Jelly's - Honolulu

[oceanpacific]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

It was FROGGIE'S at King-Kalakaua as I recall.

I also remember FLOYD'S GUITAR AND TYPEWRITER at two locations on Kapahulu. First in the basement below Subway, later near the post office. Floyd's was also in the Market City shopping complex (upper level) with MOM AND POP'S, which was also situated with Floyd's on Kapahulu.

There was a JELLY'S in the lower level of Market City center (Kaimuki Avenue side across Kaimuki High School).

I was at the Pearlridge Starbuck's yesterday for a business meeting and saw Norm having a latte there.

THE RECORD MUSEUM was first in downtown Honolulu on the makai side of King Street between Bethel and Fort, then moved to North King in the Kalihi-Palama area, ewa of the Kapalama Canal.

Anyone remember THE VINYL DONUT?

[gchun]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

Vinyl Donut!!! YES Didn't they also kind of go by "VD" (get it?) Aside from the name, I can't remember anything else. Where was that located?

And the site of the current Walgreen's was Tower Video. Before Tower, was it called Auddisey Records?

Help!!! (This is a cool thread! Thanks everyone)

Garry

[Frankie's Market]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

Jelly's...

• First went there when Jellys was located in the old Light Store, corner of Keeaumoku & Makaloa.
• Next Jelly's moved to 404 Piikoi. That was my favorite location. Next to Records Hawaii and Job Lot.
• Then they moved back to Keeaumoku near the Korean bars across McDonalds.
• They branched out and had the Pearl Kai store near Tower Records.
• I never went to their Mililani Store, but there was one there too.
• Then Norm moved the Keeaumoku Store to Market City Shopping Center, Kaimuki
• Then I think it went to the location across Rainbow Records on University & King....
• Where Norm eventually sold the stores and they became "Cheapos".
• Norm still owned the name "jellys" and opened the Radio Free Hawaii Music Store in the rainbow building corner of Kapiolani & Piikoi. It was there that he won the Jellys name back from Cheapos.
• Cheapos closed about 3 years ago.
• Jelly's moved to the Aiea location behind Cutter Ford.

I went to them all except Mililani. My favorite was 404 Piikoi Street.

I believe that is more or less an accurate chronology of Jelly's evolution, if you will.

The Piikoi St. location was the biggest one they ever had, spacewise. It was Jelly's at their peak, with the biggest inventories of used books, vinyl, CDs, comics and trading cards they would ever accumulate in one place. It was conveniently located too, with a lot of free parking. Too bad the lease had to run out.

My second favorite Jelly's was the one at Pearl Kai. Smaller than Piikoi, but it was conveniently located right across from Tower Records. Made it very easy to shop comparatively for CDs. hehe! It was during that time that I noticed they were gradually reducing the floor space used for comics to make room for more CDs. From that point on, comics would have a de-emphasized presence in subsequent Jelly's locations at Keeaumoku, Market City, and Puck's Alley.

Good luck to the newly re-opened Jelly's. Plan to go there soon. But I wonder if it is still possible in this day and age of Ipods and downloading that one can pay the rent selling used CDs.

[Frankie's Market]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

Vinyl Donut!!! YES Didn't they also kind of go by "VD" (get it?) Aside from the name, I can't remember anything else. Where was that located?

And the site of the current Walgreen's was Tower Video. Before Tower, was it called Auddisey Records?

Help!!! (This is a cool thread! Thanks everyone)

Garry

Vinyl Doughnut was where KFC is now.

Prior to Tower Records moving into their longtime location at Keeaumoku, it was formerly occupied by Odyssey Records.

[Frankie's Market]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

You're leaving out one fairly short-lived (but fantastic) used record store called Purple Haze, which was in the same building as the old Froggies, for a short time in the early nineties. It moved to a location in Kakaako, and then back to Kalakaua before it disappeared.

I remember Purple Haze when it was located a stone throw away from Kuhio Elementary School. Heard good thing about it, so I took the time to drive there one afternoon. But the door was locked. It was still supposed to be open, at least according to the hours of operation posted on the window. I saw this old, bald, fat Hippy inside. I waved to the guy, but he just waved me off. I shook my head at him, walked away,... and never did go back.

