advertisement


The records shops that shaped our lives

Cyclops. Thassit. I once stood outside there fawning over something in the window and said to a mate 'that's the one I'd get', then this big ugly green thing came and hit me. :D

I remember Virgin on Bull St, all dark walls I seem to remember, but as a pre-teen downstairs it felt like I was in some special musical place reserved only for the initiated.

And was the place on Corporation Street opposite Harry Parkes Virgin? I distinctly remember going in there as a youngster desperate to buy something but not knowing what, so looked at the wall behind the counter and paid what at the time was an expensive 95p for this.

R-773048-1332339477.jpeg.jpg

Was that Plastic Factory?
 
I used to love Beanos even though it required a long bus trip to far-flung Croydon.

I spent a lot of time when I should have been in school hanging around Chick-A-Boom Records in Sutton smoking Benson & Hedges and chatting to the Alan Moore lookalike that ran it.

Serious shopping was a trip to Soho and Camden every couple of months when I'd saved up enough from stacking shelves in the evening to blow £50 in one outing :)

Was Chick a Boom the little shop on the first floor in the old arcade? If so, that is also a place I used to frequent.
 
Probably the most influential record shop I ever went to was one I could only go to periodically. We had family who lived in Margate, Kent, and summer holidays were always spent there. As I became more interested in music, I found a place there called Funhouse Records. They had an immense stock of new and secondhand vinyl and it was staffed by very knowledgeable, rather freaky folk who would play music that was largely alien to my ears.

On my first visit, I came out with The Modern Dance by Pere Ubu, a couple of Residents albums and Starsailor by Tim Buckley. I think they thought I needed re-educating! Still have them and love them dearly.
 
@MichaelC Yep, originally further down the high street by the market and then two floors in the arcade. I still have a Chick-A-Boom price sticker on my treasured copy of Daydream Nation :)
 
Woods music shop in New St., Huddersfield, now long gone sadly. It was mainly a musical instrument and sheet music shop, but they had quite a decent record selection at the back. Along the back wall was a row of booths (like telephone boxes) with headphones, if you asked nicely they'd play you an album before buying it. The somewhat stuck-up managers' expression was a picture when I asked to listen to the latest Discharge album, lol :D:D
 
Loved Andy's on the Market, spent all my paper round money there. Also for some reason I spent ages leafing through the second hand singles in the Beat goes on!
Then Parrot Records on King Street. Always some bargains in there.
All now sadly gone.

Ah yes, paper round money spent on your first ever records, great memories. The pay was surely illegal, I got 3.25 a week (yes week) for 7 mornings. But the paper shop (Andrews, technically Hove but we knew it as Portslade) had a 7" rack and, at 65p a pop, my 3.25 went quite far. As I recall my first ever record was Games Without Frontiers, bought from there, still have it and love it of course.
 
Selectadisc - Nottingham

like most decent record shops in their heyday, more than just a shop, somewhere to hangout, meet folk etc

A massive part of my Saturday daytime and of course Mondays for them all important Ltd editions on the day of release

Happy times
Ah yes, the hangout joint. The owner of Vinyl Demand in Brighton was often heard complaining "people come to my shop to TALK music, but then go off to BUY it at Virgin Megastore" ;)
 
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 ......
Ah the legendary Lost Chord. I sourced the vast majority of my vinyl collection there back in the 80’s. Incredible selection of second hand records and so cheap. I never came away empty handed. Best record shop in Glasgow. Long gone, sadly.
 
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!!!
Yeah I remember that shop. There was also a place up on Byers Rd in the early 90’s that was, I think, owned by those two eccentric brothers who had owned the Listen chain after Listen had folded.
 
Selectadisc - Nottingham

like most decent record shops in their heyday, more than just a shop, somewhere to hangout, meet folk etc

A massive part of my Saturday daytime and of course Mondays for them all important Ltd editions on the day of release

Happy times

Selectadisc (Nottingham) was my main point, it moves about a few times. I have a photo of my mate trying to look cool when it was on Bridlesmith Gate, then it moved to Queens st. I think. Basement and upstairs.
I used to sell me Skateboard Fanzine that I wrote in there. Cool hang out. There was some record shops up Mansfield rd. and Robs records (was that the messy place up a small walkway?)
 
