This year marks the 40th anniversary of the oldest CD production/sale studio/store of Los Angeles-“Parseghian Records”.
You can find everything in this CD store-starting from the latest CDs and DVDs of Armenia and ending with well-known Russian singer Alla Pugachova and Armenian singer “Dzakh Harut”. The owner of the store is 80-year old Gevorg Parseghyan.
“People think that I started this business for money. But it’s not like that. We started this business by selling Armenian CDs for the Armenians of America to listen to. At the time, the Armenians who had emigrated from Europe, in fact most of them were slaves (WWII-A.A.) didn’t even speak a word in Armenian; they all spoke English.”
All entertainers of Yerevan know that “Parseghian Records” is perhaps the only store in Armenian show business that sells only licensed products. The studio purchases the selling right from Yerevan and makes profit on its own. That’s why there is no Armenian actor or singer who hasn’t paid a visit to see Mr. Gevorg. Mr. Gevorg even has a collection of photographs taken with the artists that have come to his store; the photo collection is located in the small corner of the store. I asked Mr. Parsegian to tell me who was his greatest inspiration. He said that there are five artists- Ruben Matevosyan, Karp Khachvankyan, Frunzik Mkrtchyan, Frunze Dovlatyan and Armen Jigarkhanyan.
A couple of years ago, “Parseghian Records” was not only involved in sales, but also had its own studio. It recorded singers, transferred videos from one system to another and had a photo studio. Currently, the record store only sells. After a couple of more years, Gevorg Parseghian will retire. He is going to hand the store over to his son, who is currently busy with selling the records online.
“We send our disks to Australia, Germany, Canada, Uruguay, Argentina, China and France. We send almost 10-15 CDs abroad by e-mail every day. This is online sales and it’s highly profitable. In fact, we send a lot of CDs to the Armenian churches of New York. Once we sent CDs worth 6,000 dollars to Marcel. But we didn’t get the money back; they cheated us…”says young Parseghian.
While I was there, a woman came in and asked to be photographed for a passport photo. We stop the conversation. During that time, 27-year old Hamik, who has moved to Los Angeles from Armenia and has been working with Gevorg Parseghian for the past eight years, comes into the store. Hamik is the white-haired store owner’s assistant.
“Records mainly sell in the United States. We’re not able to sell anything in Europe; Europeans only sell illegally produced CDs, as they do in Yerevan.” According to Hamik, besides illegal CDs, business has become more difficult due to the new technological advances. “Whereas before a person used to come to the store with five of his friends to buy CDs, now that person buys only one and makes copies of it online.”
The top-selling artist is Armenian Rabiz singer Tata. His CDs sell the most and quickly. His main competitor is Armenchik. Hamik talks quickly and gets to work. After taking the woman’s photo, Gevorg Parseghian raps it up. “Before we used to worry that we would forget Armenian. But now that I think about it, we also need to know English. You can’t do anything in America without knowledge of English.” Gevorg Parseghian is right, but it’s worth mentioning that today, the Armenians of Los Angeles know more Armenian than they do English.