Category: Blog

Rock is Dead…according to Music Week. In 2010 only three, what they would class as ‘Rock’ songs were in the Top 100 sellers. A ‘massive rock band’ like the Arctic Monkeys they say has not broken ‘The Chart’ since 2006.

But exactly how relevant is  “The Hit Parade”  in 2011?

Gone are the days when we would gather around the portable of a Thursday evening waiting for Peter Powell and the Corny Hairflake to tell us what position China Crisis were at. Never again will we hold a Binatone Mono tape recorder next to the Grundig radio with pause button at the ready waiting for Bruno Brookes to unveil ‘the Only Chart that Counts’ and never again will we peruse the Top 40 singles in their racks at Woolies, Virgin or HMV..some of which had sold so many they had to be re-pressed without picture sleeves. Sometimes they’d sold out of the one you wanted and it would be in ‘on Wednesday’.

Enough dewey-eyed nostalgia. People still love music as much as they ever did, and they listen to more of it than ever before. Kids growing up today have access to the whole of musical history online and the stats suggest they are getting stuck in and hearing as much of it as possible. The ‘yoof’  have probably got far more well-rounded and informed tastes than previous generations, they have no excuse not to since it is laid on a plate for them, and they don’t need to wait until they’ve got enough pocket money to get it. They can get the latest Tiny Tempah track in a click, but they can also hear a Half Man Half Biscuit B-Side if they want.

The ‘charts’ reflect none of this clandestine activity, nor do they account for all the myriad ways people consume music in 2011.

The charts today are compiled by something called ‘The Official Charts Company’. It’s essentially a wing of the BPI, (the British Pop Institute or something). According to their site, the charts are based on actual sales of CDs and Vinyl records by mail order or retail,  and downloads from Amazon, iTunes and so forth. They don’t currently capture any streaming services such as Spotify or plays of a track on Youtube. For obvious reasons this doesn’t include file sharing or free downloads.

Naturally then the charts will reflect only the activity of those who buy physical product or legal downloads, but at the same time it is going to be skewed by the purchase of specific tracks which are either being sold/marketed as ‘singles’ or purchased en-masse as individual tracks. No surprise then that there is a dance/teen-pop and mainstream R&B bias since that is the where the mass market and promotion of single tracks is strongest.

Today’s teenage hipsters are all downloading whatever they want for free, or just listening to it on Youtube , so I firmly believe that very little of what anyone over the age of 11 listens to is reflected in the ‘Hit Parade’. If the 16-25 year olds actually bought mp3s in any significant numbers, some Witch House band or Grime artist nobody has ever heard of would probably be in the top 10. I’d argue that a lot of what makes up the Top 40 is purchased legally on iTunes or Amazon for the under 10s, by their parents who naturally don’t want the kids roaming all over the web looking for free downloads and want to stay within the law.

The other bits of the market, the ‘Adult Orientated’ bit, the casual music fan, the big music fans and the lunatic fringe that still go to record shops (that’s YOU that is!) aren’t buying any ‘singles’ at all. When was the last time a band you liked released a single and you rushed out to buy it? Obviously crate-digging and second-hand purchases don’t count at all but was always thus. We’re all buying  CDs or Vinyl albums, box-sets, maybe downloading whole albums from Amazon/iTunes but not specific ‘tracks’ in large enough numbers to make anything a ‘hit’. If you’re honest, even the most die-hard Vinyl addict is also listening on Spotify, using up eMusic credits, watching YouTube clips and doing a bit dodgy downloading too.

All this activity is so fragmented and atomised, very little it is enough to dent the charts with one specific song, so that’s a whole chunk of the music market not represented. The same goes for the casual music buyer that just buys the odd CD in Tesco or on Amazon. Where are the ‘Singles’ for them? OK they’re the same people who put Joe Dolce and Rene and Renato at the top of the charts in the 1980s but you get my point.

