ILX Lists The Best Record Shops In The UK Thread.

avalanche, dundas street.
up the steps from the space between queen street station and buchanan street underground station.
not the best record store but the best record store in glasgow. friendly, helpful staff. to friendly, helprequesting customers. quite nice inside but not so nice outside. since they began stocking the nu-metal and whatever it is, oftentimes, full of 'goths' and 'slipneds'. broad selection with the occasional real find/whatever and releases by local bands. reasonably priced.

monorail, mono cafe bar, the arcade off of king street.
just up from bridgegate and paddy's market.
stephen pastel's new store in the new cafe owned by the previous owners of the [very nearby] thirteenth note cafe. much more actually 'alternative' selection. nice interior, simple. fair vinyl selection. funny genre-ising but with some avant and improv and not-found-elsewhere-in-glasgow stuff. they sell tickets for gigs at mono and stereo [kelvinhaugh street]. the gentleman that usually serves there is a very nice man. and it's in a bar, so.

missing, oswald street.
across argyle street from the southwest exit from the central station.
kinda crap. missing used to have, like, four stores in glasgow. now they have this one and one on the great western road. this is much smaller than the big one that used to be on wellington street. hard hit by the fopp that opened up very close by on union street, I guess. not too crap, I suppose. good for secondhand records even though most feel grimy to the touch. reasonably priced and often restocked with new secondhands.

fopp, union street.
like any fopp, for me; good to browse in and pick up an album for five pounds that you quite fancy; crap to visit with a record in mind as, if they have it, it will cost fifteen pounds. well stocked, though, and often have some really good deals [andrew WK's 'I get wet' and ladytron's 'light & magic' for three pounds by the till]. this one is pretty nice inside.

fopp, byres road.
as above with slightly less nice interior. convenient, though.

missing, the great western road.
as above but smaller, perhaps.

CD exchange or something, sauchiehall street.
upstairs, between bargain books and a discount toiletries shop. they have a wall for the charts but an OK selection and huge racks of discs for five pounds. there's always something you can find. this is where I bought my 'justified'. I like this store more than I might have thought I might.

23rd precinct, bath street.
I hear this place is good for dance/house vinyl and shit. but I would not know.

various virgins [one at the top of buchanan street [rumoured to be on the verge of closing] and one on argyle street] and HMVs [one on argyle street [right next to the virgin], one on union street [across the road from fopp] and one on sauchiehall street] which are the usual but sometimes surprise and OK w/ sales. borders on buchanan street actually has a pretty good selection downstairs and in a nice store w/ all the books and a cafe and stuff.

the savoy centre between sauchiehall street and renfrew street is a kind of marketplace with almost-stalls. it is depressing and eastern-europeanesque in its dinginess but has a few places with the occasional bargain to find.

echo on byres road was really good but is gone.

Our opening times are 12.00 Midday to 5.30 p.m.
from Monday through to (and including) Saturday

ring the unmarked doorbell on the unmarked door...

our shop address is the same as for all other enquiries:

THESE Records
112 Brook Drive,
London,
SE11 4TQ,
England

In the trongate theres 2 shops. Record Fayre which is all second hand(all styles of rock from indie to prog/kraut) and HUNDREDS of teeshirts. Best place for teeshirts in Glasgow. Everything from Joy Division/Smiths to Linkin park/Tool/QOTSA etc. and whatever inbetween.
Theres a smaller Record Fayre 2 which caters for the younger nu-metal/skater crowd. Sells bootlegs, and all the modern t-shirts.

Edinburgh:
Avalanche Records
17 West Nicolson Street, Edinburgh UK
Phone: 0131 - 668 - 2374 Fax: 0131 - 668 - 2374
Website: www.avalancherecords.co.uk
E-mail: avalanche.records@virgin.net

63 Cocksburn Street, Edinburgh UK
Phone: 0131 - 225 - 3939 Fax: 0131 - 225 - 3939
Website: www.avalancherecords.co.uk
E-mail: avalanche.records@virgin.net

28 Lady Lawson Street, Edinburgh UK
Phone: 0131 - 668 - 2374 Fax: 0131 - 668 - 2374
Website: www.avalancherecords.co.uk
E-mail: avalanche.records@virgin.net

