Being a pretty rural area overall, Berkshire County, unlike more populated areas, still seems to be able to retain a good portion of its individuality in a world that constantly seems to be becoming more homogeneous. For the county, this seems to apply to retail outlets of most wares, including compact discs and other music-related merchandise.
There are quite of few retailers in the county that sell CDs. Three of them are parts of chains and carry large inventories of new CDs and other merchandise: Best Buy and FYE at the Berkshire Mall in Lanesboro and Coconuts Music and Video in Pittsfield.
Wood Brothers Music in Pittsfield, which specializes in musical instruments, has a decent amount of used CDs for sale, most of which are of the rock genre.
Furthermore a North Adams store called Hairpin Tune Music Studio has a decent selection of used CDs for sale. And there's a place in Lee called the Berkshire Record Outlet, which is said to stock thousands of titles, primarily of the classical genre.
Although there are all the following places to buy music, there are only
three independently-owned retail outlets in the county that stock a large amount of new popular music CDs; two are practically side-by-side on Main Street in Great Barrington, White Knight Records and Tune Street, and the third, Toonerville Trolley Records, can be found at 131 Water St. in Williamstown.
White Knight Records has been in business - or "rockin,'" according to a sign on the door - since 1979. The store, which sits at 288 Main St. in Great Barrington, is owned by Ron White, who has lived in the town since 1961.
After college, when he had trouble finding a chemistry job and grew tired of having to drive to Pittsfield to buy records, he decided to open a record shop, he said. "The ideas kinda came together."
Besides a large, diverse selection of new and used CDs, White Knight carries a "dwindling" inventory of cassettes, a few DVDs and a decent selection of records, which are offerings to White when people move or just want to get rid of them, he said. In addition the store sells CD and portable CD player cases, CD cleaners, posters, buttons, and one or two magazine titles.
Newer CDs range in price from $12 to $17, although some are $9.99, White said. Some of the used compact discs are cheaper than that.
White said he doesn't know how many CD titles he stocks, adding, "Sometimes I don't want to know." His inventory is broken up into rock, pop, jazz, classical, blues, reggae, hip-hop, soundtracks and country.
At 294 Main St., about two or three storefronts from White Knight, lies Tune Street, an establishment that specializes in custom home installations of audio, video and home theater equipment but that also carries 8,000 to 10,000 CD titles, said its owner, John Conlin.
As of this month, Tune Street has been in business for 10 years, said Conlin, who has lived in South Egremont for the past 10 years with his wife, Cindy.
Besides new and used CDs, Conlin sells DVDs, cases, furniture storage, portable CD players and disc cleaners. In addition, the store last month began selling super audio CDs, which he said are multi-channel CDs that are produced using better recording techniques and that, with the right equipment, transmit better sound quality than regular CDs when played.
With rock being the biggest seller, the store's CDs range in price from $9 to $17, he said.
In the other end of the county,Toonerville Trolley Records has been in business for 27 years, according to its owner, Hal March, a Vermont native who now lives in Williamstown.
March has an interesting story as to how he got started in music retail and how he came up with the name for his store. Years ago March decided he needed a change from his job as a high school English teacher in Danby, Vt. "I became more interested in music, and it was time for a change, so I said why not try and sell music."
He lived in the Vermont countryside at the time and, since he likes to travel, he decided to "hit the road" instead of moving. For a year or two, March travelled from town to town in and college to college in Vermont, selling records out of a "boyertown" van, which he said is like one of those food trucks that serves construction sites, except one could walk in and stand up in his.
"It was great," March said. "When the weather was good, it was fun. When the weather wasn't good, it was not so fun."
Although he enjoyed it, he was pretty limited in what he could carry and had no permanent address, so he looked for a place where he would have one. He moved into a space, adjacent to his current location, where he was for a year or less and then to his current address.
His store, March said, is named after a Sunday comic strip from the 1930s or '40s called "Toonerville Trolley" because his van, to a degree, looked like a trolley in that strip. On a wall in the rear of his store, he has a framed "Toonerville Trolley" stamp, part of a collection of stamps that came out a couple of years ago celebrating early Sunday strips.
In addition to new and used CDs, March's store carries a "few" cassettes, records, a number of box sets, guitar strings, headphones, cables, batteries, magazines, blank casettes and CDs, and portable cassette and CD players, as well as as the car adapters for the latter.
His CDs, new and used, range in price from $2 to $19, the price for some current imports, he said.
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Winter Storm Warning Issued for Berkshires
Another snowstorm is expected to move through the region overnight on Friday, bringing 5 to 8 inches of snow. This is updated from Thursday's winter weather advisory.
The National Weather Service in Albany, N.Y., has posted a winter storm warning for all of Berkshire County and parts of eastern New York State beginning Friday at 4 p.m. through Saturday at 1 p.m.
The region could see heavy to moderate snowfall rates of 1 to 2 inches per hour overnight, tapering off Saturday morning to flurries.
Drivers should exercise caution on Friday night and Saturday morning, as travel conditions may be hazardous.
Saturday night should be clear and calm, but warming temperatures means freezing rain Sunday night and rain through Monday with highs in the 40s. The forecast isn't much better through the week as temperatures dip back into the teens with New Year's Eve looking cloudy and frigid.
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