Salem Record Store To Shutter Amid 'Industry' Headwinds

SALEM, MA — Saying that he does not feel "the future of small, independent record stores looks promising right now," Residency Records owner Breaux Silcio said this week the Church Street location in Salem will close before the lease is up for renewal in early 2027.

Silcio said in a message on Instagram that there "are a thousand reasons why we made this decision," with one including industry changes that he said he feels will make it difficult for stores like his to survive.

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"Some of them are financial," he said of the reasons. "Some of them are cultural. Some of them deal with an industry that I don't foresee getting any better over time."

He said he is "pretty satisfied in what I did" in growing the store into its Church Street space since its inception out of a coffee shop nine years ago, but that it has not been enough to ensure success moving forward.

"Unfortunately, it's not just not really enough to sustain the business for another lease term," he said. "I had to make a decision about my future, and I chose to wind down the store."

He said a final closing date has not been determined but will likely be in early January. He said an announcement on that will likely come around Christmas.

He thanked his regular customers for their support through the years — "small businesses do not survive without local people giving them their money" — and announced a closing sale effective immediately.

He said all records, except Occult records, will be 25 percent off regardless of whether they are new, used, or collector's items.

"This is a great opportunity to pad your music collection, or somebody else's music collection, at a discount — a good discount," he said.

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