MI Pro

So do we know the fate of SC Leeds City (Citygate)? It hasn't been mentioned on either list.....

is that the old AOS store? if so, then it's closed

leeds city is open

My Leeds contacts say that one is closed.

Just spoken to Leeds City and they're still open.

Yeah looks that way. where-is-soundcontrol(dot)co(dot)uk mention that it is one of the open store too. I guess you can't do better than get it from the horses mouth though.

Awful though it is for those members of Sound Controls' staff who have lost their jobs today, and I feel for all of you, I have just re read the six page Sound Control spread in Decembers Music Trade News, which, I recall at the time feeling a tad peeved over some of the comments made about us small independent MI shops. Interesting for me then, that five months on, Sound Control is no more and my shop has just experienced it's sixth consecutive month of growth, and I mean by as much as 28%. Will I be forced to eat my words in five months, I do hope not.

Business is about making money, the day we music retailers realise that we have to make profit the less this will happen.
I feel for all the staff (its happened to me) but it is the managements fault for a poor understanding of the business world.
Buy an apple for 10p and sell it at 5p makes no money no matter how many apples you sell.

I've been here for 28 years now. Not made a fortune but we're healthy, for now!!. I've seen loads of these come and go. So who's next? Accident waiting to happen? I'm happily mostly out of the general music field now. I hope to retire soon. Anyone like to bid for a healthy business with potential?

Many thanks to Paul McManus for the offer to send in a CV. I for one will be sending a CV in. It's good to see that someone is recognising that a lot of the now redundant SC staff have talent and that it shouldn't be wasted.

It also makes a refreshing change to hear of someone wanting to help as opposed to bleating on about how the company shouldn't have discounted etc.

The people who lost their jobs yesterday (including myself) had no control over pricing policies within the company and therefore shoudln't be tagged with being responsible for this.

"Yeah looks that way. where-is-soundcontrol(dot)co(dot)uk mention that it is one of the open store too. I guess you can't do better than get it from the horses mouth though."

- and this site is not the horses mouth....this is Imusicians/ Dawsons doing their bit to try and redirect customers to themselves.

Lots has been said about other stores trying to take advantage of this situation but this one is in very poor taste I feel.

I would like to offer a round of applause to those large internet and showroom dealers that have had enough respect to not flamboyantly try to take advantage. Do these people really think that customers don't know who they are? They play them off for price as a matter of routine anyway.

It is a shame that Soundcontrol never developed their website to its full potential if "internet pressure" is to blame for this event. Unfortunately their website was pretty rubbish compared to most other online stores. I for one don't buy the internet argument as put forward by some areas of the media. I believe there were many other factors at play here......

I am deeply upset for all my friends and colleagues that have lost there jobs and those that are unsure of their futures. I will be thinking of you all and buying you all a drink when I see you.

There are two Leeds stores:
Leeds City ( the big one recently opened next to Staples) is open as one of the stock selling outlets.
Leeds East ( the one that was always nearly empty anyway and replaced the AOS) is shut

Alright Tom - got the same as you yesterday :-(

I placed an order (and paid for) £1,800 worth of gear a couple of weeks ago at the Sheffield store. Been in today (they are still trading) and been told the gear hasn't arrived, I can't have my money back, and neither can I have an alternative product from stock. Can this be right?

There were so many good Staff at both Leeds and Manchester that they should get their heads together and set up on their own. They know who they are and know the problems were created higher up the chain. I know, I was there until recently.Ok so the whole economic situation isn't ideal at the moment but look at all the independents who have commented on here. They make a profit, listen to their customers and provide a great service. Which is what SC originally based their philosophy on, unfortunately due to decisons made higher up, shop floor staff found that was quite hard to achieve.
I remember a SC magazine which stated "we believe our staff are our most important asset"
Well if they listened to them and perhaps took on board some ideas and opinions then maybe just maybe they'd be in a different situation today. Hindsight's a wonderful thing but I hope that if/when someone buys them they take this on board.

