Does anyone still shop at HMV?

Also, worth a half hour train ride from Glasgow is Europa music in Stirling (and y'know, the castle and all that is pretty nice too). My hometown record store, mostly SH but some new stuff. Built a large part of my collection from there over the past 20 years. Will never forget getting copies of Trans Europe Express and Innversions in there after sitting my Higher English exam. A life changing day in more ways than one.
Anyway, they've a big vinyl store out the back which you can easily lose an afternoon in. They had an amazing jazz collection in there about ten years ago, which, had I been the fan I am now, I would have taken a bank loan out to buy.
In the 00s Stirling was host to the great Le Weekend experimental music festival. Apparently when Thurston Moore was playing the fest, he went into Europa and bought all their Scottish bagpipe vinyl. I've never had this confirmed, but with the drones and all, why not?

NickB - wouldn't go out my way to check those out, but if you're in the area...

gotcha :)

are there any good spots in london for charity shop record buying? spent some of saturday bumming round clapham, camden and holloway road and all these places were useless, just overpriced tatty garbage.

Golders Green, Crouch End, Muswell Hill, High Barnet all worth a pop on occasion.

excellent! almost ventured further out on the northern line for old times sake, used to live near burnt oak

Crouch End still has a couple of legit record shops right?

Yeah this place : http://flashback.co.uk/home/

Oxfam in Kentish Town is pretty good too

I'll second that. Got a good haul of 7"s in various Kentish Town chazzers a few years back. Mostly novelty stuff - Greek beat group dance craze single La Yenka - but I got a nice Althea & Donna single and some creepy Emidisc acetate with a posh woman singing.

Glasgow is a great place for record shopping. Any love for Edinburgh? For new records it's pretty shit compared to Glasgow (though the new Vinyl Room in Coda at the top of the mound is brilliant and is revitalising my shopping). Avalanche Records is particular is an abomination, a shop with a great history that has the misfortune of being owned and run (into the ground) by one of the most obnoxious, condescending individuals in the business.

The second hand market is well catered for though; Vinyl Villains, Unknown Pleasures, Record Shak Voxbox, Elvis Shakespeare and Hogs Head (which is now selling used vinyl at some of the most reasonable and realistic prices I've come across). There's also the batshit crazy Backbeat in East Crosscauseway where the stock is pilled up so high and in such a cluttered and chaotic manner that your not even allowed to browse it yourself. You used to be able to get in but you had to leave any bags you had with you out on the street unattended. Not so much as out of fear you might be a dirty thief but more out of necessity because there wasn't enough space in there for you PLUS a bag. As far as I can tell the only way to buy anything from there nowadays is to turn up in advance with a list, plea your sincerity with the owner and then come back in an hour and see what the he can find. God knows what they actually have in that shop. In my wildest imagination I like to think they have everything ever made stacked up those ikea boxes that must stand 10 foot high and cover 99% of the floorspace and it's not inconceivable. When I started buying vinyl I went in and enquired about Dylan's 'Blonde on Blonde'. After being told to piss off for a bit and lectured on my assumed unawareness of how much such hallowed items might cost I returned and had the owned thrust into my hand what must have been 6 or 7 different pressings of 'Blonde on Blonde'. I bought the cheapest and thanked my lucky stars for getting out of there. It's everything one should despise in record shops but it's so thoroughly alienating and bizarre it somehow has managed to take on a mythical charm for me.

Love Flashback in Crouch End. Great stock, very reasonable... Got a copy of Miles' Filles De Killimanjaro, which I'd been wanting for the longest time, for under a tenner, and a copy of Syreeta's 1980 LP for three pounds.

If anybody finds themselves in the NW of London or near Watford, there's a nice little place opened up in Bushey called Second Scene.

http://www.secondscene.co.uk

Is that Vinyl Villains in Leith Walk? If it is, it's quite comforting to know it still exists. My record-shopping time in Edinburgh was strictly eighties - Ezy Ryder in Forrest Road, whatever the second-hand place in Cockburn Street (which later became a Fopp) was called, Avalanche when it was top notch. Also a terrific shop just across from Haymarket station and a smaller but still great one round the back of George Square; sadly I can't remember what either was called.

