Farewell Angelina for Tunnelin Levy - Helsinki musical institution shutting its doors

Closure of specialist record store is a sign of the times

print this

By Teemu Luukka
     
      After four decades, one of Helsinki's smallest but best-loved record stores is putting up the shutters later this month.
      Tunnelin Levy ("Tunnel Records"), located none too surprisingly in the pedestrian tunnel underneath the capital's main railway station, will be closing down on February 17th at the latest, and possibly earlier still, if the remaining stock - currently being sold off at a discount and at a brisk pace - has all disappeared before then.
     
Tunnelin Levy is Helsinki's oldest dedicated rock music outlet, and also wins the prize for longevity in terms of its location.
      The only older record outlet in Finland is the specialist classical music store Fuga, which has set up its stall at several locations during its history.
      Tunneli began trading in exactly the same tiny premises in 1970, and has prided itself on being open every day of the year with the exception of Christmas Day.
      The slightly shabby station tunnel itself is the nearest thing Finland had to 24/7 shopping long before the recent liberalisation of opening hours, and for many this little shop - open 8 till late - has been as much a meeting place for like minds as a retail outlet.
      There will be much nostalgic sighing and shaking of heads when it is no more, although - as always - many of those doing the sighing have not actually been in the place for years.
     
For all that it is not much larger than a generous shoe-box, Tunnelin Levy has been known for the consistent high quality of its assortment, which has always included rarities not found anywhere else, and certainly not in the big stores or the department store record sections, which tend to cater to the mass audience.
      At one stage the 20m² shop carried as many as 15,000 titles, but in recent years the numbers have declined to 4,000 to 5,000.
      The items on the shelves have always featured a good many classic back-catalogue albums chosen by the staff as their personal favourites, even if the more esoteric releases do not race out of the door with quite the speed of the latest Beyoncé CD.
     
Tunnelin Levy was founded in 1970 by Jukka and Pekka Nuutilainen and their late father, whom the shop staff still refer to fondly as "Pappa".
      The shop is still in the ownership of the Nuutilainen family.
      It has been trading at a loss for the last five years, so the decision to call it a day hardly comes as a surprise.
      Pappa had his doubts at the time that a dedicated record store would ever make any money, and so in the official trade register documents the store is still known as Tunnelin Levy ja Tupakka ("Tunnel Records and Tobacconists").
      "Not that tobacco products have ever been sold here. A certain amount of dope may have been peddled, perhaps", shrugs Jukka Nuutilainen.
      Veteran staffer Jouni Alakoski, who has been serving up vinyl, cassettes, and more recently CDs in the shop since 1973, confirms his boss's speculation and hastily adds: "But the dealer in question is long since dead and gone."
     
Jukka Nuutilainen got the crazed idea of opening a record shop at the end of the 1960s, after returning from a trip to the States.
      He blames Bob Dylan as much as anyone for the whole mad venture.
      As a big fan of His Bobness, he was convinced that all of Dylan's oeuvres ought to be on sale (and in the 1970s Tunnelin Levy actually sold around 20% of all copies of each new Dylan album released in Finland), and he was also somewhat dazzled by the original fantasy of a shop as a means of getting "all the music you really liked for free".
      "We've never been business-minded people as such. Tunnelin Levy has been a meeting-place. This is a social service more than anything."
     
Nuutilainen says the reason for closing down is that the store's sales have dwindled at much the same rate as record sales in general, and Tunneli has not managed to move with the times.
      "We haven't been able to compete on location alone", he says, although the shop does naturally get plenty of traffic passing through on the way to and from the railway terminus and the Metro station.
     
Alakoski agrees with the assessment, and notes that the store should have taken vinyl back into its assortment and also started online sales, but the energy to take on new challenges just wasn't there any more.
      But then again these days more and more are buying their music as direct downloads from the Net and eschewing the old pleasures of owning physical records as such.
     
A customer comes in and asks for the latest from Helsinki band Underwater Sleeping Society, a limited edition CD/vinyl combination release, and Alakoski turns and disappears from view down the red stairs to the basement.
      One of the charms of Tunnelin Levy, and part of the legend, is precisely this moment: when the sales clerk vanishes to return a few seconds later brandishing some rare import or treasured album of obscure out-takes.
      The stairs, invisible to the customer standing behind the counter, are like a mysterious portal to some larger parallel universe, although the truth is rather more prosaic - shelf upon shelf of CDs carrying the new release from Vampire Weekend or classics from Frank Zappa or The Grateful Dead, and down below an office (watched over by a poster of a young Elvis Presley) that has seen many parties and which reeks of stale coffee, thousands upon thousands of cigarettes, and the rather unsavoury WC lurking in the corner.
      "Cleaning up hasn't really been our thing", grins Jouni Alakoski as he shows off the grimy inner sanctum.
     
Alakoski is naturally wistful that his last climb of the stairs is fast approaching.
      "We've got used to coming here. We'll probably only wake up to it when it's gone, on the morning when this is all over for good", he sighs.
     
The demise of Tunnelin Levy has also prompted worried frowns among other record-dealers about the future of the business.
      Many dealers cut their teeth selling records here in the station tunnel.
      One such is Ilkka "Emu" Lehtinen, owner of the Digelius store, who got his training in the secrets of the art in Tunnelin Levy right at the beginning, in 1970.
      From February 17th, Digelius will be the second-oldest record store in Helsinki after Fuga.
     
Helsinki has more specialist record stores than ever these days, and the city is something of a Mecca for enthusiasts, even in a climate in which record sales are falling, downloads from the Net are cheap and easy, and when the latest Nokia mobile phone can by itself probably hold and deliver up more music than anyone can reasonably listen to.
      But even if there are a good many stores - Black & White, Fennica, Digelius, Keltainen Jäänsärkijä, Stupido, Popparienkeli, Eronen, Lifesaver, Levyliike Äx, and Hippie Shake among them - none of them are in the heart of the busy downtown area like Tunneli, and all the dealers shiver a little at the fate of the old pathfinder in the trade.
     
For places like this, staying alive means increasingly having to stock a huge selection, even running into the tens of thousands of titles, or alternatively carving out a very special niche indeed.
      CDs and DVDs alone are not enough. There should be vinyl, too, and possibly T-shirts and other merchandising items. And an online catalogue to draw in the out-of-towners.
      But without expertise and without good customer service, a specialist record store does not survive for forty years.
      People go into such shops not just to acquire goods, but to chat and to hang out and to soak up the vibe - and maybe even buy something altogether different from what they originally intended.
      So long, Tunneli, and thanks for all the music. Let the Good Times Roll.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / Edited from an article first published in print on 30.1.2010
     
Tunnelin Levy will close its doors for the last time on or before February 17th. On that day, there will be a free combined 40th birthday concert and wake at the Tavastia Club (Urho Kekkosen katu 4-6) from 20:00. Among the artists appearing will be Kari Peitsamo, Pertti Kurikan nimipäivät, and Zetor
     


Links:
  An obituary (in Finnish) from a blog on the site of music magazine Rumba
  Another One Bites The Dust (English blog entry by Petri Wessman)
  Digging though piles of records (helsinki.fi - lists other specialist stores in Helsinki)
  Record Shops in Helsinki (RateYourMusic.com)

TEEMU LUUKKA / Helsingin Sanomat
teemu.luukka@hs.fi