I also hope that the past few days haven't tainted anyone's love of music cos that's what we were all in it for ( well that and cheap gear ;-)
In all seriousness I hope they do find a buyer and have a chance to get back some of the great employees they have lost.

If you paid by credit card you are 100% safe I think.

But you need to take it up with your credit card not SC or deloitte - this is my call

Jon

I was foolish enough to pay by cash.

Unfortunately I understand that this is correct; you have inadvertently become a creditor of the company and so you will find that the administrators will not allow pre-ordered goods or cash to be released to you (it is likely the supplier of your product will not ship the goods to SC anyway). Your main recourse would likely be to speak to Deloittes as I believe there may be some consumer protecion available for situations like this but I cannot be certain - just a vague recollection.

Unfortunately the staff at Sound Control do not have any control over this situation, the laws of administration/receivership have taken over.

We would love to be able to give our customers gear they have paid for. Our hands are tied, the old "Sound Control" effectively no longer exists so any monies paid to them for deposits for stock cannot be applied to "New Sound Control in Administration".

For those of you who paid by credit card (not debit card) you should be protected and should contact your credit card provider immediately. Hope this helps some of you guys out there.

At Digital Village we are saddened to hear that many of our music industry colleagues have been made redundant.

If you have been made redundant from Turnkey or Sound Control and either live or are prepared to move to the London area, please e-mail jobs@digitalvillage.co.uk as we are currently recruiting.

Jeremy Lumsden
Digital Village

http://www.dv247.com/turnkey

Good on DV/ Jeremy for taking a more measured approach to this than some of the others have. They will undoubtedly see an upturn in business off the back of this either way so well done to them for not being so brazen in their marketing to SC customers.

Doug - I am in the same boat as you except I paid my £600 by CC. I've been given Deloitte's postal address and if I'm unsuccessful with my bank I'll be joining the list of people waiting to hear what % of their money they will get back.

Some of the big suppliers like Yamaha, Fender, Marshall etc are likely to be in for huge sums of money here so god knows what priority is going to be placed on the hordes of little guys like us.

Good luck to you and if you come across any good consumer advice feel free to post it here for anyone else like me!

As you may be aware, Sound Control music stores (owners also of Turnkey) have been placed in administration.

We at Mediaspec have received this news with sadness, especially for those staff who have recently lost their jobs as a result.

Over the years, Mediaspec have enjoyed an excellent relationship with Sound Control. For the past year, Mediaspec have supplied Sound Control customers with Apple computers and Pro Tools HD systems.

We would like to emphasise that Mediaspec is a separate company from Sound Control, and not affected by the difficulties that the chain of stores is currently experiencing.

We wish the owners and staff well for the future.

Following on from Jeremy's comments we are also looking for staff for our denmark street store. So if anybody is looking send me a C.V operations@rosemorris.com or pop in with one.

Good luck to those left at Sound Control

The administrators are refusing to open an escrow account
to help protect creditors interests. Deloitte do operate or have
operated this system in the past. A special Bank account is opened and any proceeds from sales are kept seperate. Once an inventory has been taken and the rights established, goods are returned or the proceeds of the sale of those goods are returned to the creditor. Unfortunately this is not happening here. Not until you have visited the shops taken an inventory, made out an excel spreadsheet to their spec and
they have approved it including your title, will they hand back stock. Until then they will keep selling. Obviously the proceeds will benefit all, but first in line is Deloitte fees, secured creditors, then if there is anything left, the unsecured
creditors!

Anyone know how much creditors have been taken for yet? I can confirm EMD is about £1000 and Behringer £6500 so far.

Anyone got any further figures?

If you are an aggrieved creditor why not approach Pat Kelly and the other directors personally? You will get their home adresses from companies house. It is public domain information.

£700,000 for Fender alone apparently.

Another angle is that according to Sound Controls last filed annual accounts the company was clearly insolvent and its "debts exceeded their assets" as stated by the auditors. That was two years ago.

They have knowingly traded insolvently and now with disastrous results.