One Glasgow record shop that I never ever hear anyone mentioning is Record Fayre (across the road from the Tron Theatre). Despite living round the corner from it, I think I've only been in once. I remember lots of pretty mainstream 70s rock. Has anyone ever bought anything in this shop?

Another place nearby where I've picked up lots of good stuff is the Panopticon charity shop on the High Street. Again, nowadays the good stuff leaves the shop quicker than it arrives, but it has fair prices and the owner tends to give impromptu discounts.

Always the way with charity shops, though; the good stuff gets seen and bought as soon as it gets put in the racks – I know, I’ve done it – which is why the same old CDs tend to crop up everywhere; it’s the stuff they can’t shift or sell, displaced, overpressed, oversold old favourites. No real solution to this other than trusting to luck and good timing.

Never found much of interest in Record Fayre, tbh (there's a similar shop off the Great Western Road, just before Kelvinbridge station, that again offers a pretty uninspiring selection imho.) These days I'm as likely to be buying DVDs as CDs, and again, neither shop has much to interest me (and their prices for secondhand stuff are often higher than buying the same thing new from Fopp.) I should say that I've actually had some pretty good CD bargains from both Monorail and Volcanic Tongue, although the latter's secondhand selection is generally pretty small.

Haven't been to Relics for a while, but during the summer it used to have a fabulously cantankerous cat that would sit on the bargain vinyl and sratch anyone who tried to stroke it. (Voltaire and Rosseau also have a big fat tabby who sleeps on the books).

One of the things I like about Missing is that they have a high turnover of stock, they're always buying in new stuff, whereas in Mixed Up the stock seems a bit more static. But yes, the combination of the hippy tea shop, Voltaire & Rosseau and Mixed Up makes Otago Lane one of my favourite places to graze in Glasgow. I curse thee, property developers and corrupt councillors.

I've seen quite a lot of CDs in the CEX branch opposite Fopp in Union Street, but cursory inspection hasn't yet yielded that complete Morton Feldman collection I'm after...

How many market shops were there in Glasgow?

I recall one or maybe two in the Cambridge St shopping centre, one of them had a lot of bootleg tapes. There was also one or two in the Queen St market upstairs, I remember a copy of a OMD Live At Drury Lane video hanging up that never ever sold.

Oxfam Books & Music in Crouch End is pretty good, although not for cratedigging. I just picked up the first D'Angelo album and Simple Minds' Sons & Fascination/Sister Feelings Call for two quid each.

I also donated a ton of 90s dance vinyl there recently so if that's your bag get in.

I have nothing to add to it but Internet Alan's edinburgh post really made me happy.

Is Kristina in dalston any good? I always walk past at night when it's shut. It looks like it might be pricey.

It is very pricey and there’s no sign so you have to “know” where it is. Lots of very good stuff there – if you read Wire magazine or Dissensus, it’ll be right up your street - but way too expensive for the likes of me. Rest of clientele resemble cast of Fresh Meat with the occasional dismayed-looking tourist thrown in.

Internet Alan's was spot on. Especially about Avalanche.

Absolutely. The weekly port huron statements on ~the future of record shops~ on twitter and their website are especially cringey.

(xp thx Marcello - stands to reason!)

Re market shops in Glasgow - I used to go in the one in Sauchiehall St Centre (upstairs right next to the video arcade) quite a lot in the 80s, they stocked a lot of 60s garage and 80s US punk - remember lusting after those two Aussie VU bootleg comps they had for too much £££. There were a couple of good stalls indoors at the Barras too. There was a second hand shop in Partick I bought a huge part of my early record collection from, really cheap & great selection, there always seemed to be a member of a Glasgow band rifling through the boxes when I went.

A1 Sounds!

rat records in camberwell is great

Everyone - especially marcello - should go to the resonance site & listen to Ian penman's 2 wiremag shows where he plays & talks about records he finds in charity shops. Seriously lovely.

