the personalized advice. Store clerks have often acted as a trusted expert with whom the music buyer can interact.
That is what many customers have found behind the counter of Cheapo Records, a Central Square fixture since 1948. Allen Day, the owner "has a deep knowledge of the '50s and '60s, specially black music," said Robert Thomas, the store's clerk.
Cheapo announces itself with a sign in the street level: "Yes! We have CDs!" Since 1997 it has been confined to a basement behind the subway entrance, between a Walgreens and a Starbucks. Since that year rent has tripled, Thomas said.
Thomas remembers a time when you could stop at a dozen of record stores in a line in the area. "In the past if you wanted to learn about music, you had to physically go to a place and talk to a person, do research yourself," Thomas said. "The thing is different now; you just can get everything very quickly [from the Internet]."
"It's not necessarily bad," he added. "But I think something gets lost in the translation."