Armidale’s my old hometown that I was born in and, for the most part, grew up in. It’s a small, unassuming town of around 25,000 people in northern New South Wales, but it does harbour a few surprises. For such a small centre, it’s not just the rural shopping destination you might expect – most of its momentum comes from a university and a large number of schools, which sees some unexpected activity for a town its size.

The latest exciting and very welcome development is a new indie music store which opened a few months ago called Eulogy Music. I’d heard huge amounts of buzz about the store from home, and when I finally visited it I was hugely impressed – it’s easily one of the best music stores I’ve been in for quite some time.

I sat down with the store’s owner, Alex Mendoza, to talk about his experiences and thoughts on operating a new specialist music store in an unlikely location. We also discuss Armidale’s local music scene and how Tamworth lacks one, how awesome reps are and his favourite releases from 2009.

JH: How would you describe the store in your own words?

AM: The store is… anti-Sanity basically if I could sum it up in a few words. [wry smile]

We’ve had a patchy run with music shops in town. A while back we had an independent store called Good Vibes. That was all cool but the owner didn’t really have a lot of interest in what people were after. He was the only place you could go to, so people would attempt to get stuff from him but the result was almost always “I can’t order it, I can’t see it here so it must not exist”, that sort of thing.

So finally Sanity arrived in town and everyone was excited: “aw yeah! Sanity’s coming! we’re gonna get whatever we want” and all that – sadly, it didn’t happen either. I don’t know if you’ve been down there…

It’s pretty bare…

Yeah. What I really wanted to do was just get a shop that had an interest in what people wanted. If I didn’t have something, you could order it – and it would be a place that would actually be interested in it, whatever it is, from whenever. Ideally, I’d do my best to track it down and find it.

It also seems like you have a shop experience that’s more about discovery – something that’s more conducive to people exploring.

Yeah, that’s the other thing – you come into the shop and you find music you’re already familiar with, but there’s also a huge range here that you might not have heard. If you’ve got the time you can come and listen to it and find some new stuff. I don’t think we’ve had that in Armidale since – well, I’m not sure if we’ve had that at all.

There’s been so much stuff coming in every week, I’m always getting new stuff and having reps call me up about stuff that’s going on and that’s really cool.

That’s a cool thing about the reps – they’re pretty down to earth for the most part, and they understand that you can’t possibly hear everything that’s coming out.

And that’s it – I can’t sit here physically and listen to every single CD and remember it all and be able to recommend everything, but the reps are good. So – well, case in point: I don’t really “get” into indie stuff, that whole genre thing. I’m more into metal and electronica, so I can’t really listen to heaps of indie and objectively say “that’s cool and this is cool, you need to listen to this” because I’m not necessarily qualified to say exactly what’s good about it. I can do that for metal – but not necessarily with indie. So that’s where the reps are really handy – they’re full of knowledge, they know everything about what they’re selling.

They send me stuff all the time and I think “this isn’t going to sell! nobody’s going to listen to this crap! this is just the shittest thing I’ve ever heard” but then quite often you’ll get someone walking in and saying “I can’t believe you’ve got this CD!” and they’re over the moon.

So what has the local response been like?

There’s been a lot of people coming in checking it out and saying “wow this is the best shop I’ve ever seen, this is as good as any shop in the city” – the shop’s already attracted some dedicated fans who come in every week checking out what’s coming in, exploring the selection and listening to stuff in the booth. I wouldn’t say it’s been overwhelming but it’s a start.

As far as being successful – I don’t know yet. I have to get through the next three to four months – because I’m pretty sure nothing will happen next month [January] – which is a little concerning! You know the saying, “90% of businesses fail in their first year”? I’ve got to get through that, so I’m still feeling out how it will go.

Do you think there’s anything unique about Armidale that’s made it easier to operate here rather than other places?

Definitely. Armidale’s a country town, but it’s not full of westies, if you know what I mean. [laughs] They’re not rural people here, it’s like a little city – we’ve got a uni here, we’ve got a lot of people that come up from the city to live here – I did, I came from Sydney.

How long have you been here?

About 15 years.