The result. The lowest common denominator is as low as it can get.  A ‘Hit Parade’ of inane, auto-tuned earworms custom tailor made for 8 year olds, off their faces on Swizzels Matlow products. Commercial radio stations dutifully playing the whatever is in the ‘chart’ and scratching their heads wondering why listeners are deserting them in droves, and David Kid Jensen wondering where all the ‘rock’ bands have gone. The result is ‘Absolute 80s’ and BBC news claiming ‘Rock is Dead’. Meanwhile everyone of all ages is happily listening to whatever they want, when they want. That’s fine,  but there is no proper chart to look back on and measure what the soundtrack of the times actually was. That in itself is a shame.

They may as well compile the charts like this:

You’ll no doubt have heard the (not entirely surprising) news that troubled HMV is to close 60 of it’s stores following a big dip in Christmas trade. Can it really all be due to the snow, competition from online sales and teenagers file-sharing?

I like buying records, you like buying records (otherwise why are you reading this?), and lots of other people do too. Rough Trade for example have reported a 5% increase in sales over the festive season.

The fact is that HMV, in it’s urge to transform itself into a ‘Broad based entertainment brand’ seems to have completely forgotten how to do what it was invented for.

It was never a particularly pleasant place to shop, functional at best, but handy for back catalogue or something too mainstream to find in an indie shop. Walk into either of the Manchester HMV shops today and your synapses are assaulted with a riot of day-glo tat designed to woo Justin Bieber fans in off the street. DVDs, Wii Games, Posters, T-Shirts, badges, beads, bangles, toys,  iPods, iPhones, maybe an Orange Mobile Phone concession too (like there isn’t already one on every corner anyway). If you search really hard, in a dusty corner or basement you may just find some CDs but don’t expect the extensive back catalogue of old. Of course you can get them cheaper from the HMV Website anyway. They’ve practically driven music fans out of the store and on-line.

The less said about their ludicrous Loyalty Card campaign ‘pureHMV’ the better. For a £5 joining fee you are invited to ‘Get even closer….’.  Closer to what , isn’t made clear but instead of something useful like money off things, you get the chance to win whatever tat they have lying around in the promo cupboard. For 50,000 points you can get a signed picture of a bloke from JLS, or if you can navigate the baffling website for 30,000 points you can get tickets for James Blunt. Ridiculous, and a real sign of just how out of touch the chain is with it’s customers.

It’s not been treating it’s casual,  seasonal customers any better either. I read reports of huge queues at HMV stores close to Xmas but due to the lack of seasonal staff rather than an increase in sales. People talk of waiting with CDs and DVDs and putting them back rather than wait. Next year those people will doubtless use Amazon or a supermarket instead.

No mention as yet of what this means for HMV-owned Fopp, which still does seem to make sense to music lovers (albeit by recreating the illusion of being an independent record shop).

It’s a shame for the staff at whichever of the HMV shops close (although it might be a relief too from what I’ve heard about their treatment from management). Word is that big cities with duplicate shops will lose one, so it looks likely one of the big Manchester shops will go, my money would be on jinxed Arndale branch which has already been a Zavvi and a Virgin shop before that. At least in Manchester there is plenty of other choice for music buyers.

I can only hope that as HMVs do start to vanish from high streets that in smaller towns and cities where there is no alternative for music shoppers, maybe the independent and specialist shops will fight back and fill the gap in the market. Buying music in shops is increasingly a niche activity, but nevertheless the demand is still there, and maybe the job is best left to the real experts rather than the confused, corporate behemoth that HMV has become.

Remember it this way!

You may have already noticed that Cassette Tapes are back, in a small but beautiful way.

Before you Vinyl disciples start getting all upset about hiss, wow and flutter that’s exactly why tapes are making a comeback. A lot of experimental soundmakers and bands are using the medium specifically to capture the unique, fuzzy, lo-fi sound of tape and use the limitations of the format as part and parcel of the music. Others are using them as a nod to Mixtape culture and the early days of Hip Hop. They also make quirky little collectors items for the merchandise stall and are a great, cheap way for bands to distribute some home-made music without just sending out an mp3 or a blank CD-R.

