Collectors Records, Kingston

For shame, I have not paid a visit to good old Keith's record emporium in Kingston, Surrey, this year. I was lucky to catch the shop before it closed the other day, and Keith kindly stayed open a bit longer so I could browse. He is one of the most knowledgeable of music shop owners, being able to answer my random questions off the top of his head, and add anything of interest or make recommendations along with stirling answers. He's keen to refer to his various books of charts for accuracy, and I love that instinct. Plus, he always has the latest Music Week on the counter, which all together creates the atmosphere of a traditional record shop, and I really appreciate all that.

We chatted about 4AD Records and how scarce the 80s and 90s stuff is on the secondhand market. He was able to supply me with a batch of 7 inch singles from the likes of Wolfgang Press, Modern English, and Colourbox, and I decided to buy them all up. I'm already set on Modern English, and there's a Colourbox fan in our midst, so it was just a punt on the Wolfgang Press stuff, a name I was familiar with years ago (oddly convinced they were goth, but they're offbeat dancey). Really pleased with Modern English, and it was a curio to give the other singles a spin if nothing else.

I have to explain how New Model Army records came to be in my swag. I never thought the band were for me, too bleak and industrial sounding maybe. But recently I was reading about the history of Archway Towers, and there was an interview with Joolz from New Model Army, and the band wrote a gloomy ode to the tower in the 80s, which I listened to and liked. So I bought a few singles on vinyl out of intrigue, and now I might be getting to like the band... I see they're touring soon, which would be interesting.

Not pictured above, but also a purchase from Collectors Records, Kingston, was the first Exploited album on vinyl ‐ A birthday present for a friend ! I'm sure they will love the PUNKS NOT DEAD spraypainted cover alone...

Lastly, I got an album by They Might Be Giants. This band are a bit too wackily quirky for me at times, but a few songs are really innovative and fun. I bought the album for my feller, and it's been appreciated. My favourite here is They'll Need a Crane, which I have on VHS on an indie compilation somewhere:

Record-buying is for life, not just Record Store Day

I really enjoyed seeing Allo' Darlin' live at Rough Trade in Notting Hill last year - rain and shine - as part of Record Store Day. The live events highlighting bands and inspiring you to go on and buy a band's stuff and become a fan is the bit about Record Store Day I enjoy, if I am honest (And it certainly changed my mind about Allo' Darlin', and now I couldn't imagine life without them).

It's not about ticking stuff off the list of official releases /showing off about what rare thing you got at all for me.

Anything that encourages record shopping/people flocking to independent record shops is positive, yes. But again, Record Store Day rolls around and I find myself tending to feel ambivalent about what is largely a bunch of re-releases that are overly priced. I feel sad that it has to exist, that it feels like a way of boosting sales, and I can't help but feel a bit cold. I wrote an article in the first issue of The All Thrills No Frills Music Bill paper fanzine last year to collate such feelings - I wish people would be as fervent about record buying all year round, essentially. I also wrote about record fairs and how they should be thriving if vinyl really has made the 'comeback' that gets written about. But it's the 'new' factor (as in shiny new objects) that rules instead.

I don't think I need to do more than casually hint at the kind of buying-and-selling-on mania/e-Bay type profiteering that gets ecouraged, and how empty and dispiriting all that is, either.

I suppose what I'm getting at is the alienation I feel when faced with the impulses that Record Store Day can inspire - almost like music is a mostly-downloadable thing all year round, but for this one day when you can buy up stuff that has been heavily promoted.

And I feel bad for those record shops not participating (did I hear right that stores have to pay to take part?). I've been in non-participating stores on Record Store in previous years and many were empty. I get to wondering if the Monday after Record Store Day isn't the quietest day of the year for all reocrd shops (well, after new year, perhaps). I think the thing to do would be to go in on that Monday (or that week) and buy stuff then, support the record shops that didn't take part on a day that is deadly quiet - support the lesser knowns, and the underdogs.

Further thoughts on music buying/HMV

Here's a genuine overheard person on a mobile phone - the location was a little secondhand book shop:

'I'm in a book shop'
[pause]
'I'm old school - I still buy CDs!'

My heart sank. And I just felt the really strong urge that I am not of these times. It was someone not that much younger than me. Something like that makes me feel so sad - it's so odd and alien to me that buying any kind of physical music product can be seen as, what, kitsch? A stylistic choice? Or just plain old fashioned.

I enjoyed Stuart Braithwaite's addition to the great HMV debate, recently.

He has a good point about extremely low pricing making CDs seem disposable when once they were £15. I remember paying £15.99 for CD albums that weren't even new release, and I remember cassette albums in their last days in the album charts being £15.99 too, which is pretty shocking to look back on. The in between always seems fair to me - and a lot of independent record shops have got that right, eg new releases at anywhere between £8.99 and £12.99.

And the below is too true to:

'As a trusted brand, HMV could quite easily have used its position to establish digital music sales far earlier and far better than it did. Filling its shop floors with iPods was surely an act of cutting one’s own throat, and I had a discussion with someone working in Waterstones recently who felt the same way about its stores selling ­Kindles.'

It will be interesting to see what changes get made to the stock/store policies should a buyer take over HMV.

It's incredibly hard for me to comment or get my head around any potential for there to be a next generation who expect all their music free and therefore for music buying to end totally, as I don't know anyone that feels that way, and the most hardcore music fans I know all adore and use record shops in towns and cities - they also tend to see the urgent need to support bands direct, buying albums and t-shirts at gigs so the band get the money direct, and so on. The thought occurs that new music is so much more ubiquitous now than when I was a teenager, there is almost no escape, and TV shows and advertising in particular have gone indie soundtrack in a way that baffles me that would not baffle those growing up now - a song by Clinic in a Weetabix advert is still beyond comprehension to me! Music seems to mean much less in many ways, too - it is fashion, it is commodity more than ever.