In London, first name down has to be Smallfish on Old Street which has an amazing selection of new electronic music. Uptown on d'Arblay street always used to be pretty good for US and UK garage but I've not been in there for ages, ditto Release the Groove...

search: store records, division st, sheffield
small fish, old st, london
uptown records, d'arblay st, london
pelicanneck records, ?, manchester

can't think of any more at the moment.

ambient soho has gone, sister ray SUCKS FUCKIN ASS, and Koobla is the worst of the lot. Reckless has some good stuff but the people are intensely grumpy, mister cd i dont know about, never been to that reggae/dub place but ed says its ok. can't think of any other shops on berwick st, but to me the verdict, based on my shitty opinions is DUD, overall.

that said, i shop almost exclusively in HMV, rough trade and fopp

Rub-a-Dub: excellent small store if slightly intimidating closeness to the sales assistants. Stocks Force Tracks, Mille Plateaux, Kompakt, UK Garage, UK Hip-Hop, Electronica, D'n'B &c. You get the gist. Quite pricey but a relatively comfortable shop.

Defunkt: abandon all hope ye who enter. Uber-hipster discomfort, dancehall and reggae and hip-hop and soul and a bloody good record shop but scary if you're meek and don't really know what you're looking for. TWANBOC likes it.

Mixed-up Records: kinda dank but quaint, always bad music playing when you go in, stocks mainly second-hand vinyl but also some CDs / videos / books. Relatively cheap with a good selection and really friendly, non-disparaging, a bit faux-gormless staff.

Lost Chord: good because it has everything on its shelves catalogued so you don't have to flick through loads of ill-thumbed records, bad because it also seems to be some sort of porn repository.

I think he may just actually be gormless. I call that shop 'Dave's' because the guy looks and acts like a Dave.

(Are you coming to see The Gossip, N.?)

xpost - pally is fine. I just don't know anything about the Gossip or that they are playing.

For real good Dance Music (on vinyl mostly)

Bomba Records - the corner of Howard Street and St Enoch Sq - Just about everything in Electronic (other than cheesy house and hardcore) from Microhouse to shrink wrapped American House Imports, Wierd and Experimental Techno, Electro, Hip-hop. An amazing selection and surprisingly friendly and enthusiastic staff.

Defunkt - Great Western Road - My Favourite Record shop in Glasgow. An amazing selection of Disco Re-issues (a speciality) DUB and ReGGAE reissues and 12"s (another speciality) American and UK House, European breakbeat esoterica, Magazines, Hard to find compliations. Nice Staff - Classic.

Alliance - Clothing, Posters, Trainers and records. A smallish but excellent selection of mainy 1) Soul funk and Disco Re-issues and 2) Glitch House (YAY!) from Playhouse and MillePlateax etc. The only place in Glasgow i could find LUOMO's The Present Lover on vinyl. Also a very nice line in cd's including some unofficial Theo Parrish Mix cd's. What are you waiting for?

Kushi - Mitchell Lane Under Bar Soba. For House Purists, DJ's and people who like to be scowled at by staff. Good for Specialists.

Carbon - 2nd Floor - Urban outfitters. A very nice selection of reissues, Electro and up to the minute Cd's and vinyl. I'm bored now but i might write more later....

you must betalking abt sound 323, see andrew's post.

look !

http://www.vinylexchange.co.uk/frame2.html

Well here's one: http://www.disque.co.uk/

Friendly, knowledgeable and helpful staff, open til 10pm even on weekends, interesting stock of all genres evah - every time I go there to get something straightforward, i walk out with a handful of records I've never heard of (on staff recommendation) and their hit rate has been astounding thus far.

It's on Chapel Market near Angel tube. It's all good.

Incidentally you Glasgow lot- i suspect that your fear of Defunkt may be based more on projection that reality - They are really very friendly and helpful - they probably just seem sullen cos they are a bit bored but ask them something and they will reccommend loads of things for you!

One More thing - Lost Chord aint primarily a record shop - the record shop is just a front (allegedly).

(Thanks jed_e_3, I thought so about Defunkt but I'm a wuss, y'know.)

(Vinyl Freaks is the one on St George's Road that I go past every day)

Beat Museum is no longer. Its now a much better record shop called Defunkt.

Biggest second-hand record shop in Europe, pretty crap for Hip-hop and Dance, I'd imagine, but other than that it's skill. Plus - lovely staircase.

