Dj’s To Close Mall-Based Music Stores Owner Blames Competition From Big Chains For Closures

DJ’s Sound City, a fixture in Spokane’s music market for almost 20 years, is closing two of its three stores by the end of the month.

The future of the company’s newest location, in downtown’s Crescent Court, also is uncertain, said owner Dave Holmes. Whether that store remains open depends on other retail developments in the city’s downtown core, he said.

Ticketmaster also announced last week that it will move its Spokane outlets from DJ’s to Pay Less Drug Stores by the end of the month. Ticketmaster will relocate to four Pay Less locations at University City Shopping Center, Northgate, the Parkade Plaza downtown and Southgate on Regal.

A variety of factors caused DJ’s decline, Holmes said, including stiff competition with discount stores and decreased traffic at music stores in malls.

“I’m closing the mall-based stores, and that’s a trend,” Holmes said. “The customers are not going to the mall to buy music.”

Indeed, the May 16 issue of Rolling Stone magazine predicted that of an estimated 1,000 music stores closures this year, most will come from the 4,500 mall stores.

While DJ’s has chosen to compete head to head with national retailers working from larger bank accounts, other local music store owners say they’ve survived only by carving out a niche in the market.

“Dave’s taken the big guys on,” said Bob Gallagher, owner of Four Thousand Holes, a music store on north Monroe. “He’s a victim of the times.”

At Four Thousand Holes, for example, Gallagher specializes in introducing new music to the Spokane market.

“We kind of break bands,” Gallagher said. And, he added, “It’s rock and roll only.”

DJ’s opened in Spokane in 1977 at NorthTown Mall, when the development was still an open shopping center. Its U-City store followed in 1980. The Crescent Court store opened a year and a half ago.

A South Hill DJ’s was open for two years, from 1989 to 1991, but closed when competition with nearby Hastings Books Music and Video became too intense.

Competition with huge discount stores also is to blame for the decline of DJ’s two mall stores, Holmes said.

“The real problem in the music industry is that music became a commodity and not something people went to a music store for,” Holmes said. “You go to Fred Meyer or Target and you can buy a package of toilet paper and a CD.”

, DataTimes