MEET THE MAN BEHIND THE PRESERVATION OF INDEPENDENT MUSIC STORES

(AND EVERYTHING ELSE MUSIC-RELATED IN PORTLAND)

Terry Currier should be a household name. After all, he helped pioneer the in-store, fought (or barbequed) for records stores’ rights to sell used product, and has made it his life’s mission to help preserve independent record stores. He’s the owner of Music Millennium in Portland, the president of The Oregon Music Hall of Fame and Burnside Distribution, been involved on the boards for Musicfest NW and the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the Grammys, and helped form the Cascade Blues Association. On a national basis, Currier started the Coalition of Independent Music Stores.

Q: What was your first foray into the music industry?

A: I started in a record retail store in Jantzen Beach called DJ’s Sound City in ’72. I didn’t grow up listening to the radio, I didn’t know anything about recorded music, and I was lucky enough to get a job at a record store because they didn’t ask me what I knew. That first year, I just immersed myself in catching up on music and would spend my whole paycheck on records. I ended up buying like 665 records that year.

Q: How did you get involved with Music Millennium?

A: The original owner, Don MacLeod, opened Music Millennium in 1969 and sold it in 1979. The middle ownership was going to file bankruptcy in ’84 and [MacLeod] didn’t want to see the company go down, so he assumed the half a million dollar debt and what was left of the inventory, and decided to make a go at it. That’s when I decided to work for Music Millennium. I was hired on as General Manager and it took about three years, but we paid off the debt and kept going forward. From ’84 ‘till 2001, we had good increases in business. Until the Digital Age came along.

Q: Has digital downloading been the biggest hit to brick and mortar record stores?

A: We won’t blame the whole thing on digital downloading by any means. Our industry as a whole didn’t react to it properly – we could have done something to include record stores in digital delivery. Another thing that affected record stores was when a lot of the big-box retailers around the year 2000 started using music as a loss leader to get people in the store to buy other things. Circuit City, Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart – they devalued the public perception of what music was worth because they were selling it under the price we were all paying for it.

Q: Tell us about the Bar-B-Q for Retail Freedom and how the Coalition of Independent Music Stores came to be.

A: In 1993, four of the major distribution companies made policies to record stores that if they sold used CDs, they wouldn’t support them with any advertising money. Then Garth Brooks announced that he wasn’t going to let his new album be sold in stores that sold used CDs because he felt that if the CD was sold again, the songwriter should get paid again. This was shortly after he mentioned he had enough money so that his children and their children and their children and their grandchildren wouldn’t have to work for the rest of their lives. So we pulled all our Garth Brooks product off the shelf that day. The next day, I took an ad out in the weekly and invited the public to bring their Garth Brooks CDs, VHS tapes and posters to the store and we’d barbeque them on the grill. Then we decided to take it on the road and do this barbeque at record stores from Canada to Mexico. In every town, we were in some kind of media. MTV, CNN, People Magazine, you name it – everyone was following what we were doing. About three weeks after our first barbeque, all the major distributors got rid of their policy. We accomplished what we wanted and through that, met a lot of other indie stores with common concerns and ideals. That really was the catalyst for starting the Coalition, where you could get a bunch of good stores together from noncompetitive areas and work records together and be a support group and share ideas.

Q: Which endeavor takes up most of your time these days?

A: The store. I’m in there six days a week, 12 hours a day. It’s been 18 years since I’ve had a two-day weekend. But I must like it because if I didn’t, I sure wouldn’t put this much time into it. My main goal is to keep navigating Music Millennium in the right direction. I’m sure I’ll continue doing that forever and ever and ever, as long as I’m involved in the music industry – and I can’t see myself doing anything else at this point.

www.musicmillennium.com

IN THE NEWS

On their North American tour this month in support of Sub Pop debut, Furr, Blitzen Trapper will team up with Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, Horse

Feathers, Iron & Wine and The Parson Red Heads for each different leg. While in NYC on November 17, Blitzen Trapper will also make an appearance on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. The final show of the tour is scheduled for December 6 in Vancouver, BC with The Parson Red Heads.

www.blitzentrapper.net

On November 11, Portland’s Oh Captain My Captain will officially release

their new album, Recklessly She Split

the Sea, via Bladen County Records, the

label behind local mainstays The Builders

and the Butchers. The band has a show

scheduled for November 7 at Rotture.

www.myspace.com/

ohcaptain

The Shaky Hands continue touring

the US in support of their sophomore

album and recent Holocene Music/

Kill Rock Stars release, Lunglight. After parting ways with tourmates The Acorn following their November 1 date

together in Chicago, the Portland fourpiece

will make its way down the East Coast, concluding the tour in Austin, Texas on November 13.

www.myspace.com/s

hakyhands

Starfucker will return to the West Coast early this month after a week

of shows at CMJ and another week of

Midwest dates. The band has been on the

road for over a month, touring the US in

support of their new self-titled debut for

Badman Recording Co.

www.myspace.com

/starfuckerss

Experimental Dental School has been on tour for the past month as well, supporting Deerhoof on numerous dates around the US. Now a two-piece, EDS

will finish out the tour at its final show in San Francisco on November 15, the band’s old stomping grounds.

www.experimentald

entalschool.com

Portland jazz quintet Blue Cranes head down to California this month to tour in support of their album, Homing Patterns. The dates will kick off on November 20 in Chico, include an

appearance on KDVS radio show Cool as

Folk, and conclude on November 25 in San Francisco with a performance at the

Climate Music Box Series.

www.bluecranesmusi

c.com