Ear x tacy future in doubt

yeah this is very sad, go buy something there! and if your on facebook

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id= ... 6276332073

Ear-X-tacy closing ?...Sad ? yes. Inevitable ?...Yes again. The recorded music industry, at least as I knew it growing up, is in it's death throes. You can thank ITunes, Amazon and in large part my 20-something year old kids (and their peers) who have 10 thousand tunes on their computers and didn't pay a damned dime for them.

Ear-X-tacy closing ?...Sad ? yes. Inevitable ?...Yes again. The recorded music industry, at least as I knew it growing up, is in it's death throes. You can thank ITunes, Amazon and in large part my 20-something year old kids (and their peers) who have 10 thousand tunes on their computers and didn't pay a damned dime for them.

10 years ago you could do that. The user's ability to obtain music for cheaper (all the way down to free) forever changed the way music is formatted and sold. But, today, the market is more based in pay-for-music service like iTunes. People are paying for their music again, just not in the form of a CD. The CD is only valuable if you want the liner notes, the cover art, in the physical, tangible form.

This situation begs the question of "what do we do with an important community focal point that can't sustain itself in the current market?" There's significant "public space" theory shaping this unfortunate situation in that the goods Ear-X-Tacy sells can be had for less elsewhere, but this "elsewhere" does not offer the same gathering space offered by the X.

This situation begs the question of "what do we do with an important community focal point that can't sustain itself in the current market?" .

Sadly the answer to that question is "probably not much"...As a result of changing "buying habits" the business model of the "local" record store is unfortunately in the middle stages of going the way of the drive-in theater (to pull just one example out of my butt).

Addressing just one aspect of this unfortunate situation, I am struck by the uproar from local musicians at the potential closing. Ear-X-tacy has a reputation of supporting local artists but I wonder how many of these artists support Ear-X-tacy by allowing them exclusive distribution ? Probably not many. If I'm the owner of Ear-X-tacy the conversation would have gone like this for the past 10 years: OK, you're a local band and we LOVE supporting local artists...and as soon as you stop selling CD's off your website and between sets at your local gigs, we'll start stocking your product. Kind of a "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" thing.