New Moon‘s Total Eclipse: The Sunset of the Music Industry Takes its Toll on a Northern Michigan Institution

Sept. 22, 2004

Mike Parshall, owner of New Moon Records on Front Street in Traverse City, has been a part of the music industry since the early 1960s. He has seen the industry evolve and change on many fronts, from the disappearance of 8-tracks and vinyl records to the whole recording industry currently in turmoil and at a crossroads.
Now area residents are also going to have to face a major change in their musical recording acquisitions. Parshall will close his doors forever this week. So what will Parshall do now that he won’t be making his daily 40-mile trek one way into Traverse City anymore?
“I have taken up a hobby of whistling rap tunes and it is really building up big and I am going to take it out on the road,” laughs Parshall. “I think it is going to be big across the nation and I see myself going around in a tour bus playing casinos.”
Parshall and his wife Teresa have several business interests that will keep them busy, plus some other interests they would like to pursue. He will keep his stores in Mt. Pleasant and Sault St. Marie open and he and Teresa will maintain an online service and take phone calls to their home office south of Traverse City to service customers.
“Teresa wants to spend more time in her art studio,” said Parshall. “I’ve lived on a river for 25 years and never been fly-fishing. So I am going to take that up.”

SEGER CONNECTION
One thing Parshall won’t miss is all of the Seger questions. Barely a day goes by that someone doesn’t ask him, “How’s Bob Seger?” “Will Seger record a new album?” “Will Seger tour again?” and, “I heard Seger was at your house for the weekend.”
“I guess I am on some list because I haven’t worked with Seger for 25 years and the media still calls me for comments,” said Parshall. “When Seger got into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame I would get all these calls asking for 30-year-old Seger stories.”
So what is the Seger connection? Parshall was Seger’s road manager for nine years during the rocker’s hey-day. Some years, Parshall would be on the road for more than 300 days and eventually he decided he wanted to start a family.
“Holiday Inns, tour buses, Winnebagos get old after awhile,” said Parshall. “It can be a hard life and I was ready for a change.”
Seger and Parshall remain close friends today but Parshall has little to say about their relationship.
“Look, he isn’t running around answering questions about what I am doing,” laughs Parshall. “So it isn’t my place to answer questions about what he is up to.”

BEGINNINGS
When not on the road with Seger, Parshall was a partner in three video stores in the Detroit area. He knew Doug Seaverson who owned what was then called Full Moon Records in Traverse City and developed a business relationship to add videos to the store.
“I would run into Doug in Birmingham and he would tell me that he was looking to expand his Traverse City record store,” said Parshall. “So I bought a place up north and brought a video operation to the store and everything was great until Doug started going through a divorce in 1987 and in the middle of that he died. Well, because I lived up here, the probate court put me in charge of running the store until the legalities were worked out.”
Two years later Parshall would buy the store outright and re-name it. So what attracted him to the area in the first place?
“When I was a kid my parents would bring me up to Glen Lake for vacations. I remember getting out of the car and smelling the pines. That has always stayed with me,” said Parshall. “I have been to every state except Hawaii when I was on the road, and this place just stuck out as where I wanted to live.”

THE HIDEOUT CLUBS
Parshall got into the music business with high school classmate Edward “Punch” Andrews. After graduating from Grosse High School in 1963 the two played a major role in creating the Detroit rock and roll scene and started The Hideout Clubs where Seger, Ted Nugent and Glenn Fry got their starts.
As Andrews moved into band management, Parshall found his role evolving into that of road manager, or as he would put it, “adult babysitter.”
“In 1968 Punch had me set up operations in Traverse City at Bakers Acres on East Bay (where the Waterfront is now). We rented out these Hydra-Mite Surf Scooters and on the weekends we shuffled bands through the Tanz Haus. I remember once Glen Frey rolled the Hideout van near Manton on his way to the Tanz Haus and smashed up the van and the equipment and I had to drive down to pick him up and drive him to the show. Dealing with bands was a lot like having a bunch of kids.”
So, any thoughts about the future of recorded music and do you think another record store will set up in town?
“A guy from Chicago had approached me about buying the store but we had already given up the lease and sold some fixtures and merchandise to a friend in the U.P. who opened a store a month ago,” said Parshall. “As for another store, I don’t see CD stores existing in the near future, and for that matter I don’t see CDs being around much longer either.”