Universal Sounds, just off Berwick St, is a nice shop as shop

rough trade in covvy is prob the best at the moment for this, i know the guy in there struggles manfully for dancehall but i'm pleasantly surprised at the commersh range of their hiphop too... the opposite would be rough trade in talbot road which is just hell

everytime time i go shopping in london, i get ficking pissed off. thats not a sign of good shops. i might be able to get the stuff i want (at a push), but the gauntlet of fear, frustration and overpricing takes its toll on my tolerance of badly run shops.

finally, i forgot that sounds of the universe, much derided here, is getting better and better since it moved. although you still cant listen to stuff yourself! wtf?

This is rubbish, I bought far more music in Glasgow than I do in London, it took London long enough to get a Fopp.

you must betalking abt sound 323, see andrew's post.

Well, I've never been good with numbers (obviously I had Honegger on my mind when I said 291)

Grrrahhhhh.

It makes it absolutely impossible to ever buy decent garage 12"s for example....

Not the best, but the most punk, and run by very nice people.

In London, that one on Essex Road that's also a vintage clothing store is also v.cheap. The one on Stoke Newington Church St (can't believe I've forgotten the name already) is v.expensive.

I used to like Music Mania on Byres Road, but that shut down about three weeks after I moved away from the block next to it. Coincidence?

honourable mentions must however go to -

monorail. a year from now, monorail will be one of the best record shops on the planet. whoever claimed dep is 'out-of-the-loop' is talking shite! he knows as much about music as anyone i know.

defunkt - yup, they're surly as fuck although i find peter's surliness hysterical.

rub a dub - sells far too much faceless techno / idm / electro / booty and not enough faceless whorehouse or psyche 2 step but their hearts are in the right place.

Record Shops in Norwich

Soundclash (St Benedict's St) - Pretty good and the best shop in town, covering most rock/dance genres but possibly spreads itself a bit too thinly and can be a bit tardy when ordering stuff.

There's an HMV and a Virgin Megastore, and a couple of dance specialists (Magdalen St, Bus Station, can't remember what they're called and don't know what they're like as I've never been in them). Oh, and I think a new one is opening on Bridewell alley soon. The rest are second hand:

Ray's CD's (Magdalen St) good for punk/metal/alternative guitar stuff and good value as most albums are £6. Friendly staff too.

Circular Sound (St Benedict's St) mostly mainstream and indie rock and more expensive than Ray's (album's £7/8) a lot more vinyl, too.

Revolver (Ber St) wider variety of genres than those two and tends to have older stuff, prices similar to Circular.

There are also other secondhand places (a couple on Magdalen St, Saint Benedict's St) whose names escape me at the moment. Mostly pretty mainstream, but the odd gem surfaces from time to time.

Edinburgh's got much better record shops than Glasgow (not that i'm biased or anything.

You obviously never went to the Warp shop when it was in Sheffield Ambrose, rudest, moodiest snobs ever, and that includes those two moody shops in Manchester whose names escape me (Piccadilly may be one)

I've always preferred the Talbot road Rough Trade shop, but I am contrary and hate fun (and like Tim, being chatted to in any shop, never mind just record shops)

Nick is right though, the best record shop (if you know what you want) is the internet.

They have got a jellybean machine on the top floor, though.

I'm there!

HMV - 2 shops, one in the Victoria Centre, one just outside the Broadmarsh centre. Never really bother with them but might be worth it in the sales.

Virgin - Just off Market Square. As above, but sales tend to be less good and staff slightly less knowledgable.

MVC - Victoria and Broadmarsh Centres. I used to think MVC were great for back-catalogue stuff with their card system, but I never go in there anymore. They seem to push DVDs more these days.

WHSmiths - Gets a mention simply because I got "Remedy" by Basement Jaxx for £3 there.

Fopp - I presume pretty similar to other Fopps. New CDs are a darn sight cheaper than HMV or Virgin, but still more than t'internet. Main attraction is the sizeable £5 rack, with a smaller £3 rack near the tills.

Selectadisc - Market Street. If it's not too specialist, you can usually find what you're looking for for a not extortionate price. Easily the best place in town for new vinyl. A good flick through the CD racks reveals some hidden bargains (Ghostface's "Bulletproof Wallets" for £3). Like in most indie record shops, staff seem quite grumpy, but not too surly when help is requested. Good selection of t-shirts.