Marcello - Yeah, Vinyl Villains is at the top of Leith Walk on Elm Row. I'm sure it hasn't changed much since your last visit. As for the others, before my time I'm afraid. This wonderful resource might stir up some memories for you though http://www.edinburghgigarchive.com/page28.htm

I'm thinking I might make a trip through to Glasgow soon when I can afford it and try and support some of the shops mentioned here that are still open. My music buying days blossomed in the late 90's and I felt like some cursed angel of death insofar as almost as soon as I'd discovered a new shop it was soon to be closed. Some of my fondest memories are of finishing my paper round on a Saturday morning and feeling flush with £6 to blow, eagerly jumping on a bus into town armed with a map and few tatty scraps torn out the yellow pages and scouring the city for record shops I'd never been to before. I'd be out there all day. It was a genuinely exciting part of my life, full of and adventure and discovery. There's probably not a close or a or a lane or street I've never walked down in this beautiful city and I owe a lot of that to my love of music and what those shops meant and signified to me.

Ah, Record Fayre by the Tron... I was thinking about that when reading this thread. Not been in for ages, but it used to be a staple in my teens as it was a great place to pick up cheap classic rock and pop vinyl and look at the bootleg band t-shirts. And there'd always be the odd curveball in there, like a great Marvin Gaye live album. Last time I was in it was just the dregs of 80s rock sadly, but as it's just round the corner from Monorail, the excellent Plan B comics and the Modern Institute gallery, I suppose there's no harm popping in while in the area.

To get really obscure... I do remember the Jamaica Street record exchange from the 90s, the remnants of which are now in a sqaure off Pollockshaws Rd (at least I think it's the same place - same signage) opposite Queen's Park. It mainly flogs DVDs, but it has a bit of vinyl. A poor selection, although I did get a UK copy of Al Green's Livin' For You for £2 there recently.

Shawlands Arcade, until recently, had Southside Music, whose stock did the rounds of pop-up bargain bookshops for a while after. It was pretty much classic rock dregs, but my ex managed to pick up a Talisker album in there, which I'm sure Marcello will be familiar with - Ken Hyder's free jazz/Scottish folk group from the '70s. You'd think it would be easy to get their stuff in Glasgow, but alas no...

There's also Lost Chord in Park Road, just off Great Western Rd. The one with the animal paintings on the front. I think it makes most of its money from porn, so ew.

I had a lovely couple of hours zipping around the record shops of Glasgow when I was there last Summer. I forget most of the shops I visited, but I especially loved the 'new' Monorail - was my first visit since it relocated (which was probably a long time ago), what a wonderful shop.

Monorail's been in the same place since it opened in 2003... Maybe you mean Monorail as in Stephen Pastel's old shop at the top of John Smith's bookshop in Byres Rd? That was a great place too. Remember reading about it in the NME and MM when Bis, Mogwai etc were coming up. I still treasure my vinyl copy of Paul's Boutique I bought there as a plukey teen.

Monorail's been in the same place since it opened in 2003... Maybe you mean Monorail as in Stephen Pastel's old shop at the top of John Smith's bookshop in Byres Rd? That was a great place too.

Ha, yes, that's it! Went record shopping there with Sleater-Kinney in the late 90s, that was also a great record shop.

Sadly that bookshop is now a Starbucks. To think they once had a rooftop gig there... Byres Rd and environs used to be great for record shops, now there's just Fopp and Oxfam. Still, compared to many cities we can't complain: some good SH places, Rubadub for dance vinyl and gear, and two world class shops in Monorail and Volcanic Tongue.

Nice wee piece on Monorail by Nicola Meighan: http://nicolameighan.wordpress.com/2012/12/06/happy-birthday-monorail-music/

Somebody really needs to do a proper history of Glasgow DIY from the 90s onwards...

Dep was always the nicest guy at Missing records, it's great that he has his own thing and it is thriving.

Dep's a total legend and a lovely guy. I love the fact that for his holidays last year he followed Mike Watt on tour around the west coast of America.

Yeah, He's been doing that for ages, I first got to know him when we bonded over fIREHOSE, he had gone off to follow them around the states.

Wow, I finally managed to find the new HMV shop, and erm, wow, that is one of the most depressing shopping experiences I have had in a while. I don't know why it's so grim? The lighting, the cramped feeling, the fact that I felt like the youngest person upstairs by about 10 years?

