WHERE WERE AT: OK, so as Im sure you know, the building our store was located in, Bloomsburgs Moose Exchange, was destroyed by fire on Thursday. Nobody was injured. We were walking down West Street on the way to open when the fire trucks were pulling up, and never even got in the building. So were okay, everybodys okay. Our little corner of the building was not a victim of any direct flames, but water from the efforts to contain the blaze streamed into our space through the walls and ceiling and under the door. Smoke permeated the store, and left some soot behind. Ill get right to it, our store is over. Just because you name something endless doesnt make it endless. This April would have been the 4th anniversary of Endless Records. It was a good run. It was a good record store. It was the longest Emily and I had done one thing in our lives, and I remain grateful for the experience, and grateful to every person who ever walked through our door. We were one of the original tenants of the Moose Exchange, and from the beginning our existence was integrally tied to the Moose. It was an odd place to have a retail business. It wouldn’t have worked for most shop owners, but for us, it felt like a perfect fit. Music and book retail in the twenty-teens is a quixotic pursuit, a fools errand, and, I always felt, more of a utopian effort to remake your surroundings than a practical way to make a living. Where better to place ourselves than among a community of artists, in a building dedicated to cultural events? We loved our building--I can remember the Talking Heads line, “My building has every convenience, it’s gonna make life easy for me” running through my head incessantly for nearly the entire first year we were in business. We took advantage of the facilities at our disposal with everything from booking concerts from some of our favorite musicians (the Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby show a few years back will always be one of my favorite memories), to our Endless Records Christmas Party in the bowling alley, to the Cover of a Cover art exhibition we put on for three years. Just a few weeks ago, my Dad’s classic rock cover band, in which I (sometimes reluctantly) play guitar played a concert in The Grille Room to a small but enthusiastic audience. The Moose Exchange shaped what we were as a business, and we, I don’t think it’s too presumptuous to say, helped shape what the Moose was in our own way. And from a practical perspective, our store was always made possible because The Moose Exchange provided us retail space for around $500 a month, utilities included. The rent had started for us, with less space, at $260! There are no comparable rates anywhere else in Bloomsburg. Endless Records was a labor of love, not a get rich quick scheme--a best seller in Bloomsburg was a record that sold more than one copy, and I think I knew every person who owned a record player in the county by first name. Our kind of retail would be impossible with a larger fixed cost. The Moose Exchange made stores like ours, and Legendary Comics, and Gear Gallery, and Chamuris Custom Framing possible in this town. Raise your lighters, pour a forty on the sidewalk, doff your caps (or put them on if yours was made by Emily in our store), something good has passed. This is the end of an era. Now here’s where we’re at. The day of the fire, with the help of some some sympathetic firemen, we recovered our cash box and Emily’s sewing machine. Today, we got to take out anything else we could salvage. Our store didn’t ever get hot enough in the fire to melt or warp records. About half of our new and sealed record stock got water damage to some extent through the shrinkwrap. About half is dry, and currently airing out. We’ll see how much a smoke smell clings to them. The vast majority of our used LPs got a lot of water, and were lost. Our CDs are largely water damaged. All of our 7 inches are water damaged. All of our gig posters were damaged. All of our books were lost, more to the smoke than the water. The DVDs are currently airing out, and we’ll see whether they lose the smoke smell. We had about a hundred and fifty hats and bags in the store, they mostly didn’t get wet, but our first attempt at washing them made the smoke smell stronger, so they’re currently soaking in borax and we don’t hold out much hope they’ll be salvageable. Needless to say, the VHS video club is disbanded. We didn’t have any fire insurance, it’s a gamble we took, and we lost. I don’t believe it will be possible for us to reopen in Bloomsburg. First, because I don’t believe we could find comparable rent at any space in the town, let alone any place that gives us the foot traffic and central location the Moose Exchange offered. Second, we lost the majority of our stock, and replacing enough to have a healthy and viable store is beyond our means right now. That said, I’m certainly willing to entertain any ideas from anyone who can see angles I’m currently blind to. On a personal level, about two thirds of our income came from the store, with about one third coming from online sales through amazon, discogs, and Emily’s hats on etsy. That online component of our business will continue--all of the records I had listed online were in my apartment, not the store. While we don’t have to pay store rent anymore, our expenses aren’t going to drop by two thirds as well. We’re not going to be out on the street anytime soon, but we’re going to have to find something else to do, and I suspect it will take us out of Bloomsburg. When our store was destroyed, our investment in our stock, materials and fixtures turned from an investment into a debt. Right now we’re carrying about $7,000 on the credit account we use for the store, and obviously we’ll be trying to clear that debt as soon as possible. $7,000 in outstanding obligations isn’t too bad when your business just went under, a lot of people end businesses in a much deeper hole, but it’s not nothing, especially for us. So that’s our situation right now, and thanks to everyone who expressed concern and offered help. What we are looking for right now is a space we can use for a few days to sell off our salvageable stock. We’re thinking an honest to goodness fire sale over a few days, with the proceeds going toward clearing our debt so our fresh start gets off on a good foot. From there, who knows? We’re taking this one step at a time. Thanks again everybody, it was beautiful. Thanks for caring about us. We’ll keep you posted. BTW: It’s my birthday in 2 hours. -Nick
Posted on: Sun, 02 Feb 2014 02:41:38 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015