Nerve Magazine - Vinyl Addiction, My Plastic Predilection and Pushers Tales

Vinyl Addiction, My Plastic Predilection and Pushers Tales (those that deal in the hard stuff) - Part 2

By Chumki Banerjee - 31/3/2014

Having confessed my addiction, I took this opportunity to investigate what turns people to peddling vinyl, how this malleable substance has moulded their lives, why a place like Hairy Records could not survive, whether there is hope of continuing supply, what a day in the life of a vinyl pusher is really like, the pleasure – and the pain – of life after.

Three interviews with three wise men who purvey the plastic pill, who disabused me of my self-deception that they were following a dream or even a plan, and – while a sample of three might not be considered scientifically definitive – convinced me there is something beyond my personal madness, which makes vinyl sound better, lends it fatal fascination. But what came across most forcefully is the power of music, and their shared passion for it, which has guided and filled their lives with love and light.

First to be subjected to cross-examination is Bob Packham from Cult Vinyl, with whom I had not previously been acquainted. Second to the block, Carl, Bob Johnson’s manager at Hairy Records, who would always go out of his way to locate some random release which had taken my fancy. And last but definitively not least (in Part Three), infamy precedes him, musical adventurer and impresario of uncertain means but certain intrepidity, Geoff Davies, a Liverpool legend in his own lifetime and one of my greatest heroes in life; musical and otherwise.

Interview with Bob Packham of Cult Vinyl

CHUMKI: How long have you had Cult Vinyl?
BOB: Twenty years, this year. Before this we were in School Lane, besides the old Quiggins, before it got redeveloped as part of Liverpool One.

CHUMKI: What inspired you to try and make a living in such a precarious business?
BOB: I’m in music anyway, I play bass with The Merseybeats. This was a hobby but it’s taken over now. At first it was small but it’s grown to this business.

CHUMKI: What has been the trend in people buying vinyl? Obviously there must have been a dip when CDs became popular but do you think there has been a revival in interest?
BOB: Vinyl’s come back in a big way and I do second hand CDs as well. When CDs came in I had only just started. I only had a bit of vinyl and a few CDs, that was it.

CHUMKI: But now vinyl seems to be your main stock. How did it that come about and is it all second hand?
BOB: Yes vinyl seems to have taken over. Downloading seems to have hit the CD market more than vinyl and people come in to buy specific records which they cannot download in that format. It has become collectable. When you pick up an LP, it has a character, whereas CDs are just a plastic box.
The kids like to have LPs of their favourite bands, it’s the whole tangible experience.
The bulk of our stock is second hand, but we also have a few new releases knocking about. We’ve got a section for local bands, which people might not have heard of.

CHUMKI: What types of people come in here?
BOB: All sorts and ages come in. Some people just come in to have a look; others come in for something specific, Pink Floyd, Zeppelin, whatever. We also have a section for local bands. And of course tourists, quite a few Germans, Spanish, Italians and Americans, for the Beatles/Liverpool thing.
We also have regulars and musicians.

CHUMKI: What about the future? Do you have confidence that you will be able to continue successfully in this business?
BOB: At the moment the vinyl is just shooting up, flying out. Big time, so we’re continually buying more in.

CHUMKI: I am very impressed with your stock and its condition, some even looks un-played. Where do you source your stock and how do you select what you buy? Do people come in with vinyl to sell?
BOB: I buy at records fairs, markets, whatever, even eBay and people bring stuff in. I see what people want, so that’s what I buy, classics.
I sometimes go to the monthly Bluecoat record fair, which is OK.

CHUMKI: I find they seem to take out all the interesting stuff, maybe for more specialist sales.
BOB: You might be right, I haven’t found any yet and if they are interesting, they are twice the price of other people.
Nearly everything is second hand, some thirty or forty years old, but we check before we buy, to make sure they are in good nick. We clean them up if necessary but we choose very carefully and only take the stuff which is in good condition.

CHUMKI: With this revival in interest, do you find the price of vinyl is going up, for example at record fairs?
BOB: Yes, I went to a fair on Sunday and there was good stuff but very expensive, dearer than what I sell in the shop, so I only bought about ten LPS, as I have to add my margin.
In general, originals have become more collectible, so second hand prices have increased.