Aye poor Breeks eh? However, some of the Grouchos staff reopened as "Thirteen Records**" in Union St close to Assai Records (new vinyl only plus some Project gear) and for dance/indie there is "Le Freak" further up the Perth Rd.
Even HMV have vastly improved (a good manager and core staff) with decent amounts of LPs and CDs but still a ton of visual media...

** hope they can (all) reopen tomorrow after lockdown...:)
 
Selectadisc (Nottingham) was my main point, it moves about a few times. I have a photo of my mate trying to look cool when it was on Bridlesmith Gate, then it moved to Queens st. I think. Basement and upstairs.
I used to sell me Skateboard Fanzine that I wrote in there. Cool hang out. There was some record shops up Mansfield rd. and Robs records (was that the messy place up a small walkway?)

As I remember it, for years there were two Selectadiscs, One as you correctly state on Bridlesmith Gate, the other (which was always viewed as the main shop) on Market Street, this ended up having three floors, in later years they ended up with another premises a couple of doors down, all now sadly closed
 
and Robs records (was that the messy place up a small walkway

Yes Robs is down Hurts Yard, tiny walk way off Upper Parliament Street, there's also been one or two inside the West End Arcade for a while, they seem to have a different name every time I go past.

Don't know if any of these three are still open, I know Forever Records went a while back before Covid, another tiny shop down a non descript alley in the Lace Market.
 
As I remember it, for years there were two Selectadiscs, One as you correctly state on Bridlesmith Gate, the other (which was always viewed as the main shop) on Market Street, this ended up having three floors, in later years they ended up with another premises a couple of doors down, all now sadly closed

Didn’t it turn into Fopp eventually or was that just a bit further down the street?

I know Paul Smith opened that shop near Void near where G-Force clothes shop was. (I loved that shop) It didn’t have that much in it and I think Rough Trade is just around the corner near Broadway cinema (excuse mistakes as it is a while since I have been there. In the 1980’s I hung out around there a lot)


When I say Paul Smith, he definitely had summat to do with it, can’t remember what. Designed the bags?
 
When I was living in Harlesden in the 1980s I used to visit 'Plastic Passion' just off Ladbroke Grove. It was run by two guys who, I recall, subsequently fell out and divided the shop down the middle (a la Steptoe and Son!) and renamed each half to continue business separately. You couldn't make it up.
 
The one shop that I used a lot when young was the one in the underground market half way up Union street in Ryde on the Isle O Wight. I think there was one upstairs in the main bit of the indoor market as well. With a grumpy sod in charge as I recall.

About 1981
 
Didn’t it turn into Fopp eventually or was that just a bit further down the street?

I know Paul Smith opened that shop near Void near where G-Force clothes shop was. (I loved that shop) It didn’t have that much in it and I think Rough Trade is just around the corner near Broadway cinema (excuse mistakes as it is a while since I have been there. In the 1980’s I hung out around there a lot)


When I say Paul Smith, he definitely had summat to do with it, can’t remember what. Designed the bags?

FOPP was just down from the Post Office on Queen Street (as I remember it), next street to Market Street

Are you thinking of Music Exchange on Stoney Street with the Paul Smith connection?

https://www.nottinghampost.com/whats-on/music-nightlife/you-remember-lost-nottingham-record-1023157
 
FOPP was just down from the Post Office on Queen Street (as I remember it), next street to Market Street

Are you thinking of Music Exchange on Stoney Street with the Paul Smith connection?

https://www.nottinghampost.com/whats-on/music-nightlife/you-remember-lost-nottingham-record-1023157

It was on Stoney St. Hockley. Yes, The Music Exchange, you had to step up to get to the records and I found it really awkward (crutches) - it was expensive, and had loads of stuff I didn’t want.
I didn’t know it had closed down, shows how often I frequent the area nowadays.

The only time I would ever go in that area now is to go to Broadway cinema. Always liked it there, even if just to have lunch and a beer.

There was a second hand record shop up Mansfield rd. (had an anarchy A I think in yellow) that wasn’t bad, run by a woman I think, opposite side to Richer Sounds and a bit further up. I used to browse both.
 


advertisement


Back
Top