Guess he had so much business rolling in there that he didn't need any business from lil ol' me. Noticed that place closed down a couple of month later.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

Vinyl Doughnut was where KFC is now.

Prior to Tower Records moving into their longtime location at Keeaumoku, it was formerly occupied by Odyssey Records.

Vinyl doughnut was originally on Kapahulu on the Ewa side.

For those on East Honolulu there was Kahala Music in Kahala Mall. They had an extensive "49th state" collection of 45's back in the 70's.

I can't remember the name of another record store but it was a national chain with one in the Ward Warehouse on the Ewa side ground floor. I was visiting that chain in Idaho while checking out the Snakeriver Stampede rodeo and found to my surprise a collection of Sunday Manoa and Palani Vaughn records in the Hawaiiana section.

[oceanpacific]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

The record shop on Union Mall that Mel alluded to was THE MUSIC BOX.

During the early '60s, MICROPHONE MUSIC was located in downtown on College Walk, adjacent to the present-day Chinese Cultural Plaza.

Department stores with music/records included GEM'S, SEARS, PENNEY'S, GIBSON'S, HOLIDAY MART.

KAHALA MUSIC was in Kahala Mall. Pearlridge Center had PEARLRIDGE MUSIC, which I believe was a related store.

[mel]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

The record shop on Union Mall that Mel alluded to was THE MUSIC BOX.

Department stores with music/records included GEM'S, SEARS, PENNEY'S, GIBSON'S, HOLIDAY MART.

Ha! Thanks for that one... THE MUSIC BOX. Now I remember. They had the top 10 singles of the week displayed in their store window as a tree with the #1 record at the top.

Yep, GEM's used to have a pretty decent record dept. I remember when they were to close their doors, they had a huge sale and CDs were selling for like $4 each. Ditto with the 2004 closure of the Sears record department vendor in Ala Moana Center. $4 for Led Zeppelin PHYSICAL GRAFFITI double CD, $4 for the then new FLEETWOOD MAC album SAY YOU WILL, $10 boxed DVD sets. Man those quick close out sales not managed by auction/liquidation companies are good.

Yes, I know I am a bottom feeder, but when it comes to music, price is everything.

Today Holiday Mart's successor Don Quijote sells limited music, mostly Hawaiian and Karaoke titles. No mainstream pop or rock.

BTW, I heard it reported yesterday that Apple's iTunes is now the nation's #1 music retailer, beating WalMart who held that position for a long time. Definitely online is the way most people now buy music.

[GeckoGeek]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

Good luck to the newly re-opened Jelly's. Plan to go there soon. But I wonder if it is still possible in this day and age of Ipods and downloading that one can pay the rent selling used CDs.

Depends on what you can buy them for.

Many of the Used CDs seem to be in the 8$ range. At 99¢ a song for on-line, used CDs are price competitive. They are also better quality, don't have to be stored on your hard drive, come with artwork, and can be sold back making the cost even cheaper.

Plus a CD allows you to really hear the song. On-line you only get 30 seconds to decide if you like it or not. I've checked out old favorites on-line and sometimes had trouble recognizing them from the 30 seconds selected.

Since I bought my 80GB iPod, I'm finding I'm drifting away from the "best of" stuff to the original albums to explore the good stuff that never made it to the charts or anthologies.

Plus, looking at the collection, I don't think it's aimed at the kids anymore.

One downside, the stuff on the used market tends to be stuff I already own.

[Frankie's Market]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

Depends on what you can buy them for.

Many of the Used CDs seem to be in the 8$ range. At 99¢ a song for on-line, used CDs are price competitive. They are also better quality, don't have to be stored on your hard drive, come with artwork, and can be sold back making the cost even cheaper.

Actually, I prefer CDs over downloads. I like the idea of owing something that is tangible. Beyond that, I do enjoy listening to album cuts. Hey, I grew up on stuff like Dark Side Of The Moon, Houses Of The Holy, Cosmo's Factory, and the Rise & Fall Of Ziggy Stardust. You're not talking to someone whose musical taste is limited to the Top 40.