WAS - Market Street. Selectadisc's used store. Same staff-profile. Can usually get something good for £4-ish. More t-shirts.

Big Apple - Hockley. Vinyl emporium, as a result I don't often go in. Run by a guy who appears to just talk to the same customers day after day. Lots of punk, girl-groups, Jamaican, rock'n'roll.

Funky Monkey - Hockley. Snobby dance shop. Make sure you know everything about dance music. Also has a small rack of used CDs.

Rob's Record Mart - Hurt's Yard (an alley between Angel Row and Upper Parliament Street). Jewel in Nottingham's record crown. Stacks of vinyl piled literally 6 feet in the air in gargantuan piles which no-one ever has a hope in hell of sorting. Very very cramped. Lots and lots and lots of record and a few CDs, all used. Pretty cheap and Rob might knock some prices down if you ask. You HAVE to see this place.

I may be out-of-the-loop. What is in-the-loop?

(I got an e-mail from a Dep once, wrt Monorail, but I was told that the balding guy is called Paul.)

A bit low on quality new record shops, theres Tempest (bull st), Swordfish (temple st), plastic factory (corporation st) in the center , I've never found them to be too great, just bog standard new release stuff and some patchy second hand selections..

There are a couple of great second hand recordshop/warehouses tho' ..

Hard to Find records, stock all the dance 12's you'd ever want, anything and everything, there website aint bad either http://www.htfr.com

And Dance Music Finder (2nd Floor, Smithfield House, Moat Lane, Digbeth, Birmingham) half way up a office block and very well stocked with old and new dance music, they have a whole room dedicated to old hardcore records (!!)

Theres some other second hand stores that suffer from large quantitys of birminghams past musical fads, lots of wizzard, slade, whitesnake etc, etc..

Jibbering records in moseley is ok as well, local music and some hiphop/breakbeat stuff..

i was once a fopp evagelist but now i'm the anti-fopp.

their glasgow union street branch, after killing of their vinyl section has just opened a dance 12" floor (profit margins on 12's are high). i'll give it 9 months.

Other London rec shops that I don't think have received a mention, so far - Honest Jons and Dub Vendor, both in Ladbroke Grove, and the Record Detective Agency in Palmers Green, which is esp. gd for Cliff Richard rarities

this also explains talbot rd over covvy luv i suppose

also mention tower (taken over by virgin but still going) and ray jazz shop 2nd hand rack.

Imperial, Park Street: My favourite shop in Bristol. Good selection of indie, punk, "Americana"; fairly good dance, jazz, soul, reggae sections; small but good electronic and "out there" sections. About the only place in Bristol to find "The Wire". Excellent friendly (yes, really!) staff who do lovely thumbnail stickered reviews of their favourites. Year-end lists by genre! What more do you want?

Replay, Park Street: Slightly more dance-oriented than Imperial.

Replay, Haymarket: The punk/metal/rawk wing of Replay. Big second-hand section.

Fopp, Park Street. Good for the 5/7 quid back catalogue bargains, but a bit limited/pricey for other stuff.

HMV and Virgin in city centre are both rubbish, and you never really need them.

SOUL BROTHER RECORDS
1 KESWICK ROAD
EAST PUTNEY
LONDON
SW15 2HL
UK
TEL: (020) 8875 1018
FAX:(020) 8871 0180

SoulBrother@btinternet.com

Also i recommend this radio station. Available on digital and on the web

Solar Radio

Solar Radio-
WELCOME TO SOLAR RADIO A UNIQUE RADIO STATION PLAYING SOUL, FUNK, JAZZ AND RELATED GENRES SUCH AS SOULFUL GARAGE, URBAN R&B, GOSPEL AND LATIN. A FORCE IN EXPOSING QUALITY NEW MUSIC TO THE WIDEST POSSIBLE AUDIENCE

nah just getting the facts out there for the people ;)

Just wish they'd open up a damn store somewhere! http://www.normanrecords.com !

Leeds:
Crash (headrow)- upstairs: CDs/indie, so don't bother. downstairs: vinyl, mainly hip hop, electronica, house, techno, drum'n'bass etc. nice, knowledgeable and friendly staff. really good discounts when yer face gets known. excellent shop.

