Hi-Fi Sound Stereo Test Record

Do you remember when people cared so much about the sound quality of their 'Hi-Fi' that they actually purchased albums to help set them up and test the quality ?.

There have been many of these albums over the years and this one was mine. Not that I had any idea what the hell I was doing with it. The sound quality of Showaddywaddy-Hey Rock & Roll didn't improve much once I'd fiddled with the bass, treble and speaker positions. But I thought I was doing something.

 

The type of person who usually bought these albums would have spent a lot of money on their system and when they purchsed an album in the shop they had to have a look at the vinyl first. Taking it out of the sleeve and holding it up to the light to make sure there were no blemishes. Then holding it on one finger to see if there was any sign of a warp. If they weren't happy they would reject it and we'd have to get another copy out for them to check. I once had a guy check and reject 10 copies of Dire Straits Brothers in Arms before he found one that was acceptable. Only to bring it back the next day because he could hear a slight 'click' during the intro. Amazingly he was also the same customer who refused to buy a CD player because the sound was too clean !.

 

 

Music Master Catalogue

Music Master 1990

Long before the Internet and Google search, if you wanted to look up information about a record/song/artist, you had to find out the old fashioned way by looking in a book.

Retail record stores across the country had to subscribe to a music catalogue that was so big it made the bible look like a pamphlet. Imagine a book that listed all formats, all track listings, all catalogue numbers, record labels & release dates for EVERY record that is currently available to buy.

That book was Music Master.

With monthly supplements to keep the information up to date and a full yearly reprint, thIs book was the music bible for the Retail music industry.

If anyone wanted to order a record this was the place to start. To order a title you needed three important pieces of information.

1. Is it still available?. 2. What label is it on? (Or more importantly who's distributing it?) 3. What's the catalogue number.

This book had it all. It cost an absolute fortune to buy and was a pain in the bum to flick through but I spent many happy hours looking though it trying to find classic stuff to purchase for myself never mind customers. You may have needed a magnifying glass to read the writing and the paper was so thin it could tear very easily, but it was an essential part of any proper record shop. I can find very little information on the net about when they started or stopped printing this book, how many editions there were or if anyone else remembers its existence. But, for me, it's a nice bit of nostalgia Just to see it again.

 

The Cramps Human Fly in 3D

Queen Album Flexi Disc for The Works

Tower Of Strength The Mission

One of those forgotten classics that they don't play enough on the oldies stations.

Always loved it. Still do.

Made No 12 in Feb 1988 (over 26 years old! Gulp!)

Helen Terry Love lies lost

Famed for her connections with Culture Club. This track was co-written by Helen herself.

Made No 34 in May 1984

 

Heaven 17 temptation

Their biggest hit. No2 April 1983

 

Mari Wilson - (Beware) Boyfriend

Sadly Mari Wilson only really had one big hit. The brilliant Just what I always wanted. She had at least half a dozen goes at the top 40 but apart from a cover version of the Julie London classic Cry me a river there was nothing else coming anywhere near the top 10. But I always thought there was more to her than hit singles and a bit of sixties nostalgia is always welcome.

(Beware) Boyfriend reached No 51 in November 1982

 

Chart Machine

The indie store i worked in was a Chart Return shop.

This meant that we gave our sales data to whoever compiled the charts at the time. During my time it moved from The British Market Research Bureau, to Gallup to CIN to Millward Brown. Initially it was via Pen and paper, but then they introduced computers. Every record has a catalogue number and all you had to do was type this number into the machine and press enter. If you flick through your record collection you will notice that Catalogue numbers changed in the late 80s to accommodate this. There were less nonsensical numbers and letters like epc345278 and more short straight forward wordy ones like BONG3 or FIC 42. It made it easier for sales staff to remember and type them out. You will also notice that once these machines moved away from typed in data to barcode wands, the catalogue numbers on your records dropped letters all together and stuck to really long numbers instead.