Check out  The Tapeworm Label, Not Not Fun , and Mirror Universe Tapes for all kinds of interesting and mega-limited tape-only relelases. If you know of any more good tape labels and interesting finds let us know!

Among collectors, tapes have generally been considered charity shop fodder at best, landfill at worst but there are some collectable ones and there is a relatively untapped world of rarities out there. The lovely Factory Records A5 book-style boxed tapes remain highly desirable for example. Check out this recently uncovered, unreleased version of Fac24c.
Rumour has it that the tape version of My Bloody Valentine’s ‘Loveless’ is a different mix to the CD version and have a look at this amazing page about the peculiar tape variations on The Beatles albums, again some with different running orders and alternate mixes.

So, grab yourself a cheap Walkman or Boombox on Ebay and get busy with the hissy.

(and hang on to those Mini Discs and DAT tapes, they’re bound to have a revival one day….)

Record Store Day was, by all accounts, a triumph. I popped out early on to distribute some Record Shop City leaflets to the queue outside Piccadilly just before opening time. Amazingly, the queue was snaking around the block as far as Beatin’ Rhythm records and I soon ran out of the 100 or so leaflets I had with me and cursed myself for not printing 100 more but I’d been DJ-ing the previous night so I had a suitably rock and roll excuse. If you were in the queue and you’d like one it’s available here. Note the preponderance of young people, and even some women in the queue…not quite the stereotypical ‘Hi Fidelity’ image of your average record shop punter is it? The kids at the front of the queue had been there since 4.30am.

Our man Carl visited King Bee and found Les doing brisk trade as ever. King Bee wasn’t a participating store although to be fair, every saturday is Record Store Day in that part of the world!

In terms of raising awareness about the ongoing resilience of independent music retailers the day was definitely a success with lots of press features (some Manchester related ones are reproduced  here..and here), and much discussion and debate about Record Shops. For one day it restored something that the internet has taken away from music retailers, exclusivity and scarcity of the product they are selling. For a brief moment record shops had ‘stuff ‘that nobody could download for free, or buy cheaper on Amazon. Of course the bubble was burst within hours as certain mercenary folk put their Blur or Beatles singles on Ebay, hardly in the spirit of the event but somewhat inevitable.

Still, the fact that such an event occurs at all says a lot about the determination of people who love record shops to keep them alive. While it is great to have record shop exclusives available for one day it does beg the question why record labels can’t do this every saturday? Surely more releases could be made available to record shops ahead of their online or download release date, and more could be done to provide interesting and exclusive items for record shops to sell. The shops have shown that they’re capable of moving with the times and adapting to the seismic shifting of the music industry goalposts, its time record labels did their bit to help too, and not just once a year.

We often get asked whether we’ll cover shops outside the Manchester region. Well, for now we’re keeping it local because that means we can cover the area in depth and we visit all the shops in person  in order to review them properly for you. However, if you’re looking further afield then try www.indierecordshop.org which is building up into a pretty comprehensive directory of Independent Record Stores all over the country. Its an industry sponsored affair and as far as I can see they only focus on shops that sell new releases, so we’re not out of an (unpaid) job yet!

In other news, don’t forget that Record Store Day is just two weeks away on Saturday April 14th. Locally, Vibes Records in Bury and Piccadilly Records in the Northern Quarter will be participating and  selling some of the mega-rare limited items that will only be available over the counter on the day. There is an enormous list of stuff including mega-limited singles by the likes of The Fall, Pavement, Pet Shop Boys, Midlake, Mogwai, Grace Jones, Hot Chip, Gorillaz, Neu!, Rolling Stones, an exclusive Goldfrapp tape (told you tapes were back!) to name just a few. To avoid disappointment do check with the shops to find out what they’ll be getting copies of though, and remember you can’t order this stuff online..you gotta stand in a line. The full list of participating stores is here: www.recordstoreday.com/UnitedKingdom.