But at the same time, I also recognize that folks like you and me are in the minority. It is the youth market that drives sales and for the large part, dictates the direction that the music industry takes. Even in the pre-MP3 days, many kids just bought cassingles or CD-5s, as they just wanted the hits they heard on the radio. They didn't want to spend, not even a few extra dollars, on album-length CDs filled with songs they were not familiar with.

The reality of the market today is that kids no longer have their earphones plugged into Walkmans or Discmans. Heck, you hardly see them carry around boomboxes these days. It is all about the Ipod. And most of their music is coming from downloads, not from ripping their own CDs. What you see as being price competitive when it comes to purchasing used CDs is totally lost on kids today. That's just how it is.

Back in 1988, Jellys attracted a lot of budget-conscious folks (from young to old) with used CDs. In 2008, that target demographic is definitely older, with younger consumers finding downloads more convenient and suitable to their needs. The musical buying habits of these Generation Y consumers are definitely not like their parents, or even their Generation X older siblings. Hopefully, Jellys can survive, even with a reduced, older customer base.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

Back in 1988, Jellys attracted a lot of budget-conscious folks (from young to old) with used CDs. In 2008, that target demographic is definitely older, with younger consumers finding downloads more convenient and suitable to their needs. The musical buying habits of these Generation Y consumers are definitely not like their parents, or even their Generation X older siblings. Hopefully, Jellys can survive, even with a reduced, older customer base.

I definately took advantage of Jelly's back in the 90's. I was taking a walk in Manoa with my wife when I spotted this blue 1986 Buick Century wagon for sale. It was in fairly decent condition with everything working (said so on the sign) and it was only $250

We went back home and I gathered all of my CD's that I never listened to and went down to Jelly's. With $250 in hand I went to the owner of the Buick and bought the car.

I used that car whenever I went to Ala Moana shopping center parking between those massive SUV's parked over the lines.

So Jelly's helped me out a lot.

[Frankie's Market]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

How many folks remember Strawberry Fields Forever? They were originally located on King St., one block Diamond Head of McKinley High. After Alan Walker closed Aldamar Comics Store, SFF had the biggest comic book inventory for sale around here. They also sold quite a bit of trading cards and records, although they primarily specialized in graymarket/bootleg releases that you wouldn't find at Tower.

But after only a couple of glorious years in the early '80s as the leading comics retailer in the state, SFF lost their lease and moved to Pensacola, in the same building as Auntie Pastos. The new location was very small and cramped. From what I heard, SFF sold most of their back issue collection to Jelly's. So from that point on until about the mid-1990s, Jelly's became the numero-uno comics seller.

SFF, though, hung around in it's Pensacola location for quite a number of years until it unceremoniously closed down a little more than a decade ago.

[oceanpacific]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

I remember HONOLULU TAPE COMPANY on Pensacola about half-way down the building from Auntie Pasto's. I bought a nice copy (both disc and cover) of the IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY LP.

[mel]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

I too prefer CDs over downloads, though I tend to buy a lot of downloads if it is only the singles I want and in some cases both.

For example, the new REM single "Supernatural Superserious" was released as a single about a month ago, but the album only came out this past Tuesday. I bought the MP3 single last month and now I'll go buy the CD sometime today at BestBuy where new releases are $9.99 for the first week.

Having grown up and owned LPs, 45s, CDs and tapes, I still prefer the physical medium. Now days its CD, before then, vinyl. Tapes I bought but not too often since the qualtiy of pre-recorded cassettes were poor and never matched those of blanks that I used to buy a lot of.

I have a ton of albums that I like the album tracks too, but I tend to be singles oriented since I grew up during the golden age of top 40 radio when all of that was fun, even though a lot of it was repeated way too many times and many songs were and still are crap. But some are tacky fun even years later.

What I do with most of the CDs I own and buy today is rip them to my computer and compile them to iTunes for upload to one of my 4 iPods. Back in the day I used to make a lot of mixed cassette tapes (and years earlier 7 inch reel to reel tapes) and after I got a computer that could burn CDs, I made mixed CDs for a while.

Now it is way easier and far more flexible to make custom playlists in iTunes and export them out to your iPod or just play em on the computer. I have so many playlists that it takes iTunes a while to load up the playlists when I launch the program.