But God forbid anyone should forget to type a sale in back then. Anything to make sure you did, anything to make it easy. One miss type would be classed as a missed sale for a record company and every entry was important. Which made any shop contibuting to the top 40 of interest to a record company.

Each night when you closed the shop you had to remember to turn the machine off. In retrospect i now know that by turning it off i was actually flicking it over to a fax like modem that would answer the phone and send the days data direct to Gallup. If you had forgotten to turn it off it couldn't communicate with their main computer and nothing was sent. Sometime during the night Gallup would call, collect the data and add it to that collected from all the other shops on the panel. The charts were actually compiled on a daily basis and they even released a mid week chart to the record companies so they could see how well (or bad) their singles and albums were doing so far that week.

It cost money to rent these little computers and in the end you also had to pay to have your own data sent back to you in chart form. But it was worth every penny. The deals and free stock you received from record companies, just because you were on the chart return panel, far outweighed anything they charged.

One rep once told me in the 80s that they could always tell who was on the chart panel without even going to the shop. All they had to do was ring them at night. If the machine answered the phone they knew they were worth a visit.

 

Emerson Lake & Palmer

Not everyone who works in a record shop should actually be there. 

Years ago i remember a young girl i worked with being 'let go' because she had absolutely no idea what she was doing and had no interest in music outside the top 5. 

She filed things in the wrong places and couldn't tell the difference between a LP and a 12" single. 

We realised that we had made the right decision when someone found the Emerson Lake and Palmer Album Brain Salad Surgery Bagged up and filed away under....... 

Artist - Brian Salad 

Title - Surgery.

Instore Play Videos from the 80s

B. A. Robertson Kool in the Kaftan

Reached No 17 (UK) in March 1980

Knocked it off - No 8 Oct 1979
Bang Bang - No 2 July 1979
To be or not to be - No 9 May 1980

Roy Orbison In Death

Diary entry from Dec 6th or 7th ? 1988

Got a call from Telstar today. "did you know that Roy Orbison has died ?" no i didn't. "Well we were ringing round to see if anyone needs to stock up, we've got the Hits album on TV at the moment".

It sounds a bit sick and she was a bit embarrassed to be asking me but 'Yes we do want to stock up' and I'm glad she rang. In the next 24 hours Radio will be banging his hits out none stop and everyone will suddenly be claiming they were a lifelong fan.

By the end of the day we had sold out of every old dusty Tape, Records and ex chart Single we had in the shop. I even fished out an old budget LP from the dump bin. It's been there for months at 99p with no one showing any interest. I put a new plastic sleeve on it and stuck it back out at £2.99. It sold within the hour. I suspect this will be the album for Christmas. He popped off just in time for the Xmas Present Market. Who could have planned that one ?.

Double Pack Power of love

Diary Entry Late Nov early Dec 1985

***** from CBS came today and we had a bit of a row over the Jennifer Rush single.

The Bastards have Deleted the Power of Love, even though it's still selling. The reason for this became apparent when the new single arrived on the counter sporting a 'limited edition' that features a "free" copy of The Power of Love shrink wrapped with it. This means that anyone who wants the Power of love has to buy the new single. The sly buggers, it's a good idea though and it's working, people are obviously buying it 'cos it costs the same.

But we can be sly buggers as well. All we did was wait till he left the shop and opened up the packs to flog them separately.

He wasn't happy. Bang go the Dead or Alive Promos in future.

Independent Record Stores (Last Shop Standing)

I bought a book the other day called Last Shop Standing - Whatever happened to Record Shops ? By Graham Jones.

I'm only half way through reading it so i shouldn't perhaps be reviewing it yet. But it's all very interesting.

However it doesn't seem to be written by someone who Set up and owned a small independent records shop himself. So far as i can see it's taken from the point of view of someone interviewing people who did. And like all people you interview who work in any shop they tell you the salacious stuff and leave out the mundane nitty gritty of trying to stay in business.

