Facing the music
Submitted by debritz on July 6, 2008 - 14:23.
While I do feel for the musicians - and retailers - caught up in all this, I can't feel sorry for the record companies in the wake of the dramatic slump in CD sales. They are whingeing about illegal downloads of songs, but the music giants conveniently forget that they were ridiculously slow in embracing the technology that would allow legal downloads. Like ostriches with their heads in the sands, they thought the online threat would go away if they just ignored it. They are huffing and puffing now because they realise that musicians don't need them any more. Any act with good music to offer, decent marketing skills and an internet connection can pocket the profits directly - or, at least, dictate their own terms to the hitherto overpaid, meddlesome middlemen. So sad, too bad.
This change has already hit
This change has already hit Brett, and has already cost one of Brisbane's music retail icons. Toombul Music (owned by Barry Bull) recently closed it's bricks and mortar store at Toombul in favor of a online based model.
The store could still pull people in (even during its closing down sale which I went to a month ago) and it was sad to see that even some of Barry's well loved framed records that the store recieved over the years were up for sale as well.
That place could draw a frenzy for live appearences, back in the day when Toombul had the largest centre on the northside crown not Chermside. These days the food court is nearly dead (with two Chinese resturaunts, a McDonalds and a Sizzler) thanks to BCC closing their Toombul 8 cinemas, David Jones opening up last year at Chermside and now no Toombul Music (add the fact that the owners Centro, have been in a rough patch lately financially, to the point a planned massive redevelopment of Centro Toombul has been probably delayed) could see the rapid decline of what Westfield created and people like Barry Bull shaped for over 40 years.
At least Barry had a good
PS: As you may have noticed, I have added my sympathy for the retailers to my original post.
The very first 45 record
The very first 45 record that I ever bought was at Toombul Music..."Old Man Emu" by John Williamson ! I couldn't even begin to think how much money I spent in that store while I was in high school. If it was the latest record, I had to have it ! Actually, if I remember correctly my first CD player came from Toombul Music. I paid for it on HP, and thanks to interest... by the time I'd made my final payment I had paid about three times the original value of the unit. To top it off, the unit was almost kaput !
Poor old Toombul ! Every time I've been over there lately, it seems like another couple of stores have closed down. Honestly, having grown up in the northern suburbs of Brisbane I would hate to see the site become a housing estate. It broke my heart when I found out that the big "T" had been removed from the front of the centre.
I fear that history will
I fear that history will record the removal of the big T as the beginning of the end for Toombul. As you know, I'm trying to save the Regent at the moment, but I believe certain relatively modern icons ought be retained too. I wonder where the T went ...
now i remember the "T"
now i remember the "T"
Have another scotch. You
Have another scotch. You might remember a couple of other letters, too !
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