The Record Shop - The Radio Show - The Recommendation - The Impulse Buy

[Rush2112]

For those of us who grew up with Radio and TV, before the internet and Google, things were very different or were they ??

My early musical influences were from listening to the music on the Radio and TV (Top of the Pops, Old Grey Whistle Test et al) and the music my parents played. So I have BBC Radio1 and Radio2 to thank for much of the music of my early teens, Dire Straits, Blondie, Gary Numan, OMD, Duran Duran, et al Perry Como, Andy Williams, Captain and Tennille, Abba, Kenny Rogers, Don Williams et al. BBC TV for Top of the Pops for so many performances by the like of Slade, The Sweet, Kool and the Gang, Jackie Graham and so on and those great performances on the Old Grey Whistle Test by acts rarely heard at the time on the radio such as Tom Petty, Golden Earing, ZZ Top, et al. My parents, my Dad for not following the music of his generation and giving me Stan Kenton, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson and Frank Sinatra. My Mum for Cliff Richard, The Beatles, Englebert Humperdinck, Tom Jones, Dionne Warwick and Shirley Bassey.

So in my mid teens me and my friends would listen to Tommy Vance's Friday Night Rock Show (10pm to Midnight) write down the tracks we liked and then on Saturday hunt them out in the record shops of Blackpool. One particular Saturday we went in search of Radar Love by Golden Earing and at every shop we met with "no not available" "Golden who?" we checked out compilations what few there were and no they were right it seemed. Having been everywhere I said what about that place on Cookson Street, my mate said "the classical place, Sinfonia," "is it classical ? have we ever been inside ?" So we ventured to the back end of town to where this tiny shop frontage of Sinfonia nestled amongst tatty shops, once inside, the 10ft by 10ft shop floor and three small browser racks didn't bode well. The guy behind the counter offered a cheery "can I help" we thought not, but well here goes, we're looking for a record by Golden Earing called Radar Love, "ok Ill take a look" and disappeared in the back. To reappear with a record in each hand "live or studio version" ! This was to be a pivotal moment in our music collecting career, the man, Sandy Mountain ably assisted, on occasions, by his sister Freda had a formidable wealth of music knowledge and had a huge treasure trove of a stock room at the back of the shop where thousands or singles and albums lay waiting to be discovered. In the following years Sandy's recommendations and subsequent impulse buys of artists, we had never heard of, would further broaden our musical horizons and grow our back catalogues of artists we had discovered.

So are things different now ? Well record shops are more scarce for sure but are more often or not owned by music lovers when you find them. The power of the internet means you can often find a artist or track and listen before you buy and Apple and the like has made it possible to buy that one album track and not the rest if you don't want them and that that impulse buy is now less of a gamble as you can try before you buy whilst sat at home !!

The bottom line is, I guess, the nostalgia, the camaraderie of finding the record getting another persons enthusiastic recommendation is what I really miss.

[Barry]

Nice anecdote Mark.

Record shops like the one which you describe are now very few and far between. HMV is useless - if it is not in stock, all they can do is look it up and order it for you.

I can remember when my parents were alive, and in those days records were mostly 78s, there used to be a record shop set in a beautiful Georgian house in Bristol, which went by the splendid name of "Duck, Son and Pinker". You could go in and even if you could only hum or 'la-la' the tune, they would identify it for you and find the record.

Moving to the late 20th century, we had a record shop here in Chelmsford that was very good. Specialising in classical and jazz, they would recommend a particular performance or recording, and if you were interested let you play it in their listening room equipped with a Thorens TT, Quad amplification and a decent set of speakers. Sadly, they closed down about ten years ago to concentrate on selling musical instruments. Since then we have had a flurry of small independent record shops, as well as larger ones such as Our Price and Andy's Records (the latter being particularly knowledgable and helpful) - but all were pushed out by the behemoth that is HMV.

[Pieoftheday]

In wakefield we had E.G.S record shop and J.A.T records, 80s early 90s, fantastic shops, listened to John peel whilst at work at night and would write stuff down so I could go look at the weekend late 90s to mebe early 2000s? We had a really good hmv, bargain bin was great to pick up some CDs, staff were very good there

[Rush2112]

Nice anecdote Mark.

Record shops like the one which you describe are now very few and far between. HMV is useless - if it is not in stock, all they can do is look it up and order it for you.

I can remember when my parents were alive, and in those days records were mostly 78s, there used to be a record shop set in a beautiful Georgian house in Bristol, which went by the splendid name of "Duck, Son and Pinker". You could go in and even if you could only hum or 'la-la' the tune, they would identify it for you and find the record.

Moving to the late 20th century, we had a record shop here in Chelmsford that was very good. Specialising in classical and jazz, they would recommend a particular performance or recording, and if you were interested let you play it in their listening room equipped with a Thorens TT, Quad amplification and a decent set of speakers. Sadly, they closed down about ten years ago to concentrate on selling musical instruments. Since then we have had a flurry of small independent record shops, as well as larger ones such as Our Price and Andy's Records (the latter being particularly knowledgable and helpful) - but all were pushed out by the behemoth that is HMV.

Hi Barry,

Interesting you mention the hi fi gear at the record shop.

Sandy, in the original shop, he later moved to larger premises on the same street, had one of those Dansette type record players ! But in the larger shop I remember a Thorens turntable and some large Castle speakers don't remember the amp. His home system was a quadraphonic set up with JVC receiver and turntable and four very large JBL speakers with orange egg tray style grills ! I remember him playing a classical piece and it sounding amazing, this is a long before any VHS or CD/DVD surround sound at home !

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