SCREWED OVER
Parshall feels that while record companies were screwing over customers during the 1990s with inflated prices, they ended up screwing themselves.
“Look, where are 10, 14 and for that matter even 18-year-olds going to get $20 bucks to buy a new release CD? They are going to take the money from their parent’s wallets or steal the CD from me or download it for free from the Internet. So if I was a kid I would take the download option, and I think they should.
“The industry should have capped the prices at $10 a CD with it costing me $7 a CD and everything probably would be okay today. As it stands now, CDs will become obsolete. Music will always be around but iPods and other technologies will create a different delivery methods for the consumer.”
That is okay for Parshall: he will continue to focus his work on rare and hard-to-find vinyl. He and Teresa will make house calls and purchase old record collections. Once a week they will venture to their other stores.
As for the special memories, there are many. One in particular was when a scrawny little rapper came into the store in 1995.
“I remember this kid coming in saying he was a rapper and was trying to get me to sell his cassettes in my store,” laughs Parshall. “This kid would later become known as Kid Rock.”

A VOID
The closing of New Moon Records will leave a void in downtown Traverse City. Along with Horizon Books, New Moon has been one of downtown’s primary locally-owned anchor stores. By maintaining late night hours year-’round, both stores have played major roles in attracting people to downtown.
Rumors have circulated that times are tough for downtown merchants, resulting in the Parshall’s closing up, but those are simply false.
“Business has been good; of course it could always be better,” said Parshall. “Teresa and I started looking at our five-year plan and I started thinking that in five years I will be 65. We have some holidays to catch up on with the family like Thanksgiving and Christmas, which are big times of the year for the entertainment, music, video and retail industries.”
The timing was right as their lease is up at the end of September and their employees had announced that they were going back to college or moving this fall.
“It does my heart well to know the timing worked out with a couple of key employees leaving to pursue other things,” said Parshall. “We didn’t have to have the misty-eyed meeting to lay anyone off.”
As for gift certificates and punch cards, the Parshalls will continue to honor both. While some businesses close up shop and leave customers stuck with gift certificates or unwanted merchandise, the Parshalls could never operate that way. They succeeded by excelling at customer service and developing friendly relationships with buyers and sellers of music. Their willingness to spend hours to find old or hard-to-find recordings won them repeat customers and helped them to stay in business when the Grand Traverse Mall opened, along with the short-lived Harmony House.
“We didn’t concentrate on selling new CDs, we focused on special orders and of course we sold new CDs but our focus has been on the used CD/record business,” said Parshall. “By dealing with collectibles and music rarities, those specialties set us apart from the chains. We have always been service oriented and it is probably why we are still around.”
When the Grand Traverse Mall announced it would open, they offered Parshall a lucrative deal to move in, but his loyalties remained with downtown. He will miss being downtown but probably not as much as downtown will miss him.
“I am going to miss downtown, not only the people that I have gotten to know but working with all the local musicians. Working with people like Seamus Shinners,” said Parshall. “We have run into a lot of real good people down here. There are so many names and musicians that I don’t want to forget any but I appreciate all of them and what they have brought to the community. From Interlochen to the Dennos Museum to the clubs, this community has been very blessed musically and I am glad to have been a part of it all.”

SO LONG
So an era comes to end in downtown Traverse City. The Parshalls will be sorely missed. Customers have even broken down in tears when learning their favorite store would be closing. During our interview one customer thanked Teresa as she made what would be her final purchase from the store and said, “You and your husband are the most honest business people I know and I am going to miss you both.”
On a personal note: Mike and Teresa, you will be missed by many. Thanks for all the years of great service. For selling CDs by local musicians, for being a ticket outlet to Castle Farms, Blissfest and so many other venues. Most of all thank you for buying my CD and records when I was low on cash.
Hey, how about just one more Seger question? What was that? Don’t let the door hit me on the ass on the way out?
Okay I guess not.

To order hard-to-find music, records, CDs, or to sell your vinyl, visit their website at www.newmoonrecords.com or give them a call at (231) 941-1035. You might have to leave a message -- the salmon fishing is pretty good right now.