New Melbourne Record Store Opens
News posted Friday, July 1 2011 at 04:00 PM.
Related: Wooly Bully.
Melbourne’s Missing Link may be up for sale and Brisbane’s Rocking Horse on the verge of closure, but that hasn’t deterred husband and wife Mitch Marks and John Douglas (formerly of Fitzroy's TITLE) from opening a record store.
After eight months of planning, the New Zealand-born pair have opened Wooly Bully, a record store/café/comic book hybrid right down the road from the sadly defunct Arthouse on Errol Street in North Melbourne. It’ll stock a carefully selected range of records (LPs and 7”s) and cassettes covering “garage, punk and weird stuff as well as some country, pop and classic curve balls”.
“It’s a specific market that reflects mine and my husband’s tastes,” Marks told M+N at the store’s “hectic” opening today (July 1). “It’s almost like we’re inviting people to come to our house and buy our stuff.”
With vinyl sales reportedly on the rise – they increased by 14 percent in 2010 according to figures by Nielsen – Marks says she’s confident Wooly Bully can succeed where other stores have failed. Their strategy: pairing niche vinyl with underground comics, food and coffee, but most importantly, not selling CDs. “I’d hate to be selling CDs right now,” she explains.
Marks says she’s not perturbed by news this week out of Brisbane that CBD institution Rocking Horse Records was about to shut up shop. In an interview published on M+N today, owner Warwick Vere said the store had been forced to downsize in order to cope with rising city rents and the threat of multinationals such as JB Hi Fi. But Marks believes Wooly Bully operates in a different market.
“We’re targeting a different, more niche audience, and we’ve got coffee, food,” she says. “It’s a good spot too. The community has been really supportive.”
Garage duo Super Wild Horses will officially open Wooly Bully at 6pm tonight, with regular in-stores expected to take place. As for the name, Marks says it’s taken from the Sam The Sham And The Pharaohs’ 1965 classic. “We thought we might as well have a song that’ll get stuck in people’s heads.”
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Wooly Bully is located at 104 Errol Street, North Melbourne. For more information click here.
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is the in-store tonight open to the public?
Just to clarify, by ''right down the road'' the story means about 850 metres (and not in the obvious direction in terms of ''down''). If you're at the old Arthouse head due west along Queensberry then turn right into Errol at the Court House Hotel...
Welcome addition to the neighbourhood (let's just hope the place doesn't get overly hipsterised - a natural fear in Nth Melb)...
ROFLLLLLLLLLLL
C'maaaaaarn. As if it won't be overrun with cool dudes! That's its market. It would go broke in six months if it wasn't 'hipsterised'. It's time to accept your fate, errbody! Stop resisting market forces!
coolz
thanks for the clarification -- forgot to include longitude and latitude coordinates. do you have them handy?
fantastic news. I can feel this working. Go!
lol. I'm at the physio next door right now.
and yeah, directions should've simply been ''opposite fandango''.
Can you please pick me up one Super Wild Horses because I can't get there on time thanks.
sif i'm going in.
there's a million ppl there btw.
THREADJACK ALERT!: New Estate, The Hunting Club and Aleks Sans Ramps @ Public Bar from 9PM if some of those million people feel like afterpartying close by.
any photographers who went to this please PM.
So what exactly are they selling at this place, apart from coffee and food?
a way of life.
...er, how did you miss the part about ''records and comics''?
great little set-up.....good luck to you both!!
is this place totally packed today? I wanted to go have a look and distract myself from the things I'm supposed to be doing but I'm not keen on crowds.
I'd guess no Mon. I'm still thinking about eating Mac and cheese though.
went in there today. not packed, but still busy.
really nice place, staff, records. highly recommended.
Is that a West Indian accent you've developed, specialaward?
just walking past last night was nuts - spilling out onto the median strip. they should have picnic blankets and treats available! be lovely in summer....
that's the 3rd cafe on that block - here's hoping they all do well.
Good selection of records in there, there were a few things I would have grabbed if I hadn't blown my budget this week. Ended up buying a Boomgates 7'' (which I got signed by one of the band members who was in there at the time!).
I'd rather hipsters live in my neighbourhood than ignorant cashed up bogans or yuppy wankers like Richmond is these days.
sound business plan!