The Long Ear celebrates 45th anniversary with big sale

Forty-five years ago (Oct. 1, 1973, to be exact), Terry and Deon Borchard, a pair of “long-haired newlyweds,” decided to turn their passion for music into a business and opened the Long Ear in Big Bear Lake, California.

Inventory included 400 LPs, 88 8-tracks, three cassettes, incense, macramé and sand candles. Eventually stereo equipment also came to be sold in the store.

Three years later, the Borchard’s moved the Long Ear from a 480-sq.-ft. space to a 6,000-foot building.

In 1981, the Borchards made space for CDs, though it took six months to sell the first disc, and in 1985, the store moved to Coeur d’Alene, reopening Nov. 6.

Vinyl lost its shine around 1990, due to lack of availability and demand, but cassettes quickly replaced them. And in 2008, vinyl reclaimed its crown thanks to Record Store Day.

The Long Ear has been a fixture of Coeur d’Alene since 1985, so to celebrate the store’s 45th birthday, the Borchard’s are holding the biggest sale in the store’s history.

All new vinyl will be 33 percent off, new CDs will be 20 percent off and everything else will be 45 percent off.

If that weren’t enough of an incentive to stop by, there will also be cake.