42 MusicWeek 14.09.12 RETAIL
www.musicweek.com
Owner: Lee Mason COOL DISCS
Give us a bit of background on Cool Discs… We opened in 1996 so we’ve been trading for 17 years. Before that I worked for a chain of shops called Caroline Music for 10 or 12 years as well as Tiger in San Francisco. So, I’ve been in the business my whole life.
How has business changed over the years and what’s it like today? Obviously we’re up against internet shopping and downloads. It’s a case of finding your niche and fighting your corner. We’re lucky that we have a good deal of punters out there that still want to buy the finished product. But the internet has been a
killer for record shops and the High Street, really.
How do you try and combat that? We’re fairly specialist. We have a lot of local music by which I mean great bands from Derry as well as the north and south
of Ireland. We’re very well known for our support of Irish music of all genres. A lot of artists send their CDs to us so we’re quite niche in that respect, which really helps us, and we promote gigs in venues big and small in the area. But, in terms of combating the
internet, we do sell online like everyone else. I’d say the balance between in-store and online is about 70:30. We’ve got a front page website about the shop where people can phone us up, but we mostly sell through third- party sellers online.
How was Record Store Day for you this year? It’s certainly highlighting the endangered species that we are but this year was fantastic: we had bands playing acoustic stuff in the shop and more playing in a bar around the corner. Anyone who bought anything in the shop on the day got a free beer.
INTERNET VS HUMAN
6 Lesley House, Foyle Street, Derry BT48 6AP t 028 7126 0770
wcooldiscsmusic.com
“It’s a case of finding your niche and fighting your corner. We’re lucky that we have a good deal of punters that still want to buy the finished product” LEE MASON, COOL DISCS
Next year Derry is the first UK City of Culture so we’re planning something very special for Record Store Day 2013. That’s all I’ll say at the moment - there’s going to be a whole week of stuff.
Do you think there’s more that the music industry could be doing to help the indie retailer? I don’t think the music industry would be in the state it’s in
today had they not become greedy and gotten into bed with the supermarkets. I think there would be a lot more independent stores about had that not happened. But there is lots of life in the
physical format. I hear people talking about the demise of HMV and I don’t think it would be a good thing for the industry if that were to happen. The real demon of the
industry is the internet and downloading, but I think even some bands are starting to realise that music is art and, if you’re just downloading stuff on a compressed file, you don’t really own anything at all. We are seeing that the cooler kids are starting to take an interest in the vinyl and everything that goes on behind
it, which is great and Record Store Day has helped that.
How confident are you about the future? All we can do is keep doing what we do. I’m asked this all the time by people that come into the shop but I love what I do. Record shops are special places. They’re a completely different experience to something like walking into a clothes shop. We get people from all
around the world here that I’ll sometimes end up having chats with for half and hour about all kinds of subjects. Don’t forget that we’re in a recession so people are really thinking about what they’re buying. Things can only get better I hope.
This week’s High Street Hero Lee Mason takes on his digital rivals ...
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