read in the newspaper that music shop white noise in utrecht will quit soon. apparently their sales have not only decreased due to the download phenomenon, but also because of the presence of the megastore ‘mediamarkt’, which often sells top cd’s for prices below the cost price. years ago i visited the shop now and then, because they had quite some bootlegs. recently there wasn’t much need for me to go there, so i won’t miss ‘white noise’ that much, but i don’t like the principle that only the large general stores survive, while all the specialized independent shops go down.
today i also visited another shop in the city, ‘de grammophoonwinkel’. to my regret they had closed their second-hand basement, one of the few places where i bought some stuff in utrecht now and then. part of their second-hand collection can now be found upstairs, but it looks far less interesting and I missed the underground appeal of the cellar. is this the beginning of the end?