Of course it’s not just about picking up a few exclusives, it’s about supporting and celebrating all the record retailers so while you’re at it, why not pick a shop from our list that you’ve not visited before, or get someone who hasn’t been digging for a while to get back into it.

The Piccadilly Records newsletter is always worth a read every Monday morning as Philippa and the team tell you not only what has arrived in the stock room, but the ongoing fortunes of The Manchester Stingers WFC and suggestions for a top night out in Manchester and so forth. Given the rate at which certain limited issues sell out these days, you’d be advised to read it as soon as it comes out, and by popular demand you’ll now see a handy summary of  ‘staff picks’ and find out what’s new in each department.

I hope Philippa won’t mind us reproducing her introduction to todays newsletter which makes a rather salient point about owning a large collection of ‘Physical Product’ as opposed to a hard drive full of mp3s of dubious origin. As she points out, the difference is that the latter has some value, and given that most releases are now in fairly limited quantities now is the time to start looking for the collectables of the future.

“As a vinyl junkie who has been buying wax since the late 70s, I now have a whole room given over to flooor-to-ceiling shelves of records. I sleep in the smaller back bedroom while my records get the comfort of the master bedroom up front. Meanwhile my friends have 20,000 tracks on something smaller than a fag packet. I spent years hauling boxes of records up and down nightclub stairs, while today’s DJs skip along with tiny shoulder bags of downloaded tracks on burnt CDs.

Sometimes I’ve felt like the person who went with Betamax while everyone else chose VHS. But not anymore, because I have now discovered Discogs. Working here for 24 years has meant that sometimes I’ve got a bit over enthusiastic in my purchases, ending up with a mix of cherished gems on the one hand and un-opened, still sealed, mint condition shelf fillers on the other. I might have a a whole room full of records, but it’s a room full of records that’s now making me money. So here’s two fingers to the downloaders – your collection of tracks is worth zilch. And it doesn’t look as good. And it doesn’t sound as good. And it doesn’t exist outside your iPod. Record collections (on vinyl or CD) rule!

So fellow record collectors, check out this week’s list of new music – there’s some really special releases on it, from the Soft Pack 45 to the new Gil Scott-Heron LP, from the latest batch of rhythm & blues sevens to the bang up to date UK garage-dubstep-techno crossover CD compilation from Fabric Records. Add to those future gems right now.”

I did a double take walking down Church Street this lunchtime. There now stands a pile of rubble where the bookstall and ramshackle old Church Street Records once ‘stood’ in its own lopsided, weatherbeaten way.

In its place will be some new market stalls which, to be fair,  is infinitely preferable to more flats or an extension for T**co. Apparently all the existing stall holders have been offered a new spot too. It sounds like the bookstall will be back, but there is no mention of whether Church St Records’ owner has taken them up on the offer or decided to call it quits. If I were a betting man I would say they probably won’t be racking up the Clive Dunn LPs and shop soiled copies of Candy Flip’s second single in a shiny new stall in a few months time, but if anyone knows different let us know!

You can still read our notes on the strange little place, and Graham Jones recalls the unique sales technique of Church Street Records ‘staff’ in the article he kindly wrote for us which is here:

But lets not get all dewy eyed and nostalgic.  As I passed the site I was actually carrying some new tunes purchased up the road in the Northern Quarter where trade in recorded sound (to people of all ages!) was brisk. It wasn’t free downloading, Amazon, Ebay, the general meltdown of the music industry or even T**co that finished Church Street Records off..they survived all that. It was a Bulldozer wot done it.