I was recently excited to visit a new shop in the provincial town I grew up in, which specialised in band t-shirts (I'd harboured dreams about opening up a record shop there, selling albums and merchandise, as I didn't think just albums would be a success, in such a shopping-centre-driven place). Then I realised the horror that it was all in the name of fashion - it was all stuff that is worn more as a logo of cool/identity than fervent music fandom - a Ramones t-shirt now can sit alongside a Jack Wills one, it is just a style choice. I'm not the first music fan to find themselves seeing band t-shirts in trendy high street stores, and to see people wearing them in the street, and find myself wondering if they even own albums by this band. I once had a flatmate who worked for a major record company but whom owned about 20 CDs, and I once saw on her packing list for a festival trip - 'Rolling Stones tee'. There wasn't a Rolling Stones record in the house, and no other reference to them to be seen/heard from her either. And there is huge peril there that that's a big part of how music has come to seem disposable to people...

On a brighter note, the staff at HMV Curzon Cinema seemed positive about the cinema remaining functional, due to the part ownership by Curzon - which is such a relief. Had some drinks there and celebrated. Also, bought a few items in the actual HMV store.

I leave the mini free versions of this 'zine in there regularly, but I do wonder who is picking it up, and I do wonder if there are that many 'old school'(!) music fans out there that are bothered about/interested in such a thing as a printed music fanzine anymore. Unless it becomes fashionable via an article in the mainstream press and is generally seen as some hip current phenomenon, it does seem to be a niche/dying art for a perhaps soon-to-be-lost generation - and it makes me very reluctantly... twee.

HMV

Other than what's been said about downloading/Amazon/eBay &c, surely an overriding factor is lack of spending money from a lot of people that has taken a toll on HMV? Even as someone with a music blog/fanzine, who would class themselves as a huge music fan for a significant sum of my life, I will freely admit that I haven't been buying as much music as I once did. Albums are quite a luxury to me now, as much as it would pain me to say and think about. My enjoyment in them has not abated, but hard times and responsibilites and adult life and all that.

When I was in my teens and early 20s, I could spend in music shops frivilously without much thought. I would adjust my pocket money then in later years my student budget/bedsit budget to whatever albums/gigs I desired. Eating came second, and I would prioritise my weekly food allowance against gigs and albums. Memories of living on gone-off Polish bread, cold beans out of a tin, a chocolate bar as dinner, and so on - as long as I could get out to my gigs, or get that new single or album.

Living in a provincial town before I went to university, I had - at the peak - four mainstream music shops to choose from (HMV, Our Price, Andy's, and I forget the fourth but can picture myself queuing up to buy singles on a Saturday), then it dwindled to two (Virgin 'Mega' Store, and HMV), then just HMV. But moving to a city, I could shop at the big HMV on Oxford Street (quite a regular Saturday joint or meeting/browsing point, a perennial, known fixture), but then I had all this amazing selection of independent record shops on Berwick Street, and a plethora of second-hand joints to bargain hunt in. If my teenage years were filled with Mondays and Saturdays using up all my pocket money to buy up a handful of singles, then my 20s was where my album-buying really stacked up - Music and Video Exchange serviced my collection with an archive of every 90s indie album I could want, pretty much.

In later years, HMV was always around, and believe me I did and do shop there (Christmas and birthday presents for friends were bought there most recently) - and also believe me, for years I have been concerned about its longevity and would shop there when I could (in fact, when someone recently asked me which 'download' store I'd like a gift voucher for, I requested instead HMV) - but as I got older, it became a concern that independent record shops needed my custom/support significantly. I shop in places run by individuals/independent businesses more often for this reason (read the book or watch the film of The Last Shop Standing, if you care about music and haven't yet, please). I think the problem also reaching my late 20s and my 30s is that unless I visit huge branches of HMV, the selection of stock is often like being back in the playground - got, got, got. The back catalogue of stock seemed to get lost and there'd be multiple copies of the same latest album on racks at times, too. Conversely, though, I still love the day when I recently went into my hometown's HMV (a medium-sized branch on two floors, but not a town with a noticeable indie crowd, at all), and saw obscure albums by Beat Happening and other lesser known indie bands - pleasingly obtuse. There was also the time I found a copy of the Mark E Smith spoken-word solo album (muttered stuff about orange tents and tomatoes, god Knows!), and when I reported back to someone they said it was rare, even deleted. I've got vivid memories of buying really great, life-changing stuff (and, even, old reciepts tucked inside old albums of mine).

My greatest sadness right now about HMV is that the one closest to me also has a cinema which it owns. A cinema which regularly shows independent, art-house films and that for a small pocket of London, is really quite something. The bar is also the best place to meet round here if you are interested in your culture/alternative leaning stuff. There might be what some consider a 'faceless' big name brand store on the ground floor here, but on the top floor is a cinema run by staff who put independent thought and effort into the music they select to play (over the years, have heard Yann Tiersen, Thom Yorke, War Against Drugs, Jeff Buckley, Robyn Hitchcock, British Sea Power, and stuff I couldn't name), and they are interested in talking about such stuff with you. This place has been a core place for me to place issues of the paper version of this very blog you are reading - which the staff have positively commented on, and which has proved welcome to people taking an issue home with them.

So it's that that gets me the most about HMV's situation in this moment. To lose the only decent indie place to socialise in locally for me, which also shows great films, and which also houses the only music shop round here, would be a huge personal blow to me and those I know who have visited with me.