For me the hardest part was trying to keep going whilst every record company and his mother tried to sell me every record that has ever been released in every format going. Whilst trying to satisfy the needs of all those potential customers with cash to be had. Graham worked at HMV. But HMV was a multiple as far as i am concerned. A good one i'll grant you that. But a corporate multiple all the same. When you have such buying power you don't have the same financial restraints as a small indie and your whole perspective of selling music is warped. Nothing seems to be said in this book of owners only buying three copies of the most brilliant record you have ever heard because you know that only you will like it and maybe two customers you know you can push it to. Whilst having to purchase a bucket load of absolute shite in the full knowledge that you will sell out within days and it will probably be top 10 next week. That's what working in a record shop was all about. It was like gambling. You have to pay for all that stock so if you buy more than you sell you lose money and if you don't buy enough and you loose as well. Cold hard business wrapped up in your love of music and all the baggage that comes with it.

Perhaps i should add a few of my own stories here at some point. They might not be as glamorous but it would be a bit more realistic. If i ever wrote a book it would be called the 'Life and Death of a record shop'. I started in the 80s and ended my days in 2000 when you buggers started burning your own copies and downloading free from the Internet.

But it's all gone now. Anyone who still owns a record shop nowadays must be mad. Surely they are living on borrowed time ?. But good luck to them i say, if only they could stay there forever.
Anyway this is a recommended read.

Alan 'Fluff' Freeman

When you consider how old this guy was when he was still broadcasting in the UK on it's trendy BBC pop station it's hardly any wonder that Radio One needed a revamp. But it's amusing to note that he still ended his days playing heavy rock with a bit of classical to boot.

A weird combination that seemed to work perfectly. But can you image the equivalent nowadays ?  A DJ playing Trance dance music and throwing in a few clips of Brass Bands perhaps? They would probably laugh him off the airwaves.

Anyway this is how to open a radio show. One and a half minutes before the first track kicks in but a spectacular opener that still sounds good today.

Bless him. Gone but not forgotten.

Alan Freeman Rock DJ

The Damned Phantasmagoria

In 1985 The Damned released the Phantasmagoria album. A much more palatable crossover sounding collection of tunes than anything they had ever produced previously in their punk years. It spawned the singles Grimly Fiendish and The Shadow of love and was a sort of gothic/pop offering that suddenly gave them a mass appeal along with a few top 40 hits.

When this album was sold in to our record shop  by MCA records we were given the opportunity to do some promotional advertising paid for by the label. I say ‘paid for’, we never actually received any cash, the payment was just free Albums. The idea being that we got 10 free Vinyl  LPS (no CDs in those days) and the freebies would allow us to reduce the price and advertise it in our local paper.

£4.49 would be our cut price so all we needed to do now was think of a snappy ad to go in our local Rag.

Now I know that in the cold light of day this doesn’t sound like comedy gold but at the time I thought that it would be amusing to have the tag line (in bold black lettering) “I’ll be Damned if I’ll pay more that £4.49 for the new Damned Album, blah blah…out now….etc etc”. LOL, hilarious, Jimmy Tarbuck eat your heart out.

So we got the artwork approved, sorted the price/size of ad/what page it would be on etc. and arranged for it to go in the paper just before the weekend for maximum sales.

But on the day advertisement was due to go to press a lady from the paper rang to say there was a slight problem. The editor wouldn’t let us use our comedy wording “he thinks that the line ‘I’ll be Damned’ sounds a bit too much like swearing” she said. “Wot? that’s the name of the band, The Damned!, how the hell can you take that bit out ?”.

“I know” she said “ but he’s made us reword it I’m afraid, I hope you don’t mind?”

So what magical Gem did they come up with for our fantastic Damned Promotion?

“We won’t condemn you to pay more that £ 4.49 for the new Phantasmagoria album- out now”

Shite!
We never bothered with the Sex Pistols Never mind the bollocks re promotion...

Record Collection

Record Collection

Whatever happened to ....?

Hollywood Beyond What's the colour of money ?
Reached No 7(UK) March 1986