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Record Shops. By Ben.
Our local record shop has just moved. It no longer has a poky little back room that you had to squeeze into and a queue of people waiting to flick through from ‘s’ to various on the record racks. Instead it has wide open spaces and a metal staircase in the middle of the shop. It has lots of new features including its old obsessed customers (including the Baggage editorial team) wandering around looking slightly lost. Obsessive record buyers are creatures of habit and we will have to take a little time before we can find that rack that will provide our moments of joy. We are people that look for records that have strange eccentricities and odd intricacies and we like our record shops to have similar characteristics. I’m still drawn to Plastic Factory in Birmingham that has this amazing hardcore rack in which I will always find some of most gentle, moving acoustic based music I’ve ever come across. They also have these brilliant hand written labels saying things like “Slint - Spiderland; the most amazing piece of music I’ve heard. Essential.” which always adds a a few bob to a record buying trip. Or there is Select-a-Disc in London in which if you know the right racks to look in you can find a load of pre-release stuff for a couple of quid an album. Both of these places are also comfortably dark and slightly dingy. This atmosphere suits vinyl buying perfectly. The vinyl racks always look overflowing and messy as the big twelve inch packaging rebels against the confines of the shelves. Edges of the plastic cases poke up promisingly and the sheer weight of vinyl you need to lift to get a look at the cover of the first Sebadoh album is always an effort worth making. These racks are usually sorted far more irregularly as well and so it is worth checking all the racks as you might bump into the limited edition New Order twelve inch you’re after in the dance section under ‘p’ after someone has rejected in favour of the latest Perfecto release (unlikely but it was the only dance act beginning with p that I could think of). CD racks have a different feel. They need to hold just the right amount of CDs so that the rack isn’t so full that you can’t speed flick through them but they always need to have enough so that it isn’t a wasted effort. Looking at CDs is far less time consuming as they can be presented far more efficiently and are far more easy to flick with a deft touch from the index finger. However, if you bump into a peculiarly shaped one or one without the artist and title on the spine you will always just have a quick look at the cover to check it’s not something you’ve been desperately after. The atmosphere and feel of a record shop is crucial. There’s got to be music and a quiet concentration. It’s got to be a place where you feel comfortable spending hours leisurely perusing the racks before deciding not to spend any money or somewhere you can jump in and immediately know where the latest release you’ve got to pick up is. It’s got be an extension of your living room. The fifth component of your separates and the matriarch to your record box. I bought two CDs from our relocated record shop today. They were both very good. The Beta Band album was especially good. I think given time it might become what it was. Our local. Ben. |
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