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?

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.