Parnassus Records Important Announcement

I am sorry to announce that 2008 will be the last year for the Parnassus Select catalog. Sharp declines in sales, both in the number of records sold and the prices we get for them, have made the record business unprofitable, and it cannot continue. This realization also made the boss (Leslie Gerber) realize that I have been doing this long enough (37 years for the catalogs, 39 years altogether including LP publishing). It's time for a change.

We will continue to provide you with our usual quality of service--for whatever that's worth!--until it becomes time to close the business, a decision which will be contingent on the sale of the house where we work. Most likely we will discontinue the business sometime this summer. We'll give customers plenty of notice to complete any outstanding transactions, so please don't hesitate to order from our last catalogs. There will be no close-out sale; we have already arranged for the donation of our remaining stock to a university library.

One reason for announcing our closing well in advance is to give customers a last opportunity to order our custom CDs and DVDs and the private CDs we have been ordering from other suppliers. We will place our last order for the imported private CDs (including the Rare Moth items included in this catalog and our previous one) sometime in February. Our Parnassus Custom Video and Dis private items will be available only as long as we are publishing our catalogs, and some may run out of stock before then.

I am intending to continue the Parnassus CD label, and possibly even to increase the number of discs published. I'm also hoping to expand my writing career, and, frankly, to loaf a little more. All those records sitting on the shelf! It's time to enjoy them without having to use them mostly for background while I type listings.

--Leslie Gerber