Independent record shops

Having finally finished reading Julian Cope's Japrocksampler I have now moved on to a book I've had for a few weeks now, Last Shop Standing by Graham Jones. I am normally the world's slowest reader but this one has got me well and truly captivated, and my train journeys to/from London this week have sped past. Not even the annoying guy on his phone for almost the entire journey could distract me.

Having grown up, as I suspect many people did, in a town with a couple of great, independent record shops amongst the dreadful chain stores, this story is a very familiar one. I remember feeling very sad when our local record shop closed down. I still have many of the second hand and new LPs I bought there, and had it not been for that shop my collection would be nowhere near what it is today ... I just wish I'd bought more. The guy who ran the shop was really friendly and knowledgeable, and always on hand to give his opinion. He offered great prices when I went to sell stuff I no longer wanted, and fortunately/unfortunately was way too nice to be a ruthless business man. It was also the place to get gig tickets from and again, without that outlet, I would not have seen anywhere near as many bands. I always wonder what he's doing now.

As usual I've bought far too many CD's again this week, including the first 3 Ultravox albums, from their John Foxx era rather than Midge Ure, which I'm looking forward to playing tomorrow. Also picked up some expanded editions of a couple of early Fall releases.

Not sure I'll end up selling on the Ultravox CDs, but my web site does contain 100s of records and CDs for sale from all sorts of genre: punk, new wave, post punk, indie, alternative, experimental, avant garde, goth, industrial, psychedelic, hippy, space, krautrock, ambient, dance, techno, house, etc.