You know the place pretty well, then

Yeah, I grew up here. So that’s the thing – if you go to a lot of other small country towns you’ll find that it’s just full of country people. They’ve come from the land – like down in Tamworth, “country music capital” all that kind of thing.

Up here though, it’s like a little oasis of interesting stuff, interesting people.

It’s something funny I’ve noticed about a place like Tamworth. It’s twice the size of Armidale but it seems a little more homogenous as far as the sorts of people you’d find there go.

Which is interesting, because there’s lots of subcultures for different types of music here in Armidale, metal and all the rest. But down in Tamworth – which has fifty to sixty thousand people – they’re virtually non-existent. People come out of the woodwork when they want to but then they just scurry away. Up here I’ve found there’s just kids everywhere, all over the place – which is pretty cool.

When I opened the shop, all these kids just came in that I’d never seen before – a whole microcosm I’d never been exposed to previously.

But what actually makes people decide it’s worth going to the extent of buying music – actually putting their money where their interests are, I guess?

As opposed to downloading it? Well, who says they don’t? But I think when it comes down to it if you’re a real fan or if you really want to listen to music that’s good quality you’ve gotta buy the real thing. You’ve got to have that little token of the band – you can’t just have some shitty download on your iPod with lo-res quality, not really.

And I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one – so this store is really about those people. People who really appreciate the music – the fans.

I’m enjoying the fact that there seems to be a bit of a quality renaissance – people are actually enjoying listening to music properly. The vinyl explosion has been a bit of a sign of that. Are you planning on adding vinyl to the store?

Yeah. Actually, in 2010 I’m hoping to devote one side of downstairs to vinyl. It’s a bit tricky though, because the financial situation – especially at the moment – is one where I’ve got to pay the bills, but I also have to put aside enough money to put back into stock. It can mean that it’s not always possible to do exactly what I want to do. I’d probably need to put about $4k into vinyl to set up the range from the start, getting shelves set up and all the rest.

I’m also planning on getting into magazines, a good depth of genre coverage and the like. The kinds of things you can’t get in your local news agencies.

Alex Mendoza: “I basically wanted to create an atmosphere somewhat like a cocktail bar – a place people wanted to come and hang out, enjoy as an environment.” Note the couches – an important touch!

I guess that kind of leads to my next question, about the financial aspects of it. In Sydney, there’s been a lot of people getting a bit skitterish – a lot of labels, venues and music stores have been closing down or pulling things back a bit. That’s a bummer but you’ve managed to get this far. There’s the uncertainties you mentioned earlier but you seem to feel there’s a viability here.

I won’t lie to you – if I was in the city, I wouldn’t have even considered doing this. Up here, it’s so cheap to live, I know the town and I don’t personally need that much money to survive.

So I figure – I either work at a servo or join the army, or I get my balls out there and do something risky and it might just pay off, y’know? Because I love doing this. And it’s the perfect time for me, because I don’t have a mortgage or a family to support. The endgame isn’t to make a million dollars out of it – I just don’t want to join the army or work in a servo!

I’m impressed by the way you’ve managed to specialize in a couple of areas, in particular you’ve got the metal selection which is quite elaborate, and you’ve got a good specialist hip-hop section which has got some really good picks in there and then a smallish but excellent electronica section. Are they areas that you’ve got a personal interest in? How have you managed to build that?

When I was starting up the shop I did some surveys and got some confirmation of the demographics in Armidale and what they were listening to in town. I don’t know if you noticed but upstairs is mostly indie and metal, then some hip-hop and electronica.

Indie’s just the general swathe of whatever anyway! It’s like the section in popular CD stores that’s called “rock”

It’s a pretty big, broad term. Indie. I get in trouble all the time for saying “indie”. People go “dude, it’s not indie! it’s not independently released! that’s not what it means!” – yeah, but what are you going to call it? I’m not going to sit there and list 50 different genres to describe what I’ve got up there in stock! I just say indie – keeps things simple.

The weird thing is, some of the more popular things which I thought would sell… like when the Wolfmother album came out, the new one. I haven’t sold a single copy! But then I’ve sold 10 copies of Birds of Tokyo straight up! And then things like Grizzly Bear, Boxer Rebellion… selling heaps of it! It’s unpredictable.