CHUMKI: I notice you have some instruments scattered around.
BOB: Yes we are starting to sell guitars. We have a few that people brought in, but need more. We can also do repairs.
We’ve also got an old wind up gramophone from 1902 and some shellac records; but it needs a needle, so it’s just for show but looks impressive.

CHUMKI: I guess you must really love vinyl to dedicate yourself to it in this way. What is it about vinyl that captures your imagination?
BOB: I love it because it sells! I do also like the sound of it. But, when you can’t get something on vinyl, you are forced to buy CDs. I like CDs because they are convenient, especially when you’re in a rush. With vinyl you have to set time aside, to set it up and all that. It’s like a ritual. I do make time to sit and listen though.

CHUMKI: What are your musical tastes?
BOB: All kinds, from classical to jazz, psychobilly and all that.

CHUMKI: How do you decide what to put on the record player each day?
BOB: We have MP3s playing, because we can make playlists that last all week. We can put 500 tracks on and not worry about changing CDs whatever, when people are in.

CHUMKI: Do you personally have a large collection of vinyl and are you tempted to keep your rarer finds?
BOB: No, I don’t have a lot of vinyl. We have found some rarities but I just price them up and put them out.

CHUMKI: Through having the shop have you made new musical discoveries yourself?
BOB: Yes, when I started I didn’t know half the bands. Someone came in and asked me for some Nine Inch Nails, to which I responded I have some three-inch screws. That’s true that.
I’ve got to hear new bands that I might not have heard, which is very interesting.

CHUMKI: What are your feelings about The Vinyl Consortium closing, after taking over from Hairy Records?
BOB: Yeah, it’s a shame. What with vinyl coming back I am quite surprised it didn’t survive. But, from a selfish point of view, I wouldn’t want anyone else to open up but they probably will.

CHUMKI: How do you see your future as purveyor of vinyl?
BOB: It has been my business for 20 years, so I see it carrying on, this is a musical city. If you can’t survive here, you can’t survive anywhere, unless you’re down London. Plus, I like doing it. When I wake up I can’t wait to get back to work.

Interview with Carl of Hairy Records

CHUMKI: When did Hairy Records open its doors and how did you get involved?
CARL: Bob Johnson opened the shop originally in late 1997, in the basement of The Palace, on Slater Street. That was the first time I really met him, through buying records from him and selling the odd one to him.
After 12 to 18 months he moved to Bold Street, in a basement where Voodoo now is. Bob said it was Voodoo that inspired the name but he really got it from a record shop in America
That basement is where the reputation of the shop started, as you had that mid ‘90s generation – who formed bands like The Zutons, The Coral and The Stairs – coming in. Suddenly, to them, vinyl was a massive thing, so Bob hit it at exactly the right time, especially as the dance scene and Cream was also massive then.
Shortly after he moved to the bigger shop, which everyone remembers, at 124 Bold Street, formerly a dance music shop, called Essence, run by a fellow called Carl De Burgh.
My involvement started in November 2001. My girlfriend’s sister was married to one of my friends, Steve, who worked in Penny Lane Records. When they shut down, he started doing record fairs, Bob was having staffing difficulties and asked Steve if he was interested but he wasn’t and suggested me. Bob offered me a full time job.

CHUMKI: Were there many other independent record shops in Liverpool city centre at that time?
CARL: No. The only other really established independent was Probe, but we were in a completely different market. HMV and Virgin did stock vinyl at that stage, but by the late ‘90s, vinyl was proper going, due to the popularity of CDs.

CHUMKI: What inspired Bob to open a record shop and where did he get his stock?
CARL: Bob didn’t have a great passion for music or vinyl, he just fell into it and found he could make money that way.
But, he had a lot of discipline. He would be out every morning, to car boot sales, markets and record fairs. People got to know him and he was a good payer. This is late ‘90s, early 2000 when vinyl was still everywhere.
The amount of vinyl that man had in lock-ups was phenomenal. Bob’s father was a solicitor with an office and flat on Rodney Street. When he passed away, Bob carried that on and had the whole place full of boxes of records.

