It’s been a tough few weeks for the aul’ music-retail sector. If it wasn’t the venerable Other Music locking up the store for the last time in downtown New York, it was HMV Ireland deciding to run down their operation in Ireland (again). The writing is on the wall and the wise ones are saying there’s no future in flogging music in bricks-and- mortar stores. They’ve been saying it for some time, in fairness.

However, you’ll always find an exception which bucks that narrative. In this case, the exception is Willie Meighan, who runs Rollercoaster Records in Kilkenny and is the last cat standing in the city when it comes to selling music.

“For the first time in my 26 years here, there’s no competition! It was really tough about three or four years back and I considered throwing it in on many occasions. I went without wages for a good while and there’s an amazing young fella, Dave Holland, working with me here who worked for months for free because he wanted us to survive. I think once you realise you’ll never get rich or retire early, it’ll all be fine.”

Multinational model

Meighan is not in the least bit surprised that HMV has failed again. “The multinational model of ‘stack them high, sell them low’ hasn’t a hope in this day and age. Record stores are a niche industry and I think our customers trust us to be honest with them and not try to sell them any old rubbish.”

Developing relationships with your customers in a business where all the action has moved from Main Street to online is easier said than done.

“It’s corny, but we’d consider a huge amount of customers to be friends too and would hope the feeling is reciprocated.

“We’ve got a ridiculously loyal bunch of customers and I certainly think there’s a much greater awareness of shopping local in recent times. The community ethos of record stores is very much alive and well and the ones still standing are those that always went about their business the right way.”

Most people would be happy enough with that kind of business, but Meighan thinks it’s time for Rollercoaster to expand into touring and releasing records. The retail side of the house may be iffy in the current environment, but there are just as many promoters and record label bosses who’d also have plenty of negative things to say about the state of their respective domains at the present time.

“We’ve been promoting gigs in Kilkenny for many years,” says Meighan, “and the tours with Yorkston/Thorne/ Khan in August and Aidan Knight in September are a natural progression. The record was something we’d always wanted to do and we fell in love with Malojian. They had never played down here until last August and went from 30 to 100 to 170 paying punters in the short time since then.

Meighan doesn’t see either tours or record releases suddenly providing Rollercoaster with a big input of cash. Instead, he sees it as another way to associate the shop with people who’ve been making music he likes and admires.

A great buzz

“I have made a living from music for 26 years and I thought I better give a bit back. There’s a great buzz from seeing a great gig you helped put together coming off.

“We’ll see how the album goes and we would certainly consider it again if the right act appears. The main thing is not to over-stretch and see the whole thing go arse-up.”