The Insolvency Service will investigate directors conduct which may allow creditors to take action against those involved in the direct control and running of the company.

I believe security staff are now posted outside a number of Sound Control stores. I assume this is to prevent unhappy creditors and those public that have been ripped off taking issue with staff and removing stock.

i've got £6000 of equipment on order that is sat in the store, but i can't take it away.
What can i do, this will lead to the cancellation of jobs for me....

HW Music, Bolton, would like to offer our services to Souind Control customers who have faulty gear and are (naturally) unwilling to return them to the store. If the gear is a brand which we stock, we will be pleased to act as go-between the supplier and SC's customer in order to facilitate repair of warranty items.
In addition, we would be pleased to receive cv's from any SC staff who wish to / are forced to move on.
Please mark cv's for the attention of Richard Harfield

devastating news I have a lot of good friends in Sound Control
who have worked really hard on great projects . I have just left the Glasgow branch and its not a nice thing to see security is there too for angry customers who may have lost there deposit I think its a shocking blow to all musicians and a rip off.My personal opinion is the big guys suck, have a read http://www.myspace...slide

They get what they deserve

This is a sad time for the industry.

It goes to show that manufacturers/dealers need to get the prices up and trade with proper credit terms. Consumers have had it too good for far too long. The continual lack of margin in this business cannot go on as we will end up with more dealers trading from council flats in peckham with more ebay shops and none of them will hold any stock. Having said that turnkey were one of the worst for lowering prices. In my experience the cheapest dealers never get all the business anyway.

As a small family run music shop in Northampton, we have had to try and compete against companies like SC for some years but still we are all saddened by their closure. Hopefully the majority of the staff will be able to stay in the music trade (if they still want to). If we can help any SC customers in our area drop us an email on www.stgilesmusic.co.uk.

I am sorry to hear of yet another business succumbing to the inroads of online trading. There is nothing that quite matches the personal touch and expert knowledge, which the internet can't provide. I have found the Edinburgh staff of Sound Control to be exceptionally friendly and helpful, and have purchased quite a bit of stuff from there, although, I too am guilty of buying over the net for the sake of price and convenience.

I do hope the Edinburgh store will remain open past the scheduled 90 days.

I really could care less actually and I cant see why most of the population should either. It is just another business that has gone bust, thats all.

Some people will lose money, some wont. A relative handful of employees will struggle along for a while till they get other low paid jobs.

After all with all the bleating you would think that were no other jobs about and they were first to experience short term unemployment!

How about miners and steel workers etc etc who after being made redundant never worked again because they were over 50?

Anyway Im happy with the outcome and so are a lot of people.

If so many of you are so talented, get together, speak to your bank manager, get a business plan and lease one of the ex Sound Control shops. Not that hard you know.

Why could you be happy with the outcome? Even rival retailers realise that this is not good as a reflection on how the industry is going.

Happy Chappy - I'd like you to come clean and let us know who you are. You're obviously such a 'great' guy and so knowledgable as far as the industry is concerned that I'd like to see what (if any) kind of merchandise you sell and probably take some advice from you and hey, maybe even work for you.
I've got a good idea who you are, so come on, come clean and let us know.

Hi,

I feel sorry for the staff as loosing your job is always a disapointment. However decent music shop staff skilled and experienced are hard to come by so if they are good at there job and can sell and meet customer demands then they will get a job straight away elsewhere. However i suspect some cant sell and thats why the shops have done so poorley.
As for the management, big ideas and no ideas about how to achieve and make profit. They started the internet wars and were one of the first to sell products at silly prices. They have also taken on expese retail locations that a blind man would see would never make a profit due to ridiculous rent and rates. I have no sympathy for the management
Perhaps the directors should consider helping those loyal customers who have bought items for cash and appear on the debtors list. Im sure the directors will still have a house over there head and a decent car to drive around in and a wife/partner where they have filtered some of the drawings from the company.