CHUMKI: What were Bob’s musical tastes?
CARL: He didn’t really have anything specific, Bob kept himself to himself and we didn’t really speak much about that. He did mention, that in the early 1970’s, him and a friend had a bit of a disco, more to earn a few shillings – rather than a love of music – playing the top 20 of the time and such. He never had any great passion which he expressed.

CHUMKI: By the time I got to know it, every available space in the shop was stuffed with vinyl, what did it look like in the beginning?
CARL: There were always boxes of records everywhere, it was fantastic! Upstairs, in the stock room, we did have an A to Z but, now and again, Bob would open a mystery box and I would go “do you realise what that is?” Bob didn’t have a clue, but, in a way, his logic was right, you have got to keep hold of all sorts, because it might not always be around and tastes change. Because he bought so much stock, we had all bases covered.
I used to be assistant manager at the Virgin Records Shop, in Central Station, from 1982 to 1985 – one of the best times of my life – all my mates and my girlfriend working there, and I said to Bob, this is like Virgin, there were 300 copies of Dark Side Of The Moon, so when we sold one, we just replaced it.

CHUMKI: With so much stuff in the shop, the ‘filing’ system seemed a bit random did you and Bob know what was actually there?
CARL: No, well sort of, we only ever had the ground floor open, which was sorted into artist categories and another guy organised upstairs into rows of A to Z of rock and pop. I had a few run-ins with Bob because I would try and organise things a bit, behind the counter but I would come in the next day, and there would be more stuff put there. He was his own man but I tried to do my best for him, because I loved my job.

CHUMKI: What was it like to work in Hairy Records?
CARL: I was in heaven; it was something I knew about from a lifetime of following music. When I started, I had just had my fortieth birthday and I get this unbelievable second wind in my life.
All my best people I ever knew, the greatest times in my life, have something to do with music. I wasn’t a football hooligan, I didn’t want to be a ‘Billy’ business man. I just wanted to drink my Guinness, smoke my spliff and listen to my tunes.
I loved the youngsters who came in with a genuine interest in music, who asked me questions. Because I have lived my life so much, am older, I have seen most of the bands, as they came and went in popularity.

CHUMKI: What was it like working with Bob?
CARL: Over the years, from when I started in November 2001 to when Bob passed away in October 2010, my relationship with him had faded a bit. You have to take into account, I worked six days a week and took no holidays and, as the saying goes, familiarity breeds contempt. It can become a little unhealthy being around someone so much.
Bob had no social life. When I first started there, much to the detriment of my relationship with my girlfriend, I would ask him out for a beer after work. We would go to The Dispensary, on Renshaw Street and he’d have a bottle of Budweiser and a packet of peanuts. I loved the man for giving me this job. I loved getting up and going to the shop, so I wanted to treat him, but he would sit facing the TV watching the football results. I’d sit by him, trying to have a bit of conversation, a laugh, but would find him nodding off. I tried for three or four weeks, but after that we didn’t really mix out of work, and my girlfriend stopped throwing my dinner at me.
It was the music and the people it brought into my life, people I will know until the day I die, which kept me at Hairy Records.

CHUMKI: What sort of customers did Hairy Records, as you knew it, initially attract and what were they buying?
CARL: We had the DJs, that was a big thing at the time. They were sampling from original soul tunes, for example. Suddenly they don’t want the Jay-Z tune, they want the proper Bobby Womack version.
People were willing to pay fortunes; for about six month period you could get £50 to £60 for a Shirley Bassey L.P. called Something because it had her version of The Doors: Light My Fire, on it, the most incredible version, a proper bass and drums one. I used to put it on loud in the shop and customers would be mesmerised, because it was proper musicians, not sampled, just proper guys playing their instruments with skill, right there and then, with a women with a great voice, everyone wanted it.
Another example is, A little Less Conversation by Elvis Presley, used in a TV advert, suddenly everyone’s in wanting the single.
Andy and Carl Combover, who used to do the Go Go Cage at The Magnet every Saturday they would come in. They were big soul boys.
Later on, everyone knows the Tarantino story, when he came into Hairys and found a single he had been searching for – Ringo’s Blindman single – from the Spaghetti Western of the same name. He couldn’t believe it and was very grateful.

