London Record Shops

I just got back from my latest visit in London, the third one until now (roughly once every 10 years). It was an easy and comfortable train trip from Brussels, only 2 hours with euro-star, which made me wonder why I hadn't done it before (granted, I've only been living in Brussels for half a year - but still, even from Delft it wasn't that far). And of course, other than being there on my best friend's birthday (cheers Anastasia!) the main motivation for the trip was some good-old record hunting. My two previous trips (in the nineties and noughties) had been very productive, providing me with both rare and (crucially) cheap records and CD's to fill the holes in my record collection. Incidentally, my first experience from London record shops has seen the light of day in the pages of ZOO magazine - no, I don't mean this one, what are you thinking? I'm talking about the short-lived but legendary Greek music magazine. It sported a readers' column called "record hunting" and my entry got me a years' worth of issues, including the CD EP's that are now collectors' items. My second visit yielded even more treasures, but the third time there was no charm: The record shop is dying. It's a well known fact, but in my mind's eye it was alive and well in London. Not anymore. This time I was less than impressed by what I saw and, if the situation has deteriorated so badly in a city of 9 million people which also happens to be the pop capital of the world, there's no hope. Maybe the vinyl will survive as a gourmet music lovers' possession, but it seems it's more of a decorative item nowadays - used to give your house a sophisticated retro look, even if you don't own a record player and only listen to music on your laptop (It doesn't sound the same people, can't you hear the difference?) CD's are a thing of the past, but that's what I've been collecting since the days of the great vinyl purge. They take up less space, sound good (the flat digital transcription of the early days is gone), mostly have nice artwork and informative booklets, can be listened on the home stereo, car and -yes- laptop, and it's easy to rip mp3's for your portable devices and to make compilations. I do have doubts over their longevity, though. 

Anyway, this is my report from my visits at the record shops during my 4-day stay in London. Obviously it's not a reliable guide, you'd have to ask a Londoner for that. First of all, forget the behemoths of the past: The Virgin Megastore on Tottenham Court Road that so impressed me the first time is gone. The same fate befell giant record stores everywhere: Gone are Amsterdam's Fame Store and Athens' Metropolis. Granted, they were never as sympathetic as the traditional record shops but they offered variety, hours of browsing without being bothered and affordable prices. 
Their supermarket-style approach lives on in the medium-sized shops like HMV on Oxford Street (founded in 1921, probably the oldest record shop around) and Fopp at the Seven Dials/Covent Garden neighborhood. I would recommend a visit to the latter for the variety and prices, but you can find the same in electronic chains stores like Media Markt in Brussels or Saturn in Bremen. Not that I like buying CD's from stores that sell TV's and coffeemakers, just saying that Fopp is one of the better London CD shops and yet nothing special. On to Soho, which is not as I remember it. The sex shops and working girls have given way to trendy pubs and restaurants. Still, gentrified or not, a lively neighborhood - a bit too lively in fact. On Friday and Saturday night it was almost impossible to find somewhere to eat or drink. Interesting shops, though. I visited Sister Ray which seemed to have shrunk from my last visit, but still had a large enough collection and good bargains. Same goes for Reckless Records, a few meters down the road (Berwick Street). I got some nice second hand psychedelic CD's here. The shop was promoting Reckless's (it's also a record label) latest release, a new Brainiac 5 album after 35 or so years of absence. Never heard of them? You should - their "World Inside" album always was a favorite of mine, together with early Bevis Frond LP's also on the Reckless label. A CD anthology is now available and I'll present it here on a later occasion. On the corner there's Sounds of the Universe, offering LP's, CD's and books mostly leaning towards jazz, soul and reggae. Phonica Records on the nearby Poland Street focuses on dance music and held my interest for about 15 seconds. Music and Video Exchange on Notting Hill Gate proved, once again, to be the best choice both for rare and cheap CD's. All second hand, most start with £4- £6, with the prices sliding down with time. I got a bunch of CD's for £1 as well as some stuff I was searching for (Planxty, Roy Harper etc) all under £8. Round the corner you can find Book and Comic Exchange which is, likewise, a good source for used books. Of the many music books on sale I chose Martin C. Strong's voluminous Great Rock Discography. It's out of print and replaced by the Essential Rock Discography, which I owned already but only is a measly 1200 pages thick. Whereas the Great Record Discography offers more info on pre-millenium rock, as well as a handy weapon to use against home invaders.

I also visited Rough Trade West on Talbot Street in Portobello and was rather disappointed when I saw how small it was. It turns out that, if one wants more choice, he'd have to to visit their other store on Brick Lane. But West did have some rarities from independent labels and I was delighted to get a compilation of The Zounds, a favorite anarcho-punk band from my youth. Next stop was Camden Market, where I imagined I'd find cheap CD's but it turns out they sell everything but CD's: I only found a couple of stalls among hundreds of shops. Monastiraki (Camden's Athenian counterpart) offers much much more choice to music lovers. I got a bunch of rock-related T-Shirts and, on my way out from Camden, visited another record shop in the area, Out On The Floor Records. It's a nice enough shop, mostly selling soul and reggae LP's, but I left without shopping something. I later went off the beaten path to Stoke Newington, to visit Lucky Seven Records, which is supposedly a great source of cheap music and books. And it is - if you don't mind digging through a crate of junk to find a few nice CD's priced a ridiculous 3-for-1£. There's a lot more books and CD's for a modest £2-£5, but finding what you're looking for is either a question of luck or of very wide taste. As I belong to the latter category, I came out with a book and 18 or so CD's for less than £30 overall, so I'd rate the excursion a success - but if you're the choosy kind, chances are you won't find any hidden treasures here. Then again, you never know. And that's what makes record shop browsing an infinitely more rewarding experience than surfing amazon or ebay... Now, I know most people favor collecting vinyl over CD and I guess they'd like to read more about the vinyl market in my blog entry. Limited time meant I didn't browse the LP stands a lot, but I generally found them to be quite overpriced. I mean certain records have always been expensive but not every album is a collector's item. The 90's and 00's saw thousands of record collections getting dumped into the market and the price of used vinyl plunge. Today it seems that those 20-somethings that sold off their collections are now 40 and eager to buy them back at twentyfold the price, just to own these nostalgia items they will never play because they're too lazy to walk over to the record player. You won't catch me paying €20 for a used album that is by no means rare and costs half that price as a new, remastered, CD. And you know what? All that talk about vinyl sounding better is such nonsense. Most of them don't: the hissing during the quiet parts and the pops and crackles of used LP's still get on my nerves. I can't believe so many fall for the "romantic" glorification of these imperfections. Not to mention the latest trend to resurrect the audio cassette. Still, anything is better than mp3's and London record shops, even in decline, offer some good opportunities to collectors and music lovers. In addition, they made me re-evaluate and appreciate the shops I know well in The Netherlands, Athens and Brussels. They're certainly also worth a blog entry, in the future. I might even have a few pointers for record buying visitors to Paris, too..