This week our man Carl paid a long overdue visit to Eastern Bloc, up in the Nothern Quarter. The place is a bit of a Manchester institution and amazingly this year sees its 25th Anniversary. We’re pleased to report that Eastern Bloc is still enthusiastically feeding the dancefloors and bedrooms of the North West with as much Techno, Drum N Bass, Dubstep and House as it can eat and, despite the age of CDJs and MP3 mixing, almost exclusively on 12″ Vinyl . It would seem that there is still a large and lively community of DJs and Tune affocianados for whom only a pair of Technics and a box of black plastic will do.

Sounds like the guys are doing a great job keeping the buzz going and Carl came back all twitchy and with an insatiable urge to mount a club podium, crack open a can of Breaker and throw some Techno ‘shapes’.  So, we salute you Eastern Bloc and we’ve updated our E-Bloc page (click here) with an updated review and cool new pictures.

Dispatches from the field…massive stock of near mint Disco, Boogie, Funk and Soul sevens have just come into King Bee Records. We are talking serious artillery here, on a quick scan perhaps a 1000 7″s.  All points covered  Lowrell, Norman Connors, Patrice Rushen, O Jays, Creative Source, MFSB, Eddie Kendricks. You get the vibe I’m sure. Check out the pics and then hustle on down to see Les. Might want to take a packed lunch with you as there’s some serious hours to put into this lot. As usual good prices and all in great nick.

Quick flick through the “just in” racks of Vinyl Revival today and someone has clearly got rid of their Poco collection. About 5 albums all in fairly good nick retailing for around a fiver each….and not a drop of barbecue sauce on any of them! All early to mid 70s and if country rock is your thang then saddle up n’ git on down!

Pocos roots lie in the disintegration of Buffalo Springfield. After Neil Young and Stephen Stills left Buffalo Springfield in 1968, members Richie Furay and Jim Messina enlisted Rusty Young, George Grantham and Randy Meisner to form Poco….

The next entry in our ‘For the Record Shops’ series comes from Colin from Vod Music. Our man Carl recently visited his fascinating little Record shop up in Mold, North Wales which you can read about in this article.
Colin also organises a successful series of Record fairs in that neck of the woods too, and his article he tells us about his devotion to the cause of Record Shops and why they still have an important role to play:

The inspiration for the Mold Record Shop came from years of trawling  shops in the heady days of the 70’s and the survivors of the expected demise of Vinyl in the late 80’s and early 90’s. The guys who hung in there may now reap the benefits of the ironic ongoing demise of the CD due to the current download culture, not that any format should be singled out,  they all have merit but for the serious music listener Vinyl remains the ‘weapon of choice’ – it’s how it’s meant to sound.

The Record shop to me was a place to hang out and slap on the headphones with no obligation. The guys behind the counter would engage in banter and pass on their knowledge with a smile (the music was everything). Racks of temptation lay in front of you, not only for the music but also the artwork. You could order or enquire about different genres – “what’s that sound like?” , be informed on what was due in, all this added to the experience. Then the thrill of walking home with your purchase in the bag, quite often no knowing what it was going to sound like – experimentation (although sometimes hit and miss) was a big part of it. Large high street stores just cannot deliver this level of enjoyment.

When the last Independent Record shop disappeared from Mold in North Wales, locally it left a void, I felt there were lost souls wandering without any crates to dig. This lead to Vod Music Record Fairs (sort of one-day Record shops) being set-up in 2006 and happy to say as we move to 2010 the Fairs have built up a fervent following and achieve excellent visitor numbers at every event.

But the opportunity to get behind my own counter in early 2009 proved too much of a draw, running your own Record shop is like a dream come true. Yes it’s ‘not the biggest’ (no exaggeration there)  but hopefully in some small way the feeling I had in times gone by can be recreated, it’s not rocket science just good music and chat.
The customer and the Record shop owner are to me as one, the knowledge out there lies on both sides of the counter and should not be underestimated.
Here in North Wales music lovers are renewing their vows with Vinyl. It’s not uncommon to find people who had replaced their Vinyl with CD’s only to severely regret it and are now replacing the same items with Vinyl again, talk about coming full-circle.
So what does it all mean to me – when you enter a Record Shop the clock stops. It’s  a place to chill and forget about everything else just for a while – long may the Independents continue!