CHUMKI: What was it like having all that music at your fingertips and a constant stream of musicians? Did you make new discoveries?
CARL: Yes, it was unbelievable. It’s an ongoing experiment, there’s so much stuff I haven’t still heard.
Two/three years ago, with Sean Payne, the drummer from The Zutons, I was sitting in his top floor flat on Catherine Street, beautiful windows – nice summer day, looking out, having a spliff – when he put on a record which fellow band member Dave McCabe had randomly purchased while on tour in New York, because it looked interesting, and I went “what the fuck!” It was Alice Coltrane, John Coltrane’s wife who played the harp, a record called, Journey into Satchidananda, on the jazz label Impulse.
Other times, you find yourself having to ‘lean forward’ with music too much, trying too hard. Sometimes it’s best to just leave it, it’s not going anywhere and you can come back to it in ten years time.
I threw cans of coke at Van der Graaf Generator at Liverpool Stadium, when I was fourteen. Twenty years later I couldn’t stop listening to them.
I used to think bands like King Crimson, with Robert Fripp sitting down, when I saw then at The Empire, were “taking the piss” but now I realise how fantastic they were.
Similarly, rediscovering music from my youth, for example, lesser-known seventies bands like Be-Bop Deluxe, Cockney Rebel and The Sensational Alex Harvey Band. These were bands I proper loved as a kid but hadn’t really listened to for a long time. All of a sudden, in 2003, I put it on in the shop – a record which I had when I was fifteen – and people are coming in saying “what’s that?”
It was fantastic!

CHUMKI: How did changing times affect business?
CARL: As the decade wore on, with computers and Internet, things start changing, people become aware of prices. By 2000 you were seeing vinyl on the Antiques Road Show, on one programme they valued the first Beatles LP at £5000. So then you get people coming into the shop with Beatles records, with bar codes on from the 1980’s expecting a fortune, a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing.
And then, of course, people started to buy online, but because they couldn’t see the product until it arrived that in itself generated interest in locating a physical copy they could inspect. I remember a girl coming in, looking for what she called an ‘outer’. Turned out she was looking for a sleeve, for a copy of Diamond Dogs which she had bought on the Internet. They had sold her a £3.49 scratched record for £8, without a cover or even inner sleeve.
Everyone’s idea of condition differs, it’s only when it arrives in the post that you find out.

CHUMKI: After Bob passed away, if dreams could some true, would you have liked to take over the shop?
CARL: I would have loved to but I am realistic. I knew from a young age, I am not a businessman. If anything, I’m a good number two, you wouldn’t need a better assistant, which is what Bob had.

CHUMKI: So, how did Spike Beecham get involved, and in clearing up the shop with him, did you make any musical discoveries?
CARL: Bob passed away in October 2010 and he didn’t leave a will. He had a sister and brother-in-law, who appointed Moorcroft Solicitors to the estate. They allowed me to carry on running the shop because it was a viable business, which someone with a bit of savvy and money could have a real good shop here, especially with me working there and my knowledge. There was very little competition. It was a cool shop which was already well established. It didn’t have to be Hairys but I felt, what with the revival in sales of record players, a resurgence in vinyl was indicated, and we could start stocking new vinyl again. The mark up mightn’t be as much as second hand but it’s still viable.
Spike came across with a lot of enthusiasm, a bit of a ‘can do’, ‘mover and shaker’. He got involved with the estate and seemed sincere enough, so I put a bit of belief in him. By that time, the shop was a ‘shit hole’ and I was working all the hours by myself. I had to trawl through batches of records, all the mad country and western records; you got to remember certain kinds of music do pass away, such as Enoch Light and His Orchestra, Jeanette MacDonald, these are the kind of singers our grandparents would have known. It needed clearing.
I said to Spike, trust me, no-one’s going to find a rare Beatles record here, but you can never assume, so I went through it carefully. For example, I found a Jim Reeves record, Bimbo Bimbo and two 7” singles fell out, in plain white sleeves, some early heavy metal, by Made In Sheffield, valued at £300 to £500 in the record guides. Independently released, only three hundred were pressed.
We filled a garage with the rubbish, which a guy called Carl took off Spikes’ hands to sell at Tuebrook Market. Poor guy, it took him four five trips in his van.
At the end, all the stock was put into two lock ups on Jamaica Street. One had live stock, which had been out in the shop, which was really depleted by then, no Bowie, no Sabbath, no ACDC. Anything that was good was gone. The other had all the stock from Bob’s garage and stock room Spike took a lot of the singles home with him and everything else went on eBay.