Tribe (call lane)- now shares its building with a couple of house/breaks type shops, but this is the one worth visiting. excellent selection of reggae (esp. UK stuff, 10"s, 7"s (not really pre-release though)) and drum'n'bass, which is normally being played at floor shaking volumes. run by simon scott who does sub dub w/iration steppas

Out of Step (back of corn exchange)- street punk/hardcore shop. should be better than it is, as they are stuck in the mid-80s and sell a lot of pop punk. its DIY though- unfortunately the idea is better than the reality.

Jumbo (St.John's Centre)- the 'biggest' indie in Leeds. quite a comprehensive selection. think nottm's selectadisc for an idea. staff generally have depressing hair cuts. they also stock 'cops and robbers' the UK's best listings magazine/pamphlet.

there are also a couple of branches of polar bear in leeds (incidently the best record shop in birmingham is polar bear in kin'g heath- wicked krautrock CDs), which are ok and a reggae shop in chapel town i've never been to.

those of you slagging london: you're going to the wrong shops

Vinyl Exchange - (Oldham Street and Bridge Street) Probably the best, I could spend hours in there. Ridiculously good selection of stuff, it does 2nd hand vinyl, cds, dvds, videos...you name it. The staff in the Oldham Street branch are a lot more knowledgeable and friendly than the ones in the Bridge Street branch. One of the Bridge Street staff once told me snootily that she'd never heard of the Magnetic Fields, which I find completely absurd for someone who works in a record shop.

Piccadilly Records - (Oldham Street) A bit pricey but still nice, staff are good but a bit intrusive when you want to listen to stuff.

Fopp - (Brown Street) It's just a Fopp. Very cheap, but I personally detest the beigeness of it all, and I always seem to end up knocking things over.

Polar Bear (Deansgate) A bit crap, staff a bit arsey and they don't have a very good selection.

Pelican Neck (forgotten name of street, try boomkat.com) I'm indie, it's not. I imagine if you like this kind of stuff, it'd be ace. It has a very well-stocked selection of indie 7's, which I have virtually no competition for because everyone else who goes to Pelican Neck wouldn't touch it with a bargepole. I'm scared of the staff, but they are very, very knowledgeable.

Virgin and HMV - (Market Street) The usual old crap.

Pop Art - (Egerton Crescent, Withington) The hidden gem of Manchester's record shops. A fantastic selection of stuff, very cheap, and the bloke who runs it is excellent.

The guys are nice in there, nicer than their online persona's would suggest, and far more honest about tunes (last time I was in there was discussion about them complaining regarding the standard of the latest Speicher 12"!!!). The same criticisms that are to be laid on boomkat apply, but - hey - it is so much easier to buy records to hand, as you can find the stuff you don't expect.

So much space spared for Basic Channel, Klang, Playhouse, Micro, Ai, everything - a very well stocked store. Reasonably priced too (kompakt 12" = £6). And they sometimes chuck discounts if they feel like it.

There's also a pretty well stocked shop between Pelicanneck and Vinyl Exchange, where I found a copy of the lessons on vinyl. Which I hadn't seen anywhere else, so I was happy.

Regarding Bristol shops, sadly Imperial Records are closing down. The landlord has raised the rent and wants to turn it into another bland bar/club, of which there are already too many on Park Street. They apparently can't find a suitable replacement site so they will be closing. This is a great pity as it always had the best stock and the staff were always friendly.

Cambridge:

Fopp (much the same sort of store as the other Fopps upthread and that's no problem; a really good ethos... though yes not always so good for new releases of slightly left-of-centre stuff. Staff friendliness is a big plus; I recall chatting with one of the staff about Donna Summer's "Love To Love You Baby" album, one of many I've bought for £5, when at the till)
Borders (Not purely a record shop obviously; overpriced, yet quite a wide selection... they very occasionally have sales at which some very good things can turn up at £3, £4 or £7, like the Icicle Works debut, 10cc debut, two early Peter Hammills @ £4 eg. recently)

Other ones have been closing down these 3 years which I've been here (a fair Andy's Records etc.). There's a rather ho-hum sort of HMV, I suppose. Not too much else to note.

