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27-664: Jeanie Patterson and her then-husband, Jay took over the Sweetwater Saloon in 1979. Jeanie Patterson retired as the owner in December 31, 1998 by selling it to Becky and Thomas J. Steere, an Autodesk project director. This original Sweetwater closed in 2007. In January, 2012 it was relocated to the Masonic Lodge across from Mill Valley’s City Hall. “For years, Sweetwater was the place many of us local and visiting musicians headed to when we were looking to play for fun, Well, our clubhouse

54-464: A documentary at the club on January 7, 1992 featuring John Lee Hooker, Bonnie Raitt and Ry Cooder . In 2004, the establishment faced eviction by landlords who raised the rent to more than what the owners claimed they could pay. It was not disputed that the new rent was fair, and the owners of the Sweetwater entered into a month-to-month lease. In September 2007 Sweetwater closed because the landlord of

81-520: A full-service restaurant and on-site catering service. 37°54′20″N 122°32′56″W  /  37.90556°N 122.54889°W  / 37.90556; -122.54889 Village Music Village Music was a record store in Mill Valley, California owned by John Goddard. It was nationally recognized for its extensive collection of old, rare and specialty records. Village Music was also known for its in-store performances and anniversary parties at

108-603: A larger selection than department stores. In many countries including the UK and the U.S., the specialty record store business is booming with hundreds opening from 2013 to 2016. The County of Los Angeles currently has more independent record stores than any other county in the U.S. with over 50 stores ranging from Amoeba Records in Hollywood (which bills itself as the "world's largest independent record store") to The Record Parlour, where patrons can purchase, produce and perform music. In

135-651: A recent study, Brighton, England has the highest number of record stores per 100,000 residents in the world. With the demise of chains such as Sam Goody (except for 2 stores) and Tower Records in the 2000s, there remained no national retail chains focused on sales of recorded music except for FYE . Although music sales continued in dedicated sections of video stores (until their demise) and at big box retailers such as Best Buy , Walmart and Target . Most record retailers today are independent retailers. Spillers Records in Cardiff , Wales , founded in 1894 by Henry Spiller,

162-802: Is Tower Records in Shibuya, Tokyo and the largest in the United States is Amoeba Records in Los Angeles. The largest record shop in the Nordic countries is Bengans in Goteborg, Sweden, which opened in 1974. In some countries, electronics stores and department store chains have very large, comprehensive CD departments which now also sell vinyl records. These include Saturn , Media Markt and Fnac (Europe) and El Corte Inglés (Spain). Saturn in Cologne, Germany claims to now have

189-475: Is back — and it belongs to all of us. Woo-hoo — Mill Valley finally has its playpen back!”” said former Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir, one of the investors in the new state-of-the-art venue at 19 Corte Madera Ave. Village Music: Last of the Great Record Stores , a documentary film by Gillian Grisman and Monroe Grisman (daughter and son of San Francisco Bay Area musician David Grisman ) debuted at

216-576: Is reputed to be the oldest record shop in the world. It originally specialised in the sale of phonographs, cylinders and shellac discs. Shellac and then vinyl records were popular right up to the 1990s when CDs became the most popular form of recorded music. Soon, however, mail order and internet selling caused prices to fall, and with the advent of downloads and streaming, many record shops were forced to close. The vinyl revival has however increased income for record shops, and many new record shops and even chains of record shops have opened. Major chains in

243-1064: The Mill Valley Film Festival in October 2012. John Goddard, the owner of Village Music held twice-yearly parties at the nearby Sweetwater Saloon and invited his favorite blues and R&B performers to perform in front of packed invite-only guests. The concert film documents Village Music, Sweetwater, and the music community in Mill Valley in the late 60s through the closing of Village Music record store in 2007 and contains performances by Elvis Costello , Bob Weir , Ry Cooder , Nick Lowe , John Sebastian , Dan Hicks , Huey Lewis , Bonnie Raitt , John Lee Hooker , Pop Staples , Jerry Garcia , and Carlos Santana with many performances at Sweetwater. The band Hot Tuna recorded two live albums at Sweetwater in 1992 Live at Sweetwater , and Live at Sweetwater Two , featuring guest performances by local figures Bob Weir and Wavy Gravy . BBC Television shot

