I dropped by the local Book and Bible House on Saturday and I was somewhat impressed...

The Book and Bible House has a fair sized selection of CCM/adult contemporary/pop, rock and metal. On one side of the display in rock and metal they had modern and classic bands like Petra, Whiteheart, Newsboys, Sonicflood,etc, and  newer rock bands. In metal they had Stryper, Living Sacrifice, Decefyer Down, Demon Hunter, Starflyer 59, and several current metal/hardcore bands that I cannot remember the names. I was somewhat impressed even though I'm not into most of the bands.

On the other side of the display they had praise and worship. I was thinking about talking to the manager and advising to increase sales they should do a separate metal, rock and pop/CCM section with labels indicating the 3 general sections like you see in major retailers like HMV. All the bands were in alphabetical order and one may not know what style of music some of the bands are.

I try to support brick-and-mortar stores as much as I can.  Sadly that still isn't much.  For a while my local Family Christian store stocked Retroactive Records stuff which was cool.  I actually got a Saint CD there.  Stryper's Second Coming and No More Hell to Pay both showed up there about a month after the release dates - after I purchased them elsewhere.  I ordered Steve Taylor - Goliath at his website after I couldn't find it there.  Where did I eventually find it?  Filed under "G" for "Goliath."   I took the liberty of moving it.

Except for books and the occasional DVD, it is nearly impossible to support my local stores.  Of course, the only Christian bookstores around anymore are Lifeway (Priceway).  Their music section is getting smaller and smaller.  Most of it is the putrid generic pop stuff that inundates Christian radio.  I buy all of my music from web stores.

Mis-filed music - happens all the time.

timekeeper wrote:Mis-filed music - happens all the time.

Oh you guys take the liberty of re-alphabetizing CD's you find misfiled too? I find myself doing that as well.

Back in the day I used to buy some CDs at Mardels. I havent been there in forever but the nice thing was Mardels would actually let you put the CD in a CD player setup at a table and listen to the CD with headphones before buying it. I spent alot of time listening to CDs there before buying. They were always quite expensive though. It wasnt out of the ordinary to see albums for $16-18.

Back when I was in highschool I had this dream of opening a physical Christian metal record shop (a physical store) locally. It would be great and fun but I think a shop like that would be destined to fail given the overhead and the low demand

bjorn agin wrote:

timekeeper wrote:Mis-filed music - happens all the time.

Oh you guys take the liberty of re-alphabetizing CD's you find misfiled too? I find myself doing that as well.

Had Steve Taylor and the Perfect Foil - Goliath been under "T" "S" or "P" I would have found it and probably left it alone.  But "G"?!?

Metal Blessing Radio wrote:Back when I was in highschool I had this dream of opening a physical Christian metal record shop (a physical store) locally. It would be great and fun but I think a shop like that would be destined to fail given the overhead and the low demand

This sort of thing existed (in a sense). True Tunes Etc. in Wheaton Illinois. It was a great store for finding Christian metal, rock, alternative etc.  I was like a kid in a candy store the times I was able to shop there in the early to mid 90's. Sometime in the mid to late 90's the store closed and the business moved exclusively to the internet. John Thompson soon sold it or transferred the operations of the business over to another company. I placed a rather big order with them at that point and it was badly botched (missing CD's, duplicates of others). John tried to sort things out, but I never got all that I ordered. At the time I could sense that he was frustrated with their processing of orders. Sometime after that I think they got out of selling music.

I forgot to mentioned they had the new Steve Taylor CD as well. It was months since I was at the store. I usually order online as most of the stuff isn't available locally.