Newcastle:

Spin (off the wall sorts of music, though not entirely my sort of stuff; i.e. lots of pyschedelic era stuff, and yet I've got things like Branca's "The Ascension" there, and a Moondog CD... and in April, "Velvet Tinmine" was £6.99 in the centre racks. Probably my favourite of the Newcastle record shops)
Steel Wheels (has been known to have the odd bargain, and generally inexpensive)
RPM (not that bad, but certainly not great)
HMV (one of the largest and best I've seen, actually)

Sunderland:

Nothing... well, actually, just about:

Music Zone (very good prices, if a limited selection... I managed to get Grace Jones's "Slave to the Rhythm" and Janet Jackson's "Control" each for £6 in April) & average sort of HMV in the Bridges shopping centre.

Otherwise, I'm out of touch with what might be around. There used to be Hot Rats, which was okay for the budding music buyer that I was as an early teenager; not now, really. Roots Music, if one is into that sort of thing. It used to be ran by the ex (rather left wing Labour) MP for Sunderland North, Bob Clay; not sure if it still is.

Oh ****. This is really, really sad news. Imperial is one of the best record shops I've found anywhere in the UK. They have a good range of stuff, and the staff are friendly and enthusiastic. I've discovered (and bought) so much interesting stuff on the strength of their recommendations.

mono gets better and better. 'we love you dep' fan club starts here.

midnight. on a sunday. he was working. and replying to e-mails.

not only that: the bar just gets better and better too. i love that place.

:)

Yeah, the guy said I should put some in there but I didn't have time. Still, I've got a pal in White City who could pop down to Portobello Road on my behalf.

If you're in Glasgow Monorail is the place. Avalanche is better stocked in terms of cheap back catalogue stuff but it's also a bit more mainstream indie and metal. And as several people have said the whole cafe/bar environment makes it a much more pleasant prospect than your average musty hovel.

I also must mention Stirling's Europa music. The manager makes a fortune by luring tourists on their way to the castle by pumping Scottish fiddle music out into the street, but there's more to it than that. It's not so great for new CDs, but it has good specialist sections and Ewan knows his folk, psych and prog, if you're that way inclined. But the real hidden treasure is the vinyl backstore. There's some amazing jazz if you're prepared to work through the seemingly random order (I picked up Albert Ayler Live At Slugg's vol 1 for £7 - it rocks), and folk and country sections that are full of goodies nobody bothers with. The indie/punk vinyl is largely rubbish 80s stuff, but once in a while you get some good stuff, like a batch of Cocteau Twins and New Order 12"s and some Sonic Youth and Pavement. They've now added a box of experimental stuff including beautifully packaged things that must have come from Volcanic Tongue and Ut and John Fahey albums. Stacks of 7"s too. If anyone is coming through for Le Weekend in May you should spend a few hours in Europa.

I don't know this shop - where is it?

I'd like to more or less echo the sentiments expressed elsewhere. Vinyl Exchange has a fairly arbitrary selection where you'll occassionally find something wonderful and cheap. However I'd like to point out the Manchester HMV has, as far as I am aware, the best selection of blues, country and folk in the north of England. The London Oxford Street one is ridiculous, but the Manchester one is pretty good, and is the best bet for John Fahey, Robbie Basho and Steffen Basho Junghans, which is important if you're me.

Sheffield

Rare & Racy on Division street (or Devonshire, I forget) is a very fine establishment with some good experimental and jazz stuff in particular.

Record Collector on Fulwood Road has a pretty large, fairly rock centred range with a few good things and a big, cheap second hand section. They've got some hip hop, various electronic stuff, folk and jazz, as well as a seemingly forgotten country and bluegrass section.

Fopp is Fopp, although I think I've noticed an improvement in their selection lately. The place still seems far too business-like to make me feel at home. HMV and Virgin are pretty similar only without quite such appalling "specialist" sections.

Glasgow sounds good

However as someone who spent every school holiday trawling record shops in glasgow..its beyond reproach.

Fopp - Byres road.
Missing - behind queen st.
Rub a Dub - when it was in virginia galleries
< pauses to wipe a tear for VG nostalgia)>
lost in music - de courceys arcade
although asking for anything thats not banging or handbag house in 23rd precinct (??) was a touchy subject.

Sadly though in its Heyday, Edinburgh cockburn st Fopp, was the daddy.

Rob's Record Mart and Selectadisc are still the Meccas of Nottingham and they're within two minutes walk of each other.

Can anyone remember when Tower records actually closed down? I stopped going in there when they closed all the specialist music floors and just had one floor selling chart cds about £3 dearer than HMV/Virgin (who themselves were a few quid dearer than Asda) That must have been around 1997.