270-608: The Mill Valley Film Festival in October 2012. The concert film tells the story of the birth of Village Music through the timeline of the final days of the closing of the store by its owner, John Goddard. The film documents Sweetwater Music Hall , and the music community in Mill Valley in the late 1960s through the closing of Village Music in 2007 and contains performances by Elvis Costello, Bob Weir, Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe, John Sebastian, Dan Hicks, Huey Lewis, Bonnie Raitt, John Lee Hooker, Pop Staples, Jerry Garcia, and Carlos Santana. "Some of my best discoveries have been made in what may be

297-581: The Sweetwater Saloon by well-known musicians who were also Village Music store customers. A documentary about the store's history and the surrounding music community, Village Music: Last of the Great Record Stores , was released in 2012. The store closed in 2007. Village Music opened as a mom‐and‐pop music store in 1960 in the Sequoia Theater building, and moved the following year to 9 East Blithedale Ave, where it remained until closing. John Goddard

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324-593: The 1960s and 1970s, between 500 and 1,000 black-owned record stores operated in the American South, and probably twice as many in the United States as a whole. African American entrepreneurs embraced record stores as key vehicles for economic empowerment and critical public spaces for black consumers at a time that many black-owned businesses were closing amid desegregation. In addition to shops that sell new products, many record shops specialize in second hand , vintage, or used collectible records, which they purchase from

351-472: The 21st century, record stores mainly sell CDs, vinyl records and, in some cases, DVDs of movies , TV shows , cartoons and concerts . Some record stores also sell music-related items such as posters of bands or singers, related clothing items and even merchandise such as bags and coffee mugs. Even when CDs became popular during the 1990s, people in English-speaking countries still continued using

378-1292: The UK and North America that have closed in recent years are Our Price, Zavvi, The Wherehouse , Andys Records , Music and Video Club and Media Play . HMV have closed all stores in North America and Ireland, although still present in the UK. Virgin Megastores have closed all stores in North America and Europe. Tower Records has closed all stores in North America except for one store in Mexico . Rough Trade is, however, currently expanding, with two shops in London, one in Cambridge, one Megastore in New York and plans to further expand. Current record shop chains in Europe are now HMV (UK), Tower Records (Ireland), Free Record shop (Luxembourg: complete stores, Netherlands: shop-in shop), Velvet Music, Plato, (both Netherlands) and Golden Discs (Ireland). Record shop chains still present in North America include Sunrise Records (Canada), its subsidiary FYE (For Your Entertainment), which in turn owns

405-469: The United Kingdom the national chain style of selling records and tapes developed with Our Price , itself originally a small independent business founded in the early 1970s that expanded nationwide. The current record store chains in the UK are HMV, Fopp , and Rough Trade . The enormous increase in sales of vinyl records in the 2000s has provided an opportunity for growth in some sectors. According to

432-406: The building found it necessary to renovate the somewhat run-down property and declined to offer the club terms for a new lease after the renovation's anticipated completion. The owners of the building were also the longtime owners of a very popular Italian restaurant next door that had been established in the 1960s. A spokesman for the family that owned the building and restaurant said at the time that

459-538: The building would undergo long-overdue repairs and maintenance and that the new Sweetwater owners knew about renovation plans since their lease had expired two years previously. "We've been in this community for 45 years," he said. "If we wanted to throw the Sweetwater out, we would have done it a long time ago.". Becky and Thom Steere, the owners of Sweetwater in Mill Valley began operating the 100-seat cabaret-dinner theater Larkspur Cafe Theatre on July 1, 2007. On Saturday, January 21, 2012, four years and four months after