Hopefully Dunfermline will close

For the people that have lost their jobs, I am very sorry.
For the industry people here that are bleating on about a decent markup and profits be warned.
British industry is being broken up and shipped to Eastern Europe and Asia and guess what - were all to blame.
When your moaning about a customer getting the best price for a piece of kit, your doing it with your mobile, telly,
clothes etc - wake up and smell the coffee!!!!!!

'Happy Chappy', you really are the perfect example of what is wrong with the world today, or at least the world of retail and business.

You seem to delight in the demise of a company, oblivious to the fact that it could well take many others down with it. Once you look beyond the possibility that many suppliers will not get the money they are owed, consider who will now place large orders with them anyway. So several suppliers who traded with Soundcontrol on invoicing in good faith will be hit very hard too.

You may dislike Soundcontrol, but the knock-on effect is going to spread far through the music industry. It's probably unlikely that many of their rivals with benefit a great deal either - thousands of customers have lost money and will not be parting with any more. Those who could buy are probably going to have a long hard think about the stability of the industry before handing over more money.

But the think that makes you the biggest idiot is your apparent mocking of the Soundcontrol staff. I have dealt with many of them personally, and I can tell you that they are indeed talented individuals, most likely with a far greater understanding of the music industry than yourself.

Do not suggest that their financial plight is insignificant just because others have been in the same position. If somebody you loved died tomorrow, would you shrug your shoulders and just say 'people die each day, who cares?' I doubt it highly.

Happy Chappy is a ****ing prat!! Spare a thought for the guys like me that are still in the open stores having to tell their customers that they can't have their deposit or their gear back until everything is sorted. We're getting abuse at the moment all day long and people like yourself should hope that the same doesn't happen to them. Infact I hope it does coz you really are a great guy!! D

I think that 'Happy Chappy' may have worked for Sound Control in the distant past.......there's not that many people who have such malice towards Sound Control staff and the company itself.....and are still in the industry.

He really must be such a great guy.

All at SC have always been excellent to myself and my company, all at STS are all deeply sadden by the news and the job losses that have occurred and hope that a deal is done with a potential buyer to save as many jobs as possible over the next 90 days. I would like to say a very big thanks to all staff at SC who have helped me out over the years, I have used many of the stores around the country and always received an "above and beyond" service, and to all the staff I know personally and deal with regularly I wish there was something I could do, but do come and see me if you are out of work or end up out of work as a result and we will see what we can do. All the best to all
Paul
STS
PS - Don't know if I know you Happy Chappy, but telling people you are happy they have lost their jobs is cold and totally uncalled for, you should have kept that to yourself.

I hope that sound control continues in Dunfermline at the very least, but it would have to be like it use to be, second hand gear and bands helping each other, went to far down the comet currys road for me!>

I might be a prat to you but Im not bust like SC. So you dont like getting abuse. Poor boy, my heart is bleeding!

Leave then, go and get another job.

As for Garth, sorry but most I speak to are actually quite happy. Do you really think the SC directors and finance people ever really cared about the music "industry". They cared about the bank balance and so did the suppliers that took the money!

With regard to the knock on for the music industry....what knock on? Okay one or two might go to the wall but then if you were that daft to put all your eggs in one basket......

Anyone who can read the last filed accounts will see that in thei own words "OUR DEBTS NOW EXCEED THE ASSETS". This was the directors and auditors words NOT MINE! If you wish to keep supplying a company with a large credit facility and they go bust well hell mend you.

Listen the public including myself have been fleeced before and so have suppliers but in a time not far away everyone will go back to the old ways.

Seen it all before.

Talented individuals....err....say no more.

Garth, Neville

I have calculated a few moments ago that the most senior SC director is still worth about 2-4 million pound which is not bad.

How does that make you feel?

If you have an issue why not take it up with the senior director? He has led you to unemployment and the company to oblivion.Not me.

oooh! Happy Chappy, we are grouchy aren't we? I'm guessing that your near (possibly trading) near a Sound Control store that didn't close down.

Still not coming clean about who you are?