Because there aren't many Welsh record shops on this thread, I thought I'd mention Cob Records in Porthmadog. It's also next to the railway station, coincidentally. It's quite good.

I used to quite like MVC, but the stock levels seem to have been depleted somewhat over the last couple of years. Whereas one time you'd often find something quite unusual in the racks, now it seems to be the same old same old. They tried their hand at trade-ins for a while too, but the prices they were offering were so derisory (I took half a dozen in one time - was offered 50p each for five of 'em, and a quid for the other) and the prices they were selling them at quite high (six or seven quid a time for most of 'em), that that didn't last long, either.

So wouldn't be surprised if the whole chain does go under in the next year or so.

Still, feels like an end of an era, since that shop has been there as long as I can remember, and it has the iconic store front.

and in the last few months, Replay that was opposite Imperial has also been closed down, as has the Eat the Beat cafe/dance specialist shop.
no indies left in town now, just the usual suspects : Fopp (x3), HMV and Virgin ..

The Flashback shop on Essex Road is very good indeed. Is this bigger or smaller? I might pay it a visit this weekend.

The Music Zone in Parkhead Forge was shut yesterday - I expect the other two in Central Glasgow have now been closed down as well

Avalanche in Glasgow re-opened under 'new management' recently. In the window they have a big sign saying WE WANT YOUR DVDS but when I brought a few in to trade the other day I got offered half of what Missing had offered me. So fuck em.

glasgow is really missing a proper second-hand shop though. although come to think of it, so is everywhere in the UK that isn't notting hill or berwick street.

reckless records and the music and video exchange are the only things I miss since moving from london to glasgow.

*sniff*

And that records and tape exchange down from the post office(on the other side)
They were extortionate for their stuff.

That's the one they've closed!

The one in Cockburn Street is being kept in business by commuters popping in on the way to catch the train, from what I can tell.

It used to be really crap, that one in Crouch End. I wonder if it's the same stock, just rebranded? Marcello, where is the Flashback on Essex Road?

The one in Camden is called Bugbear Discs and is run by the promoters at the Dublin Castle (Bugbear, natch). Dunno what it's like. It's always shut when I'm round that way.

Times change.

I like Phonica in Soho, but it's quite dear. Also in Soho (and mentioned in the 03 posts), Sounds of the Universe is lovely, in a lovely building with, er, lovely, brown glazed tiles. It's run by Soul Jazz records and carries all the stuff you'd expect it to. They have good sales of their own stuff too.

What's Haggle Vinyl (also on Essex Road?) like? It's meant to be good.

Haggle Vinyl is about a minute further up the road from Flashback (walking in the Balls Pond Road direction) and both looks and smells like a bit of a mess but there's some good stuff in there (useful for tracking down Woebot-type things) - reasonably priced but it's very much a "take your jacket off, roll up your sleeves and get crate digging" kind of place.

I think I've seen Bugbear - round the back of where Reckless used to be? I always assumed it was one of those interchangeable dance/hip hop specialist places with a dodgy desk and no records as such.

There's a good Goth specialist record shop up Camden Lock way - v. useful for satisfying those strange '80s industrial urges.

It exists. Whenever I've been there there have been no other customers. So far not much stock and relatively high prices.

Beanos got a reprieve from closure at the last minute, except now they'll only be trading on the ground floor with the other floors let out to market stalls and things.

They're selling off the stock they have at the moment then will close for refurbishment and then reopen.

Any good sales on?

Any records shops left?

cash converters eastbourne:
can - monster movie
kanye west = college dropout
omni trio = angels have shadows (sic?)
wu tang clan - enter the wu
prince - parade
squarepusher - feed me weird things
all £2 each!

Wow, I thought it all OAPs down there

i note the neal's yard rough trade is having a clearence sale, so is it safe brick lane behemoth is poised to open. does anyone have any concrete information? will there be a grand opening with dancing girls?

ahem. safe to assume.

