Hot Wax And 8-tracks: When Everything Was Peaches

*This shot of a Peaches store from 1979 provides a pretty good idea of how massive these places were.*

Licorice Pizza, Oz, Warehouse, Camelot, Coconuts, Turtle’s, Record Bar, Sam Goody, Strawberries, Tape Town, Big Daddy’s, Waxie Maxie’s — just a few of the weirdly named music chains of the 1970s & 1980s. Fondly remembered as some of those places were, they all paled in comparison to Peaches Records & Tapes.

In the early 1970s, your average LP sold for $4.99, 8-Tracks $5.99. That’s $20-$25 today, adjusted for inflation. Record companies, wholesalers and retailers, were awash in cash. Even so, local record stores were reliant on a hopelessly antiquated distribution system devised decades earlier. At Greensboro Record Center, with locations downtown and Plaza Shopping Center, if an album wasn’t in stock and had to be special ordered it could take weeks, even months to arrive… read more >