Rhino Records general manager punches Matt Damon's

cardboard face. Sorry, but I have to try and page views somehow. A big thanks to Dennis Callaci, general manager of Rhino Records, for the cool picture.   

This 20-inch story on Callaci below will soon run in our neighbor's pages (and this is just a sample). I think it should run sometime this week but things can get held so I don't know when exactly.

Dennis Callaci, general manager of Rhino Records in Claremont, has seen change in the music industry after his more than 20 years of working there.

"We have seen a huge drop in the quantity of hits that we sell," Callaci said in a recent interview. "A record that would chart in our weekly top position five years ago would sell approximately 200 copies, now our average chart topper sells approximately half of that. Between the big boxes and the disposable nature of many of the hits, this is the area that has seen a large decline at out store. I welcome this in that it allows us to offer far more of a selection with money that would have previously been spent on digging deep on 10 titles a week."

Callaci, 39, said Rhino has been in the Claremont Village for more than 30 years "from a ramshackle of a shanty shack in 1976, to our current location that use to house a grocery store."

The reason for the longevity of the store, besides stocking deep catalog and new releases, is they "are fans of the obscure and more off the beaten path music that even Amazon and iTunes do not have access to," Callaci said.