Vod Music host regular Record Fairs in North Wales throughout the year, more details click here.

For more about the Mold Record Shop check out the site here:

We’ve got another shop review for you, and it’s another absolute corker. Our man Carl went to Bury Old Road instead of Bury New Road, but eventually found his way to Prestwich village and located the amazing, and aptly named, Endless Music. Judging from his review, it’s fair to say he was suitably impressed by the mountain of lovely vinyl and the genial vibes he found there. Read his report here:

We’ve another new Top 10 added to our ‘charts’ section, this time kindly provided by Andy from Piccadilly Records, and a very fine and all-encompassing selection it is too. Everything from Space Rock, “proper” Indie (i.e not of landfill variety),  to groovesome Funk  and a certain Scottish band from the 80s, fond of standing on hilltops yeilding their bag-pipe-mimicking guitars (who could that be?)… Click here to look and listen to it.

…and then click here to send us your charts…we like charts!

OK it’s not in Manchester…but we couldn’t resist a feature on this Tardis-like record shop in North Wales.

Well what’s a digger meant to do when he has been working all day in Wales and gets off early…..go and visit what is reputably the UK’s smallest record shop that’s what. Nestled on the corner of Mold High Street sits Vod Records.  Run by the very enthusiastic Colin, a key mover on the Welsh record fair scene, this shop is a treat. No more than 20 foot by 6 and packed from floor to ceiling with goodies. Stacks of great vinyl at sensible prices (Rock, Pop, Soul, 70s, Reggae, Dance) all in excellent condition as well as a nice collection of contemporary 7s and 12s, CDs, T shirts and a smattering of memorabilia…. now this is how to do it.

The place has a smile written all over it and you can stand at one end of the shop whilst flicking through the racks at the other end…Mr Tickle style. You get a real sense that the shop is a key part of the local community and at the heart of musical happenings across these fair hills. Highly recommended if you’re venturing further afield, or passing on your way to Manchester!

So praise be to Colin, keep it up fella..see you soon.

Opening Hours vary, usually Thurs, Fri, Sat and sometimes during the week. (Check their myspace page for the latest times)

Vod Music, 28 New Street, Mold, Flintshire

07904688739 email: mailto:vinylondeck@aol.com
www.myspace.com/moldrecordshop

Tonight, Friday 2nd October between 11pm and 12am our man Carl will be appearing on the Anthony Cranks show on BBC Radio Manchester (95.1FM  or listen live here) to review this weeks new single releases. Tune in and see if he can slip in a cheeky plug or two for this ‘ere website. Good Luck Carl!

OK, wrong end of the Pennines for this Website but I was intrigued to discover that last weekend Warp Records had “re-opened” its Sheffield shop for one weekend only, as part of the Warp20 events to mark its 20th Anniversary. The revived shop was set up as a ‘pop-up shop’  in the Forum just across the road from the original shop location on Division Street.

Interesting idea, perhaps Fat City might pop up again sometime!

Take a look around!
http://www.anti-limited.com/panos/media/pano_warpshop_int.htm

The 2nd article in our ‘For the Record Shops’ series comes from Graham Jones, author of the excellent book ‘Last Shop Standing – Whatever Happened to Record Shops”. Graham’s book paints a vivid picture of how crazy things got in the chart-rigging-tastic 1980s, and he tours the country to meet some of the stalwarts of the Record Shop business.

Click here to read Grahams article.

The second entry in our ‘For the Record Shops’ series comes from Graham Jones. Graham has worked in music retail and distribution since the 1980s and his book “Last Shop Standing” documents the journey from the crazy chart-rigging 1980s heyday, to the more challenging present. He tours some of favourite shops around the country and discovers just how the music industry got itself into such a mess, and finds out how the real stalwarts of the Record Shop world are fighting back against free downloads and supermarket discounts. You can buy the book from many of the shops featured on our site. Visit lastshopstanding.co.uk for more information.

