bemetal

Tune Street store scraps 'death metal' band CDs

Friday, April 23, 1999
By Derek Gentile
Berkshire Eagle Staff

GREAT BARRINGTON -- In a move they concede is more symbolic than
therapeutic, the owners of Tune Street yesterday removed the CDs of two
best-selling "death metal" or Gothic performers from their shelves in part as a
response to recent shootings in Littleton, Colo.

Tune Street co-owner John Conlin confirmed that his store will no longer sell
compact disks by Marilyn Manson or the German death metal band Rammstein.

The store will also no longer carry the "Natural Born Killers" soundtrack, said
Conlin, a CD he believes has had an undue influence on young people.

"Man, there are sickos out there watching that movie for a living," he said.

Conlin said that he is aware that this protest will not affect the sales of these
CDs one way or another.

"The bottom line?" he said. "We don't feel the need to sell this stuff. It's not doing
us any good. It's just too dark."

Conlin added that "we were moving in that direction anyway. We were going to
cut them out sooner or later. This just does it faster."

Both Marilyn Manson and Rammstein sell "fairly well," according to Robert J.
Brannock, a salesman at the store. Brannock said the store moves a few CDs of
each on a regular basis.

Although no direct link has been established between Marilyn Manson and similar
groups and the tragedy at Columbine High School in Colorado, authorities say that
the two boys believed responsible for the crimes were part of a clique known as
"The Trench Coat Mafia."

Reportedly, the two, along with other members of the clique, listened to Marilyn
Manson, as well as other Gothic-flavored bands. But neither police nor mental
health professionals have established any link between that type of music and
violence on the scale that transpired in Colorado.

Reaction from other record sellers throughout the county ran from disapproval to
disagreement with the store's policy.

"There's no need to take anything off the shelves," said Lee Collyer, a clerk at
Toonerville Trolley Records in Williamstown. "That music has no correlation to
murder and death. None at all. I guarantee we won't be pulling anything."

"I have no plans to take those CDs off the shelves," said Ronald White, the owner
of White Knight Records, located just down the street from Tune Street. "There's
no connection there. I just don't see the point."

"If we took Gothic music off our shelves, we'd lose half our business," said an
assistant manager at Strawberries Music and Video in Pittsfield. "I feel bad about
what happened, but I don't think music had anything to do with it."

Others in the county's retail music field seemed to agree that Gothic, death metal
or any kind of music did not play a key role in the shootings.

"I don't sell the instructions for making pipe bombs here," said one store owner,
who wanted to remain anonymous. "It's always blamed on music. What about
other influences, like the computer? I think the focus should be on the Internet."

A clerk at another store said to pull Gothic or death metal music from his shelves
in reaction to the shootings would be "uncalled for."

Conlin and several Tune Street employees agreed that removing music from the
store's shelves would not change anything that happened in Colorado.

"Oh, I realize I'm just a drop in the ocean," said Conlin. "But this is our way of
saying that what happened out there hurt all of us. Maybe it's a bad idea, I don't
know.

"But you know what?" he said. "We're also one of those record stores that is very
serious about not selling music with Parental Advisory stickers to young kids. And
the parents love us for it. The kids hate it, but the parents like it."

"Maybe what this does is start a dialogue between people on what's appropriate
and what's not appropriate for kids," said David Grant, an employee at the store.
"But that would be a good thing."

Eagle reporter Timothy Q. Cebula contributed to this story.

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