I put it down to the fact that if it’s more popular, Wolfmother, Powderfinger and the like – people will just download it anyway. But the little bands people get behind, they want them to succeed.

As far as the labels and the reps go, were they interested and excited when they heard there was some regional guy opening a store?

Yeah, for sure! They got really excited, I was talking to the guy from Riot, who does all the Nuclear Blast, Metal Blade, SPV, all the heavy stuff. He was saying “dude, you’re the only person within maybe 500 kilometres that’s carrying this stuff in an independent store.” It’s consistent with all the reps and labels – they’re all saying how difficult it’s been to deal with big players in the country – Sanity, JB Hi-Fi and the like. Those stores just take whatever they’re given, they don’t have a personal dimension.

I get a chance to actually sit down with the rep, talk to them about what’s happening and what’s going on. And they enjoy talking about it! It’s obviously their life as well. They seem stoked that there’s such a following of people that’s so sizable for a regional town.

Do you have any favourite reps or companies?

Definitely the guy from Inertia, Anthony Goddard. He’s a champion. Chris Marrick from Riot, as well. And Michael Corbett from Roadrunner. With those guys I’ll easily sit down for half an hour to an hour and just sit and talk about stuff – they’re just guys that are into music, easy to talk to. That’s seriously cool.

When I was just starting up, I was completely clueless about how I was going to get all this music in, so they helped a lot – it made it a lot easier.

What about the local scene? Is there anything happening up here?

That’s an interesting one. I’ve been a muso up here for about 10-12 years now and have done a fair share of playing around town in bands. The strange thing is, there’s so many musos here, but there are never any bands. I mean, there are bands but they don’t seem to play a lot.

It’s weird – this is an immensely musical town, but nobody seems to really play anywhere or do anything – it’s like a garage thing, it stays in the garage.

It may have something to do with the fact that there are no venues here. There’s the Armidale Club, but they’re always booked out – which is good! – and no one else will look at taking a local band in. The rest of the pubs and the like are places where there might be a band playing, but you didn’t go to the pub to watch the band.

So is there anyone in the garage that people outside of Armidale should keep an eye out for?

We keep a rack here of local acts that are in the area. You’ve got Ortizmo, Sarah and Jarad, The Discards – they’re all cool, they’re doing stuff, but like I say you don’t really “see” them in the area.

I’m always asking the local acts to bring their stuff in though, no matter what it is. It’s one of the things I’m here for.

One of the obligatory parts of the end of a year is the endless supply of lists on the web and in magazines, so I guess I’ve got to ask – what are your favourite albums from 2009?

One of them was Hand to Hand, their EP called Breaking the Surface. I loved that man, I was addicted to it for months.

Next one was probably Emarosa, and their album Relativity. That album blew me away actually.

Centauras A‘s Side Effects Expected That’s a metal band, that was pretty cool.

Sugar Army. When I first opened up the store, that was one of the first albums I got in here. I opened up the first box of albums and picked it up and went “well, it’s indie but I can’t just listen to metal all the time. I’d better put this in and see what it’s like” but yeah, it’s actually really cool. Really liked that.

And… heh, yeah. The soundtrack from Alien 3. I’ve been searching for that for years man, that was wicked. Soundscapes, noises – really ambient. It’s just so evil! Really intense. Composed by Elliot Goldenthal. He did heaps of things, like Demolition Man and the like. Epic.

Finally, do you have any hopes for what the shop might encourage or influence within Armidale?

Well, I kind of want it to get a synergy going with the Armidale Club, for starters. I was saying to Helen there the other day that we get a lot of folky bands, there’s an occasional hip-hop and dance event – that’s all cool, but there’s nothing else – no metal bands here! I’m just hoping to get an idea of who’s around, who’s passing through, and trying to get something happening between them and I.

A little while ago The Storm Picturesque played Tamworth, and a bunch of kids went down to see them with The Spontaneous Kevin Costner, but there’s no reason why that band couldn’t have come here – there’s no reason why they couldn’t have had at least the same turnout here, if not more. Tamworth just isn’t a metal town, you know?

That’s what I’m hoping to encourage – get more bands through here, getting more bands to stop on the way up the coast. A lot of people do come and check out what’s on the local wall though, so I hope that helps something happen.

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