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The records shops that shaped our lives

Wish I could accurately remember names and locations!

There was one in Nottm Centre in the early 1960's that had every record ever. The window display included all those records of Bird Song and the Sounds of Steam Locos etc. I bought my first two LPs there. (Alexis Korner and Duke Ellington. Still have both.. 50 years on...) Upstairs they sold everything from Dansettes to Quad.

Another fave was the basement record shop in the Nottingham Co-op, which in itself was a palace of Art Deco. Fab place. In my mind's eye, I can still see wall displays of albums like 'Bo's a Gunslinger' and others now rare and valuable.

Yet another basement shop was where we bought most of our stock for the mobile disco. Somewhere in the Pelham St area? Dunno, but I bought 'The Late, Fantastically Great Elmore James' there. Still have that one too!

Probably best of all was 'The Sign of Four', in the Shakespeare Street area.
A very odd shop that seemed to sell everything from records to novelties and jokes and quite possibly had 'contacts' for all kinds of other purchases.
They sold Sue and Red Bird label stuff, obscure folk stuff on Transatlantic and mostly, massive amounts of Blue Beat/Ska/Rock Steady/ Ska etc.
I bought the Bert Jansch 'Needle of Death' E.P. there, as well as Winston Francis 'Too Experienced' on the Punch label.

By the early 1970s I was living in Merseyside and well remember Virgin and NEMS. The main point though is that there weren't just specialist shops back then. Newsagents, Dept. Stores etc. all sold records.
All gone now.

Mull
 
Surprised to see no mention of Beano's in Croydon.

My first LP was The Crazy World of Arthur Brown bought from Fads (paint and wallpaper shop) in Southport.

I agree with the comments about Probe in liverpool, long live the counterculture.

Also Penny Lane in Liverpool where I heard my first ROIO, hi to you Gary if you are reading this !
 
The main point though is that there weren't just specialist shops back then. Newsagents, Dept. Stores etc. all sold records.
All gone now.
Yes, WH Smiths and Boots generally had a respectable record department. I remember getting the Yellow Submarine OST from Boots in Hereford. Ironically, the supermarkets selling records has been one of the many nails in the coffin of the specialist record shop.
 
Oz Records, Westgate Road Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, where I bought the first Roxy Music album. Their window was a full display of what would now be regarded as classics, and behind the counter, lovely female assistants.

Wish I had a time machine :).
 
Dark and dingy Virgin Records on Union Street in Swansea.

The door always used to be open and the PVC sleeves slipped around the record covers used to stink of exhaust fumes from the passing traffic outside....Long gone now, I used to buy all my punk and indie stuff in there.
 
I was probably around 12 or 13 when I first became obsessed with buying albums and that was pretty much who I was as a kid. No football or stuff like that, my friend Terry & I were into music and pretty much stuck together in that. I had a big sister who had boyfriends that were around 17 and into Pink Floyd and Wishbone Ash, and I guess they were my heroes at the time. I would be distraught when she broke up with any of them - they were my fountain of all knowledge. I must have been the typical nuisance kid brother wanting to hang around them.

This resulted in me constantly touring the Virgin Records shops around London when they were dingy underground places and each had their own plastic carrier bags designed by Roger Dean.
I also visited Brighton and spent a lot of time on beanbags on the floor with headphones on. This was the place then, and was one of the reasons that I moved here to Brighton when I was 19, although it had moved up the road by then and had lost that particular hippy vibe.
Magical times
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Red Rhino records once on Gillygate in York then in Goodramgate, ( where a succession of bad pressings from Diamond head Canterbury and Jethro Tull Broadsword turned me temporarily off vinyl.) and Track Records before the move from the bigger shop in the Coppergate centre. Also Cassidys and Riverside records, for used bargains. Can not remember the shop in the Stonegate arcade but bought most of my Wishbone Ash and James Gang from there. Sad that its nearly all gone now.
 
Always more of a Weasels and Underground man, myself.

Weasels was good wasn't it. Pretty messy but you never new what you might find. I think he moved the shop to Shirley later on. I found a listing for it on the internet recently, but when I went looking for it, it was gone.

