Red Cat Records: An artist-owned and operated record store

An article on  the store and the growing popularity of vinyl is in today’s Globe And Mail in the B.C. section. Here is the link below:

Globe and Mail Story

Watch Dave (pre-english breakfast tea) mumble his way through enthusing about the benefits of listening to vinyl & giving a little tour of Red Cat Records. Filmed by Dharm Makwana.

We have two tickets up for grabs to the Spiritualized concert on september 13th. All you have to do is tell us your sketchiest or most memorable street food story on Granville street (pizza, hot dogs, falafel, etc..) and how it looked when you brought it up? ahem… send your submissions to redcatrecords@gmail.com and the winner will be sent an email and their story posted on the red cat site!

Last week I phoned A&B sound for a customer and talked to a very unpleasant and seemingly ruffled human. I guess he had good reason to be. One week later and A&B is closing their last 2 stores in Vancouver. So gone are A&B, Sam the Record Man and Tower records in the States. An extremely competitive market, changing formats, and increased customer awareness seem to be too much for the larger stores to handle. A look at the Music business sees a major shift from big labels to many smaller independent labels- why? The obvious answer- better music- is true, but people would likely not be able to find out about these under-promoted and under-funded bands without the global and instant access that the internet has given us.

Thank you, the internet.

But the net can only go so far. Our experience shows that people want respect and community- maybe the bigger stores had a harder time providing that. And I think that small businesses are generally far more interesting and fun in any case. A look out the window on Main street sees all sorts of fancy new colors and independent shops- the attitude on the street is one of excitement and change.

Long Live The Indies!

LL

Here is a link to the A&B story…

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=18a50f42-50f9-4888-be22-455bf095271e

Thanks to everyone for braving the questionable Red Cat A/C for a great performance by Vancougar in celebration of the just released “Canadian Tuxedo” out now on Mint Records. Make sure to pick up a copy on either cd or vinyl, and here are a few photos of the show taken by Adam P.W. Smith.