{"id":17708,"date":"2014-10-27T14:38:08","date_gmt":"2014-10-27T19:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=17708"},"modified":"2015-11-12T17:29:31","modified_gmt":"2015-11-12T22:29:31","slug":"rip-austins-music-2007-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/rip-austins-music-2007-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"RIP Austin\u2019s Music 2007\u20132014"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"KennethLacy\"<\/a>Oxford, Miss. (TLV) \u2013 After nearly 15 years in the music instrument business in Oxford, Kenneth Lacy<\/strong> is getting out of the game.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lacy has been a long time fixture of Oxford\u2019s music scene, by first helping Tupelo Consignment<\/strong> open Rebel Music<\/strong> in the late 1990s on Jackson Avenue, and then venturing out on his own in 2007 by opening Austin\u2019s Music<\/strong> on Heritage Drive. At the end of November 2014, Lacy will be closing Austin\u2019s Music retail business down for good.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a young man\u2019s game, and all the kids have cell phones with internet,\u201d Lacy said. \u201cThey can buy everything on the internet these days at or below dealer cost.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But the changing landscape of the music business isn\u2019t necessarily why Kenneth is going out of business. Despite doing well by offering a wide variety of music lessons and loving being in the music retail business, family health matters are ultimately the deciding factor.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy mom is in declining health and she needs me,\u201d Lacy says. \u201cI\u2019m not going to put her in a nursing home.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Kenneth\u2019s dedication to his family is certainly admirable and applaudable; still the loss of a local music store is a blow to Oxford\u2019s music scene. Ironically, the news travelled fast on the internet and a wide variety of local and national musicians chimed in on Facebook to lament the news.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cReally hate to hear this, but understand your motivations,\u201d posted Rocket 88<\/strong> bassist Nate Robbins<\/strong>. \u201cPrayers for you and your family.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhere is the dislike button?\u201d posted local artist Jason \u201cJ-Man\u201d Heavner<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou did a great job starting from nothing,\u201d said Don Martin<\/strong>. \u201cAll the best to your family.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Local musicians will have until the end of November to buy at Austin\u2019s Music, and everything in the store is being sold at or below dealer costs. The sale is first come, first serve, and Kenneth won\u2019t be restocking his store.<\/span><\/p>\n

Oxford has been lucky to have three local music instrument stores for the last seven years, and this was certainly a sign of a very healthy local music scene in such a small town.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a personal note, I like to point out that Austin\u2019s Music has been housed in my father\u2019s old law office since the beginning. My father, Tommy Rayburn<\/strong>, was a bass guitarist who played in the 1960s. He even recorded with Issac Hayes<\/strong> and David Porter<\/strong> at Stax Recording Studio<\/strong> in Memphis<\/strong> before he went to law school at Ole Miss<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

My Dad passed away in 2003, but going to Austin\u2019s Music in my Dad\u2019s old office was a real treat for me personally, and I know Dad would have loved that his law office became a music store. Just like myself, I also know he would be very disappointed to see it closed down.<\/span><\/p>\n

But all aspects of the music business these days are changing, and not always for the best.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn ten years, there won\u2019t be any more Mom & Pop music stores,\u201d Kenneth continued. \u201cIt\u2019s all going to be Big Box music stores and the internet.\u201d\u00a0\"The<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"TLV-215-DW-AustinsMusic\"<\/a><\/p>\n

–<\/span>
\nThis article was originally printed in The Local Voice<\/em> #215 (published October 23, 2014).\u00a0<\/span>
\nTo download the PDF of this issue, click here.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oxford, Miss. (TLV) \u2013 After nearly 15 years in the music instrument business in Oxford, Kenneth Lacy is<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17711,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[190],"tags":[37,4596,4599,4595,4598,4601,468,143,15,7067,24,2277,4597,4594,4600],"class_list":["post-17708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-business","tag-austins-music","tag-david-porter","tag-don-martin","tag-issac-hayes","tag-jason-j-man-heavner","tag-kenneth-lacy","tag-memphis","tag-nate-robbins","tag-newt-rayburn","tag-ole-miss","tag-rebel-music","tag-rocket-88","tag-stax-recording-studio","tag-tommy-rayburn","tag-tupelo-consignment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/AustinsFEAT.jpg?fit=620%2C349&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}