Station Records opening, The Buszy, Milton Keynes, 29th June, 2013

 

I went along for the opening day of a new weekly Saturday record stall in the new community venue, The Buszy. There hasn't been an independent record shop in Milton Keynes since Fish Music closed down at in the last decade, so I was really stoked to see Station Records happening in my hometown!

 

The premises used to be the bus station, and bus drivers' caff! Now a charity project has been installed here, it has all been smartened up, with fancy chairs, lovely café area, dedicated staff, charity shop, plus so many classes and events going on for young people.

 

 

Of course I had to go along and get involved and show support for this ace venture. Monies raised from Station Records' weekly record shop go towards the youth charity Make a Difference (M.A.D). I had cycled along with some vinyl donations and brought a selection of mine and others' zines, which Warren of Station Records kindly agreed to have on sale. The All Thrills No Frills Music Bill is on sale on the stall weekly, including one of our most recent issues, which comprises my musical memories of Milton Keynes - venues, gigs, clubs that have long gone, buying my first guitar, etc etc. Here are all the zines:

I met one of the youth workers and had a really good chat about what they do at Buszy for the kids. Loved hearing that some of the kids have been making fanzines! It was really fun to talk to Warren about 'zines - we have both made zines Milton Keynes. His was more recent, within the last decade, and it was called New Pollution. Nice to be given a couple of issues to check out.

 

 

So much vinyl on sale! Cassettes and books too.

 

I was ecstatic to unearth a copy of Ceremony by New Order, on 12", and I bought a few other records too. It's clear that Warren is passionate about record selling, there's a wide range of genres and eras covered, and people were enjoying having a browse as the DJ played. It felt like a really positive community event, nice and relaxed Saturday afternoon, and the free samples of cake and sandwiches was very welcome too!

 

The thrift shop was something of a wonder too. I had a good look around - interesting clothes, books, records, ornaments, etc. Go and visit, or follow them on Twitter.

 

 

 

The Buszy is situated right opposite Milton Keynes train station, so it's convenient to visit if you're coming from a nearby town. If you're local to MK, it's not that much of a walk from the shopping centres and it's a much quieter part of the city, so it's nice to visit.

 

 

There is a bar with a patio, and there are various other music events going on, like Warren's Moments in Wax nights, where there's a vinyl album night and sometimes live acoustic acts upstairs. MK definitely needs more live music! If you're in a band or are a solo artist, you should think about coming here to play one of the nights. The venue's also available to hire for events.

The Buszy
401 Elder Gate
Central Milton Keynes
MK9 1LR, UK.

01908 231312

http://www.thebuszy.com/

New record / The Chameleons

Came back from being away recently to this as a present, as bought from the local record fair:

Good to hear it on vinyl rather than CD as I have done for many years. The cover is creepily wonderful somehow. I do like Chameleons artwork.

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.

Live! Punk into post-punk new year's eve

Inclination and drink consumption allowing, going to write up the punk into post-punk songs that get played tonight. Also the film for tonight is of course 200 Cigarettes

As I type, Marquee Moon by Television plays as by genuine coincidence there is the most wonderful hazy cloud covered moon.

1. Plastic Bertrand - Ca Plane Pour Moi
2. Blondie - 11:59
3. BUzzcocks - Fiction romance
4. X-Ray Spex - cigarettes
5. Wire - Outdoor Miner
6. Television - marquee moon
7. The Fall - rowche rumble
8. Ramones - blitzkrieg bop
10. Clash - Charlie don't surf (live in Amsterdam)
11. Sex pistols - anarchy in the UK
12. UK Subs - stranglehold
13. Members - sound of the suburbs
14. Dead Kennedys - kill the poor
15. The Cure - three imaginary boys
16. Only Ones - another girl, another planet
17. Siouxsee and the bashers [I like that typo and I'm keeping it in!) - Hong Kong garden
18. Stiff little fingers - alternative Ulster
19. No Dice - bad man
20. PIL - this is not a love song
21. Squeeze - cool for cats
22. Teardrop explodes - reward
23. Blondie - hanging in the telephone
24. XTC - making plans for Nigel
25. XTC - sergeant rock
26. Sham 69 - Hersham boys
Followed by fireworks and Buggles and Propaganda and Human League and Bow Wow Wow and Pet Shop Boys
A stack of tonnes of ace post punk stuff remains unplayed - bah! Edit: On New Year's Day, made up for lack of post-punk records with a slew of Chameleons songs. Had stuff by Siglo XX, Josef K, Sad Lovers and Giants etc etc lined up to play but fun 80s pop won in the end. The soundtrack to 200 Cigarettes is also really new wave and ace.

Recent music-related birthday gifts:

I had wanted the Soft Boys live LP (on the left) for some time. By chance, spotted it in a record shop for the fairly high sum you'd expect - was told it had been brought in that week by a former band member, and I instantly recommended a loved one buy me it as a gift, and it was bought (lucky me!). And I personally bought Globe of Frogs, by Robyn Hitchcock which I was just as glad to have (Balloon Man and Flesh Number One (Beatle Dennis) are on repeat - Can you name any better song title than the latter? Can you name any other song than the former that merrily slips in a lyric about hoummous and chickpeas?

The live LP is the Soft Boys at Cambridge Portland Arms. It took place a couple of years before I was on this earth. It's as raucously joyous and off-kilter as you please, as one would expect. Plenty of jokey direct interaction with the audience, surreal stories spun, in-between-song banter, fond moments breaking into traditional acapella folk, and even a spot of ghastly mellow saxophone. The size of the venue lends the LP a cosiness; Soft Boys in your living room. In fact, the Portland Arms pub has recently undergone transformation and had building works in order for the gig room to be extended. I haven't seen it yet, but I can't help feel sad. Such a historical building, and its charm was how extremely tiny the back room was, and that you were crammed right in, right up against audience and band. I used to live there and it was a second home, one of my most treasured tiny snug venues for bands starting out. Anyway, imagine you were there in 1978, etc !

The Yann Tiersen LP (top right) was an album I'd wanted a while too. This LP comes with a CD version. This is the thoughtful, melancholy yet uplifting music I crave for autumnal times.

A friend got me up to speed on his recent music obsessions, giving me the albums by Wu Lyf, Crocodiles, and Dead Skeletons. By turns, holy, fuzzy, droney.

And I'm embarking on obtaining Edwyn Collins albums. I need to hear the most recent one, but here was Gorgeous George. I would not have appreciated this album in 1994, but now the slower songs and the tenderness, and the variety, and his more adult-orientated song-crafting are just great. I liked the pop of Orange Juice when I was a teenager - they hadn't been re-assessed as cool or directly ripped off much at that point.

The Last Stop Standing film was bought from Borderline Records in Brighton when I was there. The book was a fascinating journey in record shops/shopping. Even though I well knew it, I still got a genuine set of tears when the screen flashed up how there used to be over thousands of record shops in the UK, now the number scrapes a couple of hundred. Worth watching by any music fan. It makes you want to support any and all independent record shops even more (as if that were possible with me).