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GREENSBORO -- I hate that sign.

I see it in the window, and I can’t help but think of all the other independent record stores, all those cool spots of conversation that helped anchor our city, give it personality and draw every discerning music hound I knew.

School Kids. Spins. The Record Exchange. Crunchy Music Stuff. Gate City Noise. All gone.

Now, I read that sign in the window — those block letters in black and aquamarine that read, “HELP SAVE YOUR LOCAL MUSIC STORE”— and I realize the place many of us know as BB’s could make that list.

I stop Duncan Dunn . He’s the owner, and I find out I’m like every other customer. He gets stopped three or four times a day, and in that wide-eyed expression of regret, they ask, “What’s going on?’’

Well, it’s crunch time for BB’s Compact Discs, Greensboro’s last remaining independent record store.

Dunn’s store needs to pinch every penny, hold off bringing in any new releases and sell off inventory — now at half price — to get enough money to move to another location.

After this weekend, Dunn will know whether he has the money he needs. If not, BB’s will close, ending a business that has buoyed music — and music lovers — in and around Greensboro for 19 years.

Dunn needs to move. His lease expires in 18 days, and in the past year, BB’s business has fallen by 50 percent as Quaker Village Shopping Center, run by a big corporation out of Chicago, has become an array of empty storefronts.

So, after living paycheck to paycheck for the past six months, he’s looking to relocate near UNCG, along Battleground Avenue or near his old haunt close to Guilford College.

Ask Dunn about his chances, and on a scale of 1-10, he gives the chance of success, of reinvigorating his business and pulling off a potential move, a 4.

Yet, he says he’s optimistic.

“I have to be,’’ he said the other day, “or I’d be too depressed when I came to work. I hold out hope, but I have to be prepared for what could come.”

Look what has come.

Record companies have become conglomerates, big-box retailers sell discounted CDs next to washers and racks of clothes, and digital downloads on the Internet — particularly singles — are becoming more popular with each passing year, despite having a sound quality as scratchy as a transister radio.

Meanwhile, between 2006-2007, the most recent figures available, CD sales have dropped by nearly 21 percent. So, music spots like BB’s are placed in the cross-hairs of commerce, where employees like Colt Weaver field questions about the sign outside.

“Most people say it’s tragic,’’ said the UNCG sophomore who started shopping at BB’s in eighth grade. “One girl who came in here just flipped out because she has been coming here for four or five years.

“So, for most people, it’s tough to believe because this place has been a safe haven for music fans for so long.’’

Two years ago, Dunn bought the store named after guitar great B.B. King from Darryl Deitsch , a Duke grad who started it in 1989 with his longtime friend, Brad Boyson.

Deitsch got out because he worried about feeding his family on an income based on the precarious whims of the music industry. Now, Dunn worries about the same thing.

Dunn is 32, father of a 13-month-old son he and his fiancée named Yorick Dorian. Like any parent, he has bills to pay and clothes to buy.

But Dunn is an old-school music hound.

In his hometown of Savannah, Ga. , he loved nothing better than flipping through the racks of CDs and vinyl records and finding some hidden gem at a tiny place called State Street Records .

So, he wants BB’s to survive.

He started working there 13 years ago , in a two-aisle hub of musical knowledge, where he could talk about his love for Wolfmother while listening to Ella Fitzgerald and have someone stop by the counter to ask, “Hey, do you know that song, 'Too Drunk To Fight’ from the White Knuckle Truckers?’’

That’s much better than yet another question about the sign out front.

I hate it. And Dunn does, too.

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com