486-611: The composer Sir Edward Elgar and had four floors of CDs, LPs, singles and DVDs. During the ‘60s, the in-store recording studio was used by Brian Epstein to record the Beatles' first demo. The revamped store was reopened in 2013 attended by many of the world's biggest stars including Paul McCartney, Robbie Williams and Elton John. The largest record shop in Ireland is Tower Records in Dublin, the largest in Asia

513-428: The greatest record collector store in the world: Village Music in Mill Valley. Any shop that confronts you with its own ever changing 'Hall of Fame' (which might include a Lester Young , The Fairfield Four , some Bill Monroe and the great Otis Rush Anthologies ) and a rack called 'Sometimes a Cover Is Enough,' featuring such classics as 'Music for Sleepwalkers,' must be doing something right" - Elvis Costello , from

540-524: The last 2 Sam Goody stores. Outside of Europe and North America, the current record store chains include Virgin Megastores, HMV and Tower Records. The HMV Vault in Birmingham, England is now the world's largest record shop, opening its doors in October 2019. Before this, the former HMV in Oxford Street, London, England claimed to be the world's largest record store. The shop was originally opened in 1921 by

567-461: The liner notes to his 1995 studio album, Kojak Variety Record shop A record shop or record store is a retail outlet that sells recorded music. Per the name, in the late 19th century and the early 20th century, record shops only sold gramophone records . But over the course of the 20th century, record shops sold the new formats that were developed, such as eight track tapes , compact cassettes and compact discs (CDs). Today, in

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594-558: The original Sweetwater ceased operations, it reopened as Sweetwater Music Hall, owned and operated by a new management and investor group and located in the recently renovated lower floor of Mill Valley's Masonic Temple (opposite Mill Valley's City Hall), held its inaugural music event, a "trade only" party featuring local musician Austin De Lone's band with guest performers including Jerry Harrison (local resident and former lead guitarist for Talking Heads ). The new Sweetwater Music Hall includes

621-605: The public or other dealers, and sell for a profit. Some used record stores also sell used CDs and DVD movies. It is not uncommon for such shops to contain several items priced in the hundreds or thousands of US dollars (or local equivalent) due to their rarity, as well as items that are fairly common for much less. This type of record shop has also faced fierce competition from Internet sites like eBay and Discogs , where people can sell their own records and avoid "the middle man ". Some pawnshops sell used CDs. Many customers prefer to buy vinyl from small, independent record stores with

648-444: The term "record shop" to describe a shop selling sound recordings. With the vinyl revival of the 21st century, often generating more income than CDs, the name is again accurate. Prior to the 2000s, more record shops were privately run, independent businesses, meaning that prices could differ from town to town and store to store. In the 2000s, record shops are largely chain-owned and thus prices are fairly similar in different towns. In

675-584: The walls. Goddard published an open letter about the closing of Village Music in September 2007. Goddard held twice-yearly parties at the nearby Sweetwater Saloon and invited his favorite blues and R&B performers to perform in front of packed invite-only guests. Some of the notable musicians who performed or attended: Village Music: Last of the Great Record Stores , a documentary film by Gillian Grisman and Monroe Grisman (daughter and son of San Francisco Bay Area musician David Grisman ) debuted at

702-539: The world's largest selection of records. The world's largest store selling records, CDs and other related and non-related products is Saturn in Hamburg, Germany. This former department store is the world's largest electronic retailer with 6 floors selling consumer products related to music and electric appliances including record players. Record stores played a vital role in African American communities for many decades. In

729-547: Was born in Mill Valley and in 1957, at the age of 13, he started working at the store's progenitor, a branch of San Rafael-based Marin Music Center. Goddard purchased Village Music in 1968. The store was known for its extensive collection of old, rare, and specialty records and rare memorabilia covered almost every inch of the walls and ceiling. Items such as Robert Johnson 's gold record award, Janis Joplin 's police mug shot, and Howlin' Wolf 's first royalty check were hung on

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