The Rough Trade Shops mailing list said this over the weekend:
"ROUGH TRADE EAST OPENING PARTY DETAILS ANNOUNCED ON TUESDAY 17TH JULY. WATCH THIS SPACE..." but nothing has come since. The mailing list then failed to tell me about any clearance sale too. It opens tomorrow (20th) anyway, don't know what the party will involve.

where is the RT precisely?

the new one? I think I read it was in Old Truman's Brewery, but that's a pretty big site - it could either be the warehouse-y type building just before 93ft East (where that Body Worlds exhibition was a few years ago. That's what it'll always be to me anyway) or somewhere off Dray Walk across Brick Lane.

yeh, theres a load of undercover space that's being used for markets and such. I'll have a nose over the weekend.ta.

It looks pretty massive, actually. It's right next to that shitty Big Chill bar.

I hear there will be a proper venue of some sort there as well.

And some sort of Wi-Fi area for people who don't have their own work-desks to sit around drinking 'smoothies' and suchlike. It'll help pay the bills I suppose.

One last trip to Neals Yard tonight, I think.

Me too actually...

Music retailer fights CD downturn (BBC article on new RT store)

One last trip to Neals Yard tonight, I think.

-- Bocken Social Scene, Thursday, 19 July 2007 16:31 (Yesterday) Link

I was too late. Seems to have shut up shop already. Very successful clearance sale I guess. Brick Lane tomorrow (or Saturday, most likely) it is then.

why would they have a clearance sale? surely they'd just transfer the neal's yard stock over to shoreditch?

Truck Records on Cowley Road, Oxford closing down in the next week or so.

Think it lasted about six months.

haha at

full of 'goths' and 'slipneds'.

ive never heard of Lost Chord. Does it still exist?

Not surprised about Trunk closing; so many record shops have been tried on that corner of Cowley Road over the decades, and none lasted.

Honest Jon’s, dear God. Was in there on Sunday and all of a sudden this grinning idiot manning the counter starts cranking up the music (“Woman To Woman” by Shirley Brown) to road drill level. Great when you are searching and need to concentrate. How low this shop has come from thirty years ago. Well it won’t be getting any more of my money. And people wonder why Amazon flourishes – I’ll tell you why; no staff who are Characters with Attitude, who’d really rather run their shop as a private club for them and their mates.

Truck shop is moving to Gloucester Green where Fopp used to be, so hopefully it'll fare a little better there. Passing trade on Cowley Road has got to be thin on the ground.

Gloucester Green - that's seen off a fair few shops in its day, too; Chalky's, Massive, Avid...once HMV decides to shut up shop it'll be Oxfam or nothing.

Massive was a really good shop wasn't it, the Eastern Bloc of southern England (outside London natch). I liked how people from surrounding areas would come to buy those 4-tape rave compilations with cheesy psychedelic artwork.

haha I bought a few of these! Really fab shop; it was like Soho (and IIRC had better and more stock than Release The Groove etc.) but without the ponciness. Miss it lots.

you're right about unpretentious, I always felt like I could go in there and have a look around, even as a know-nothing teenager. Were they one of the shops that got out while the going was good to run a mail order business, like Purple Penguin in Bristol?

Ah, good to hear Truck is surviving in another form, though I am at a loss as to what I'm going to do in my lunch half-hour now.

(And surely the combination of students and mental health professionals could have kept it open?)

Truck still open. Closing down sign has disappeared.

i've come to think that head in bristol is wonderful.

[the current incarnation of virgin/zavvi in the galleries centre]

they stock all manner of weird back catalogue stuff.
they stock a huge selection of interesting vinyl.
they have all sorts of stuff by small reissue labels (repertoire/rev-ola etc) that you never see in hmv/fopp

unfortunately they currently have a massive 25% sale on leading me to become concerned that things are not going to last.

then again it could be just a crimbo prep exercise.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2013/feb/04/leeds-record-store-adventure

it was actually in the small merrion version of jumbo that i first bumped into age of chance guitarist, neil h, and asked him re the peel fave kisspower ..

and i must have surely been in the shop the same time as gedge at some point ...

http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/edinburgh-s-avalanche-records-celebrates-30-years-1-3191550

Is there enough money to keep a shop going in posters and badges?

No! http://www.avalancherecords.co.uk/2013/11/16/if-it-was-good-enough-for-godspeed-avalanche-the-physical-shop-to-go-on-a-short-hiatus/

:(

Apparently a new record shop has opened in the west end of Glasgow. Anyone been to it yet?

Also, has anyone ever been to Mostly Vinyl Micky? I've heard people talking about it but no idea where it is.