Where have all the records gone?
- 4 Oct 06, 12:00 PM
There was an interesting piece in on Monday about the demise of independent record stores in the UK. It listed the top twenty -- none of them here but that is a separate subject and I am sure you could think of a few.
But those few are getting fewer. Last week while in Belfast I discovered that the Gramophone Shop was having a closing down sale.
(I can remember buying my first album by there for a budget breaking ?4.50).
Surely we are seeing the very end of an era here. I can remember buying music in Making Tracks, Smyths, Caroline when it was in Belfast, Heroes and Villains and Good Vibrations to name but a few.
And in Bangor up until relatively recently there was Kosmos, Underground and Sho' Nuff.
When I was a kid there was even a record shop near where I lived in Ballyhackamore. I can remember getting the Outdoor Miner single by and Supertramp's first album there - but I cannot remember what the shop was called.
I am sure you could add to that list shops in your area where you could go on a Saturday afternoon and buy something you had heard on John Peel or whatever.
So what we would like to hear about is your memories of those shops, what you bought there and who ran them.
Do you miss them or are you happy enough to take advantage of the choice and low prices on the internet?
(And for the record I have been to at least seven of the shops in the Guardian's top twenty - can anyone better that?)
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They went the way of the 45s, LP, EP. I still have some nostalgia for these stores, LP, EP, 45S. The industry should have allowed the CDs to coexist with 45s, EP, LP.
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I suppose with the advance of technology I cant help feeling that although amazing and somtimes brilliant examples like ipod and mp3 players but we have lost the fun of going out to buy products we simply download or play or buy everything inc movies,music,photos,games goods from the magic box and even have our shopping delivered are we becoming a nation of hermits I feel on the negative side these techical wonders it has made us less sociable and even worse for the children of today, We played fantastic games as kids like "kick the tin" "Hunt" "rounders"sociable games that cost nothing, today its 40 quid a go for a playstation game that and a mobile phone is about the extent of kidz social life of today madness!
Ps for the writer who forgot the name of the record shop in Ballyhackamore it was called
"Oh Hack Records"
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More bad news on the record store front with the news that Fopp has gone under...
Online shopping for cds is all very well but what about that old fashioned pastime of browsing and stumbling over a bargain.
I got a reissue of The Velvet Underground's Live at Max's Kansas City for a fiver last week, because I stumbled on it in a record shop.
Is it too late for anyone to save us?
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