Where was Underground? The name is very familiar to me but I can't remember where it was.

Kevin
 
R.E.Cords in Sadler Gate Derby. Pre-teen Saturday ritual.

Replay Records in The Haymarket Bristol. The centre of the Bristol dance universe. Friends became work colleagues became friends.

Giant Records in Perry Road Bristol.
 
Early on in the central Arkansas area, it was Peaches Records, which had more records than I knew existed, and TNT (short for Tape 'n Toke; tunes up front, bongs, incense, and blacklight posters in the back, through the doorway covered by strings of beads).

After that, Tower Records and various hole-in-the-wall used record stores in the U district in Seattle, and Music Market, where I was employed as an undergrad.
 
DER in Littlehampton where I had a saturday and holiday job in the record department from '72 till '76. We had a really extensive stock. Great job, used to get demo copies of forthcoming albums from the reps and albums which I did have to buy only cost me a pound each.
 
killie99,wasn't the "23rd Precinct" under McCormicks music shop in Bath St Glasgow

and don't forget CASA CASSETTES used to be in Sauchiehall St and Kerr's at Woodland's road/charing X..........

those were the days ..............remember The Mars Bar pub in St
Enochs?.....a great place to be spat on with Punk in it's heyday..........



When i was a teenager at school in the late 70's there were only 2 shops in Kilmarnock that I ever spent money in - 'The Card and Pop Inn' and 'Bruce's'. The Pop Inn was a tiny independant shop but was one of the shops used to compile 'The Charts' so they always had picture discs, 12" versions, 7" double packs and all sorts of wonderful extra's that you couldn't get anywhere else in Kilmarnock.
As a student in Glasgow in the early 80's there was just a fantastic range of shops to dispose of my student grant (remember them??) 23rd Precinct, Lost Chord, Listen, Bloggs, A1 ......
 
Violet May's, behind the Moor and in Castle Market; Bradleys on Fargate, lots of newagents that sold ex-jukebox 7"s, pre-loss of innocence Virgin Records at the bottom of the Moor, all in Sheffield. Selectadisc and loads of others in Nottingham, including one in the Victoria market that gave me a discount when I told them I was the DJ in the Student Union ;).
 
Bradleys Records at the bottom of Yorkshire Street in Rochdale is where most of my hard earned went back in the early seventies. Course Its not there anymore, demolished as part of the urban renewal

They moved to the corner of The Walk and Yorkshire st. He also had a tape shop in The Walk.
Old man Bradley then opened a carpet shop on the top part of Yorkshire st before getting back into records where he opened a record store attached to the market in Halifax.
 
Not forgetting Black Sedan on Fleece st which was a little bit cheaper. This was run by some student types who had another shop in the university precinct on Oxford st in Manchester.

Talking of Manchester, the original Virgin record shop on Lever st with built in speakers in the headrests.
 
Liverpool
A small record shop on Lodge Lane
A couple in Whitechapel Rushworth & Drapers & Nems
Probe
In Henley on Thames W H Smiths
Reading various Record shops
London Virgin Records Notting Hill I bought Tubular Bells there.
Belfast
Golden Discs,Our Price,Virgin,Good Vibrations, HMV& until recently Head Records
 
Yes 23rd was under McCormicks (or next door maybe?). I'd forgotten about Casa!
There was another shop in Renfield street (I think it was on Renfield Street, it was 30 years ago!), it was on the right as you go down the hill, almost opposite the cinema. At ground level where you went in it sold cards and stuff and downstairs they sold music, can't for the life of me remember it's name. I remember going to their closing down sale in 1982 as I'd just started college in Glasgow. I bought piles of stuff, easily the most I'd ever spent in one go in a record shop. To this day I regret not buying the David Bowie 7" picture disc set of 10 singles that they were selling for £10 - what was I thinking!!!

killie99,wasn't the "23rd Precinct" under McCormicks music shop in Bath St Glasgow

and don't forget CASA CASSETTES used to be in Sauchiehall St and Kerr's at Woodland's road/charing X..........

those were the days ..............remember The Mars Bar pub in St
Enochs?.....a great place to be spat on with Punk in it's heyday..........
 


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