Throughout the seventies and eighties, and well into the nineties, I was a frequent customer of Aron's Records, following them from one location to another as they got larger and larger. The first two were on Melrose Avenue, across from Fairfax High School, opened by a gent named Manny Aron who (I think) I sometimes chatted with. We never exchanged names but he acted like he owned the place.
This was the first Aron's Records, which was about the size of a box of Raisinets. By around 1973, the place had became so crowded with customers that you often had to wait outside on the sidewalk for someone to leave before you could go in and elbow your way to a bin. I learned to go at odd hours and unless I simply couldn't physically browse enough of the store, I always went home with a pile of cheap used LPs and promo copies. That was one of the big features of Aron's and one of its secrets. People in the music business were always receiving free review copies of new albums and they'd bring them in to Aron's to trade. I don't think I ever went in without seeing someone hauling in a pile of records to swap for store credit.
As I said, by '73 the space problem became impossible. The guy I think was Manny was always telling customers that he had thousands of used albums stashed in nearby garages and warehouses. He just had too many to display in the store…so he got a bigger store. He moved one block east to one that was about five times the size. The space he vacated was soon occupied by a new comic book shop called Golden Apple run by a gentleman in the record business named Bill Liebowitz. The real estate must have been lucky because Bill was soon having the same problems of space and he wound up moving one block east to a large storefront next to the new Aron's.
Golden Apple is still there but in 1990, Aron's moved into an even bigger space over on Highland Avenue. And soon it will close. In fact, it's currently having its big closeout sale.
Not that I'm typical of anything in this world but I'm probably part of the cause. I rarely buy CDs in stores these days and I hadn't set foot in Aron's since about 1995. I'm told that the rare items they come across are more likely to be sold on eBay than in the shop. There just aren't the warm bodies coming in like before as more and more of us purchase on the Internet and download music. A large outlet of Amoeba Music, which takes old CDs in trade, recently opened not far from Aron's and I suspect that has not helped their customer traffic, either. A lot of folks seem to think Amoeba has become what Aron's used to be, and that it's friendlier and offering a better selection.
A while back, I wrote about how used book stores were going the way of the Passenger Pigeon. And I had to admit that while I loved going into them, once upon a time, I hadn't been to one in years. Same thing with old record shops and even the independent sellers of new CDs. It's becoming a world where things like books and CDs are sold primarily on the Internet and the few physical stores are primarily large chains. Something about this bothers me but I have to admit that I'm as culpable as anyone of contributing to the change. I can't expect stores to stay open just because I once liked going in but would now rather make my purchases sitting here at my computer.