2012

“Your generation, not the one before you, not the one after you — your generation — decided to steal music.”

By far the most popular suggestion so far has been that we should have a cafe mostly by people who seem oblivious that we have already tried the idea. Even when we were busier most of the business was after 4pm. Lunch time trade for several years now seems to have been lost to people […]

A few people have complained that we don’t stock new releases or at least “the new releases they want”. I know exactly what they mean especially in reference to shops like the excellent Piccadilly in Manchester. When we moved to the Grassmarket I made a very conscious decision to stock more leftfield, unusual, obscure (pick […]

Those who read all of the blog about closing did get exactly the message I was trying to give. However those who diddn’t read it fully or relied on newspaper headlines may have got the wrong idea. I have set a deadline of 6th January to shut our doors. As I say I had to […]

A quick apology for replying to almost nobody today. There have been 300+ interactions on twitter, dozens of emails, 35 comments on facebook and 7 comments on the blog that I will try to look at tonight. Over 5,000 people read the blog just today. I will work through them all and post an update […]

We have been in the Grassmarket for two years now and if I’m honest we’ve exceeded all my expectations of how well the shop would be received. The various events we have hosted from in-stores to art exhibitions and film showings have gone well to say the least and we’ve had thousands of visitors from […]

Avalanche Top 20 best selling albums of 2012   x 1.  The Twilight Sad – No One Can Ever Know 2.  Meursault – Something for The Weakemed 3.  Leonard Cohen – Old Ideas 4.  Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Allelujah Don’t Bend Ascend 5.  Admiral Fallow – Tree Bursts In Snow 6.  Olympic Swimmers – […]

After great feedback from the students this year both the first years and those returning I’ve taken their advice to take Avalanche to the students in an attempt to convince those that maybe never go to the shops these days that perhaps shops do have something to offer they can’t find online. Certainly the pleasure […]

I’ve been asked for a few quotes recently especially as the documentary Last Shop Standing is being shown in Edinburgh in December so I thought I had better ask for the latest figures as I was being asked about the resurgence of the independents and vinyl. Don’t shoot the messenger. The figures speak for themselves […]

Queues had already started to form outside HMVs all over the country after their announcement that they intended to concentrate on delivering a successful Christmas. An HMV spokesman said they intended to deliver all successful Christmases by the 23rd December and they would last a week giving customers the opportunity to also purchase a Happy […]