Tracks Of My Tears
Looks like no trip to Outer Banks with the gang this summer. None of us were really sure if it was going to happen or not, since it was all depending on when or if Alvin could clear his work schedule to take a weekend off as planned. But the only weekend he'll have off for awhile is this weekend, and we're invited to come up and stay with him but I have to work Saturday and Sunday. But hey, it's all good. I'm still planning to take those four days off after Labor Day weekend, and Joe and I were discussing possibilities of maybe heading over to Blackburg to catch a VT game and visit Lucy (Joe's mother lives on a small farm in Blackburg), if my car can hold up for the trip. But we'll see. Al left a message on my cell phone just this afternoon so we haven't had much of a chance to plan for anything else for the moment.
In other news, the Wherehouse Music at Ward's Corner in Norfolk will be closing its doors this Sunday. Now Wherehouse is also owned by my store's parent company, BUT I've been told that it's not going out of business, just closing due to a possible lease dispute. Our company has hired this tenacious pitbull of a lease negotiator who has managed to talk one store's landlord in Salt Lake City from $49,000 to $29,000. And he was just in town last week, so I suppose it could be possible that this was one lease he couldn't negotiate. Still, I'm always skeptical. I don't know if we'll be getting their product but some of their staff will be on hand at our store until they can find new placements in the company. My, how generous of them.
But Wherehouse was only Wherehouse for the last several years or so. Although I had heard rumors that the location had been a restaurant and other businesses in the past, pretty much for as long as I could remember it has been a music store under some name ever since I was a little girl. Back when it was Tracks I was a child who was sent to a doctor's office in Ward's Corner every Saturday morning to do all sorts of strange tests that to this day I'm still not sure why (visual, perception, etc). I hated every Saturday morning being spent in these offices, and my father, to cheer me up after picking me up, would do two things: Buy me a Fig Newton bar (those large individually wrapped ones, because I really loved those buggers back then) and take me to Tracks to buy me a record or 8-track of my choice. He even bought me a wooden record crate with the Tracks logo -- an old-timer train conductor -- on the side, which I had all the way up until just after college. Back then the upper-outside of the building near the roof was decorated with giant canvases of album covers, and I remember my father telling me that he had heard that the attic of the store held an art studio where staff would paint the album covers and switch them out every few months (still don't know if this is true, but I hear the attic does contain a lot of old artifacts from those days). My dream back then was to one day grow up and work in that attic painting album covers all day, to be hung on the outside of that store. And in a way, I never let go of that dream.
Ironically, as a hyperactive child running amok inside Tracks every Saturday afternoon with my dad, there was an 18-year-old boy working there at the time, probably chasing me around the store with great agitation, grabbing all of the many breakable objects out of my hands. Ten years later that boy would gradually become one my my best friends, Mike Williams, who still comes over my house to play video games every Monday night. Mike still has the giant Tracks logo sign from the store on his back porch, too enormous to bring in the house.
Tracks later became The Record Bar, and I think somebody once said Mother's Music as well, although I don't remember that. Later in the 90's it was Blockbuster Music, and then Wherehouse Music, and now....
Now given the climate of brick-n-mortar music retail, will it ever become a music store again? Somehow I have my doubts. I guess I'm sadder about Wherehouse closing not so much because it's just one of many music stores to come and go at that location. But because I get the sense that this time, it will be the last.
In other news, the Wherehouse Music at Ward's Corner in Norfolk will be closing its doors this Sunday. Now Wherehouse is also owned by my store's parent company, BUT I've been told that it's not going out of business, just closing due to a possible lease dispute. Our company has hired this tenacious pitbull of a lease negotiator who has managed to talk one store's landlord in Salt Lake City from $49,000 to $29,000. And he was just in town last week, so I suppose it could be possible that this was one lease he couldn't negotiate. Still, I'm always skeptical. I don't know if we'll be getting their product but some of their staff will be on hand at our store until they can find new placements in the company. My, how generous of them.
But Wherehouse was only Wherehouse for the last several years or so. Although I had heard rumors that the location had been a restaurant and other businesses in the past, pretty much for as long as I could remember it has been a music store under some name ever since I was a little girl. Back when it was Tracks I was a child who was sent to a doctor's office in Ward's Corner every Saturday morning to do all sorts of strange tests that to this day I'm still not sure why (visual, perception, etc). I hated every Saturday morning being spent in these offices, and my father, to cheer me up after picking me up, would do two things: Buy me a Fig Newton bar (those large individually wrapped ones, because I really loved those buggers back then) and take me to Tracks to buy me a record or 8-track of my choice. He even bought me a wooden record crate with the Tracks logo -- an old-timer train conductor -- on the side, which I had all the way up until just after college. Back then the upper-outside of the building near the roof was decorated with giant canvases of album covers, and I remember my father telling me that he had heard that the attic of the store held an art studio where staff would paint the album covers and switch them out every few months (still don't know if this is true, but I hear the attic does contain a lot of old artifacts from those days). My dream back then was to one day grow up and work in that attic painting album covers all day, to be hung on the outside of that store. And in a way, I never let go of that dream.
Ironically, as a hyperactive child running amok inside Tracks every Saturday afternoon with my dad, there was an 18-year-old boy working there at the time, probably chasing me around the store with great agitation, grabbing all of the many breakable objects out of my hands. Ten years later that boy would gradually become one my my best friends, Mike Williams, who still comes over my house to play video games every Monday night. Mike still has the giant Tracks logo sign from the store on his back porch, too enormous to bring in the house.
Tracks later became The Record Bar, and I think somebody once said Mother's Music as well, although I don't remember that. Later in the 90's it was Blockbuster Music, and then Wherehouse Music, and now....
Now given the climate of brick-n-mortar music retail, will it ever become a music store again? Somehow I have my doubts. I guess I'm sadder about Wherehouse closing not so much because it's just one of many music stores to come and go at that location. But because I get the sense that this time, it will be the last.
posted by Melissa at 1:38 AM
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