I have to agree that the youth market drives the music industry because young folks are more impulsive in their buying habits and tend to keep up with the latest hits more so then older people. Most of the older people like myself spend a lot of years upgrading our music from vinyl to CD... at least that is what I did and am still doing, but to a lesser degree since I think I have most of the older albums that I wanted now on CD.

As for cassette walkmans and CD discmans, they are pretty much gone now. I went to Shirokiya recently and the shelf where these devices lay are now mostly empty. Most stores still sell boomboxes but I haven't seen many people using them lately. What seems to be popular are the hybrid ones that allow you to connect your iPod to them.

Turntables are still available for sale, component stereo systems are not as popular as they were before, and the stand alone cassette deck is all but gone (with only Sony I think still making one model).

Bottom line is that the iPod is the current ruler of the day when it comes to audio devices. And the kids love em as do a lot of older people. So the market feeds into this new device. You got iTunes, Amazon.com and several smaller online retailers selling music that if they can, are compatible with the iPod. Not being compatible with the iPod is the kiss of death for an online music retailer I think, though several still hang on like Rhapsody.

As for Jelly's niche in the market, I agree that they now appeal to older people who still appreciate albums and physical media like CDs and vinyl. And if the used prices stay at $8 or lower I think these are still a good bargain.

Actually, I prefer CDs over downloads. I like the idea of owing something that is tangible. Beyond that, I do enjoy listening to album cuts. Hey, I grew up on stuff like Dark Side Of The Moon, Houses Of The Holy, Cosmo's Factory, and the Rise & Fall Of Ziggy Stardust. You're not talking to someone whose musical taste is limited to the Top 40.

But at the same time, I also recognize that folks like you and me are in the minority. It is the youth market that drives sales and for the large part, dictates the direction that the music industry takes. Even in the pre-MP3 days, many kids just bought cassingles or CD-5s, as they just wanted the hits they heard on the radio. They didn't want to spend, not even a few extra dollars, on album-length CDs filled with songs they were not familiar with.

The reality of the market today is that kids no longer have their earphones plugged into Walkmans or Discmans. Heck, you hardly see them carry around boomboxes these days. It is all about the Ipod. And most of their music is coming from downloads, not from ripping their own CDs. What you see as being price competitive when it comes to purchasing used CDs is totally lost on kids today. That's just how it is.

Back in 1988, Jellys attracted a lot of budget-conscious folks (from young to old) with used CDs. In 2008, that target demographic is definitely older, with younger consumers finding downloads more convenient and suitable to their needs. The musical buying habits of these Generation Y consumers are definitely not like their parents, or even their Generation X older siblings. Hopefully, Jellys can survive, even with a reduced, older customer base.

[Pomai]

Re: Jelly's - Honolulu

I too prefer CDs over downloads, though I tend to buy a lot of downloads if it is only the singles I want and in some cases both.

I used to feel the same way, but now, with space a premium (as my condo gets loaded with other junk), storing hundreds of my favorite songs on a hard drive just a few cubic inches in dimension is much more practical than stacks of CD jewel cases stuffed in a cabinet (or two).

Plus, I'm not an audiophile, hyper-critical to sound quality. As long as the MP3 or AIFF file has treble that's crisp and bass that's bumpin', with reasonable signal-to-noise ratio, I'm good.

One other record store not mentioned here yet (I think, er, never mind, Mel did already) was House of Music in Ala Moana. I actually bought more stuff from their music isntrument department upstairs than I did CDs. For the latter, they were just way overpriced compared to Tower Records just a block out the door.

Speaking of prices, with all these used CD stores you folks are mentioning, who do you think had the best prices and selection of used CDs?

As I said earlier, Hungry Ear Records (the location across Tower Records on Makaloa) had the best prices that I could find at the time. Even new release used CDs were selling for $7 max., with everything else just $6. Sure beat the $15-18 new prices at Tower across the street.

Jelly's at the time was selling new-release used stuff for $9-10 each.

One other place you folks haven't mentioned are the Pawn Shop. Some "hot" deals can be found there, too. Especially DVD movies.