(OK, Fopp was only not-depressing because the CDs were so cheap. I'm not going to say no to my obsession when it's only £3. Also Fopp-shoppers in the upstairs section are a refreshingly friendly bunch. Has liking CDs become such a bizarre hobbyist thing that we've established camaraderie through rarity?)

Bond Street is really terrible. do they not realise how much they devalue the store and everything inside it by making 80% of the ground floor a crappy sale with 20 john wayne dvd box sets piled in every corner?

Really, when I was in there last week I could have wept to think what HMV once was and what it’s now been reduced to. Granted, with Fopp you still have to run the gauntlet of Old Men on the ground floor but I agree that it’s much better once you’re upstairs. That having been said, I still miss the huge mega-Fopp that used to be on Tottenham Court Road.

As for Piccadilly Circus: “Must dash, now – I’m off to The Sting (Network Of Brands).” You’ll not hear that said.

Hahaha there was literally a block of Old Men between me and the Interpol section at Fopp yesterday, it was almost comical. They were friendly and obliging and even chatty, but I was ridiculously aware of being the Only Woman In The Room at that point, LOL.

When I went to the closing down sale of the Oxford branch there was only one shelving unit of CDs, nothing I wanted and nothing below about £8. "Final reductions" in most cases seemed to be an amazing 10% off. Woo.

I'd been in before Christmas and spotted a couple of sale items (also at about 10% off) that I'd have taken a gamble on if they were just slightly cheaper, so I was hoping they might still be there with a new sticker on. But this time round there was nothing but landfill and "greatest hits" collections you could find in any charity shop in the country for a quarter of the price.

RIP former giant, I guess.

Does that mean there are no record shops left in Oxford other than whatever charity shops might have? That is hugely depressing (says someone who remembers the good old days of Massive, Chalky, Avid and Green River and even Russell & Acott).

there used to be some specialist shops (at least one selling reggae) on the Cowley Rd too IIRC

There's one called the Truck Store. Website: http://truckmusicstore.co.uk/

that's heartening, looks like they're catering to the student crowd and selling lots of vinyl.

hmv westfields (W12) had two tables of gadgets on wednesday when i went in. didn't look to see what exact gadgets they were but it's been a while since they were there.

The Truck store's the only dedicated shop in town. Lots of vinyl, mostly new stuff but there is a used aisle and a local section, so that's good.

It's a small shop but it seems to be doing OK - it has a coffee shop on the side which is always full of students, and I feel old when I go in there and look at the CD aisles, which the ~young people~ don't go in at all. I like vinyl but to me it's what you buy because it's cheaper than the CD, not what you buy for £26 per LP because limited edition heavyweight vinyl and probably still a crappy pressing because the good plants went bust a decade ago. (OK, off my soapbox.)

Meanwhile Blackwell's music shop moved across the road into the former map section and started selling a smattering of rock/pop but mostly pretty safe "classics", yer Dylan and whatnot.

I miss all those places Marcello mentioned...

HMV in Selfridge’s is now shut. I had the feeling this would happen after we went there last week and they had NO new releases in stock. Now the whole area has been sealed off like a sarcophagus.

The Bond Street HMV hasn’t gotten any better either. Full of bemused tourists with their luggage, elderly people and care-in-the-community types muttering loudly to themselves. It had nothing that we wanted to buy.

I don’t know that whoever was responsible for the HMV decisions realised how convenient and natural the Oxford Circus one was for a record shopping expedition – you looked in all the places in and around Berwick Street, came out on Oxford Street, crossed the road and there it was; the big finish. The Bond Street one is awkward to get to, and because TfL/Mayor Of LondOFF have “revamped” the bus stops in Oxford Street – i.e. gotten rid of half of them – even riding there on the bus involves a long walk which, being Oxford Street, becomes an arduous obstacle course. I actually had chest pains as a result of going there yesterday and so, for the good of my health if nothing else, I don’t think I’ll ever set foot in an HMV again. No wonder a recent shoppers’ survey found them to be nearly as bad as WH Smith (which was bottom of the list).

It’s a long, LONG way from what it used to be. But then sometimes I think that everything is.