“Where would the music industry be without record shops? It is they who support new music and local talent. Nowhere is this more evident than in Manchester where the shops of the city have been at the forefront of introducing so many great bands to the world.

But record retailing is an industry in crisis. I highlight in my book Last Shop Standing (Whatever Happened To Record Shops?) the reasons why 540 independent record shops have closed in the last 4 years alone. As somebody who lived in Walkden for 5 years Manchester record shops have always been close to my heart. I currently work at Proper Music and for over 20 years I have sold to the shops of the city. What I like about Manchester as one shop closes another one opens ensuring that unlike many other cities in the UK the local music scene stays healthy. Everybody has their favourite shops. I have always been a fan of Piccadilly Records surely the shop Nick Hornby based Hi Fidelity on. Beatin’ Rhythm surely the best Northern Soul shop ever. Vibes in Bury and X-Records in Bolton are others I am a fan of but my all time favourite is the eccentric Church Street Records.

This is the story of my first visit there taken from Last Shop Standing.
I turned up to discover that it was a collection of wooden racks out on the pavement with a timber roof, which was there to stop customers getting wet in the rain. At the end of this collection of racking was a garden shed. Inside were two men, and I asked if Tony, the owner, was about. “No, Tony is not in today,” the taller man told me. I asked the gentlemen when he would be in, and asked their names.

The taller gentleman told me he was Paul and that he was Tony’s identical twin brother. He then introduced me to the other man, called Bernard. As I had come all that way, he enquired whether I would like some hot chocolate. He sympathised with me for missing Tony, but assured me that if I called back at the same time next week, he would be there. Bernard passed me the drink, which was the weakest hot chocolate I had ever tasted, but I felt it would be rude to say anything. We chatted for a few minutes and then I announced that I should go and would call back next week. “You haven’t finished your drink,” Paul shouted, so I went to gulp it down. As I drank, I choked when a huge lump of congealed powder went down my throat. It was clear that the drink had never been stirred. Paul and Bernard had burst out laughing as I choked and, over the coming months, I realised that offering people a drink was just a big joke to them. They never had one themselves and, although there was a tea and coffee machine, if you asked for one of those beverages, they never had any. The only drinks they ever had were hot chocolate or soup. They would never do business until you had finished your drink. It was like some strange initiation ceremony in which you had to drink this warm water, followed by a congealed lump, whilst they stared at you until the cup was empty.

The next week I turned up to be greeted by Paul. “Hi,” I said, “is Tony in today?”
“I am Tony,” he replied. Crikey, I thought they are identical. Bernard offered me a hot chocolate, which I politely declined, but Tony insisted and told me that it would be rude to turn down his kind hospitality. After I had suffered the drink Tony came out to my van, which I sold CDs and LPs from and, like a whirlwind, just pulled out piles of stock and threw them on the floor. Many of the LPs were falling out of their sleeves and numerous CD cases were smashed. After only a few minutes he announced that he had spent enough and, with that, leapt off the van leaving me to sort out the wigwam-shaped pile in the middle of the floor. When I raised the invoice he had spent over £500, so it was well worth putting up with his eccentricities for an order that large. I dropped his stock off into the hut and Tony told me to watch something before I left. With that he picked up a large megaphone, crept up behind a customer and, at the top of his voice, shouted through the megaphone, “BARGAINS BARGAINS!” The poor customer jumped out of his skin. Tony came back laughing his head off. “Don’t you lose lots of customers doing that?” I asked, whilst stifling my laughter.” Of course I do,” he replied, “but it’s worth it for the laugh.” Over then next couple of years every visit would end with him getting his megaphone out and scaring another poor customer witless. It’s a bit sad, but it used to be my highlight of the day and, amazingly, I never witnessed one customer resort to violence. I will never forget the wonderful Church Street Records or the amazing characters who somehow made a living there”