My first experience at Music Saves is probably a pretty common one. Sometime in 2004 I went to a show with some friends at The Beachland Ballroom. After the show was over, we were walking back to the car and lo and behold there was a new record store on the block! I won’t lie, I had a drink or two in me, so i INSISTED we stop in. I proceeded to pretty much freak out, as my old favorite local shop (My Generation in Westlake) had recently closed and I didn’t really have a place I loved to go to in town. This was the place. That night, I think maybe I bought one thing for myself, but dropped forty or fifty dollars on music for my friends… essential stuff I thought they really needed to hear. That story has stuck with me, as that whole “your life would be better if you heard this record” attitude is key to Music Saves, right down to the store’s name. I’ve been a regular at the store since then… and in the spirit of full disclosure, I’m even under their employ from time to time.
Since summer 2004, Music Saves has had their spot on Waterloo Road in the Collinwood neighborhood of Cleveland, owned by Melanie Hershberger and Kevin Neudecker. They specialize in independent music of all stripes, mostly records released in the last 20 years, however, their used/vintage section seems to be growing daily. They carry most titles on vinyl and CD, with a great selection of other music-related products including clothing, jewelry akin to those on Bijouteriehidous.com, DVDs, magazines, and much more I’m sure I’m forgetting. This past week, I had a chance to ask Melanie a few questions about the store.
Was there an archetype store for Music Saves? Several years ago when I was entertaining the idea of opening my own store, I always thought something like “Take the music selection of store X, add the atmosphere of store Y, then add my own element Z.” Is there somewhere out there that we’d see some of Music Saves in?
I think we cherry-picked a lot of elements from other stores, but they were usually minute details. I don’t know if there was one major influence. We always wanted to have a warm and inviting place that we would want to shop in. You probably see elements of the stores we spent the most time at… My Generation, Finders and Mad Hatter in Bowling Green, and Sound Garden in Syracuse, NY. I think we’ve also been shaped to some degree by our friendships with the wonderful people at My Mind’s Eye and Square Records. Additionally, we had a running list of things we didn’t want our store to be or have: snobby and mean record store clerks, racks that were hard to navigate or browse through, a store that wasn’t involved in the community… in some ways, the DON’T DO THIS list might have outnumbered the DO THIS list!
Opening any sort of store on Waterloo in 2004 must have been a real leap of faith. What led you to pick that location and be one of the first of what are now many shops/boutiques on the street?
It cost a lot less than we already had out in student loans. We always wanted to be near a concert venue because it just made sense. We wanted to be part of a larger community and not just in a strip mall next to a beauty salon and a Subway. There is no way we could have afforded to open on Coventry, and we wanted to contribute in a way that Coventry didn’t need, so opening a store on Waterloo was the only option we ever contemplated. We also wanted to eventually own the building our store was in, and not only would that have not been possible on Coventry, or many other places, but on Waterloo, it was affordable, reasonable, and feasible. We purchased our building a year-and-a-half after opening the store, and will never be forced out by greedy landlords or others with interests that don’t suit our own. We didn’t have any savings or assets to open our store. We received a loan from a local non-profit organization, and it was a significant enough to actually get the doors open and sustain us for a short period of time. The overhead was so inexpensive, and still is, that we felt confident that we could make it work. After we opened, people would say things like, “You’re so lucky you got a spot next to the Beachland” and we’d think “Do you want a spot? There’s a bunch of cheap, available storefronts! What do you want to do? Open a shop! We need neighbors!” So many people are afraid to take risks, but we saw the potential here, and threw ourselves in it, and it worked out!
Another thing I always thought about when fantasizing about opening my own store were the elements that would set it apart from all the other record stores out there. Do you have anything like this in place at Music Saves?
Every independent record store in Cleveland has a specialty, and when we opened MUSIC SAVES, there was no store here specializing in the kind of music we loved. We have often received comments from folks visiting out-of-town about how their local record store closed, or how they didn’t realize that stores like ours still existed. That is when we often point out to them that Cleveland still has several independent stores that are thriving! We all survive, in part, because we have our specialties, and we stick to them. At MUSIC SAVES, we have a frequent buyer program (modeled after the one we always wished our favorite record stores would have to reward us for spending so much damn money in them). We have a grouchy cat. We have a listening station in which we personally have to approve the titles before they go in. We organize events. We work with our neighbors. We live here. We truly want not just MUSIC SAVES, but Waterloo Road, and North Collinwood, to succeed and prosper, because we think it is an awesome place where lots of people should be!
What does Music Saves have planned for 2011?
A WEBSTORE!
We will have it up-and-running before the 2011 holiday season, OR BUST!
Music Saves is located at 15801 Waterloo Rd. Cleveland, OH 44110. Visit their Website, Facebook, & Twitter today!