CHUMKI: I know you don’t really want to go into the period after, when the Vinyl Emporium opened, so I will leave it at that and move onto the more general topic of vinyl versus CDs. What are your thoughts?
CARL: To me music is music. For example, I had been playing singles in the shop and a lot of ‘60s singles are mono. If you push the mono button on a stereo amplifier and you play a Stones single for example, it’s proper punchy because it’s compressed into one channel. It’s made to be played on aunty’s old record player. It’s not hi-fi but they sound incredible.
Sometimes you forget to take the mono button out. One day in the shop, a gentleman came in and wanted to hear a copy of Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys, the stereo version There’s been quite a bit of debate about whether the mono or stereo version is better. He wanted his wife to hear the stereo effect. So I put it on and he stood right between the speakers, pointing bits out to his wife, asking me to knock the balance between left and right. It was only a while after he left, playing something else, I realised I had left the mono button on; even I hadn’t noticed.
People talk a lot about quality but it’s all subjective.
About 18 months ago Pink Floyd brought these ‘immersion’ box sets out; 150 quid things, re-mastered versions. By this time Spike was running the shop and I was scrabbling to re-stock, find a version of Dark Side Of The Moon without surface marks, to put out. This was a bog standard version, a ‘70s pressing, I put it on in the shop and this guy walks in, convinced it’s the new stereo mix of the Floyd LP. Sometimes it’s the emperor’s new clothes.

CHUMKI: Do you think there is a future for vinyl or even a revival in interest or do you think it is a ‘nerds’ oddity consigned to history?
CARL: I think the main thing with vinyl is, there is a genuine thing to do with sound. There is a warmer sound. CDs certainly are a bit more clinical, a little more ‘top end’ maybe, I don’t really understand the technicalities, I find it all a bit ‘Billy bullshit’.
I think it’s the aesthetic thing with vinyl, the sleeves, the packaging. I think even the younger generation, if they are really into music, if exposed to vinyl, they are a little bit in awe of it.

CHUMKI: Do you think there is still a place for the physical independent record shop, given prevalence of online releases?
CARL: The Internet has changed a lot of things, not just where vinyl is concerned, but buying music in general.
I think someone setting up a second hand record shop today would struggle with finding enough stock. You’re not going to pick up now, a few hundred copies of Dark Side for a couple of quid each.

CHUMKI: Do you miss working in Hairy’s and the unending supply of music? I guess that was the soundtrack to your life.
CARL: Yes I do miss it. It sucks my soul, seriously it does. I suppose from getting back into it in my forties, I genuinely thought I could see it out. I don’t know how long I am going to live for, but when I was younger I used to say I don’t want to be the oldest swinger on the block, hip in my forties, but when you get to it, you realise it’s not such a bad thing to be like that. Those first few years in Hairys, when I was getting up to speed, all these ‘cool’ kids that came in, looked like Bob Dylan to me, with their mad little curly ‘barnets’, it was a great time, meeting all these people who loved music.
The one thing, when the shop closed down, I realised, all these people are still in my life, it’s not just because I worked in a record shop and they got some cool tunes out of me, these are my proper friends and I’ve still got them now, love them all.
I don’t want to earn a fortune, I have no delusions, I’m no Richard Branson, I just loved my job, love music and what it give me, it saved my life. If I hadn’t have had that from a young age, I don’t know where I would have ended up. I’m from Walton, a bit of a gangster family background, but I went to The Collegiate and that opened my world up, because that was how I found Probe on Clarence Street. This would be 1973, I came walking across, one evening in my second year, I cut through and there was this little bit of heaven. I was thirteen but Geoff Davies never fucked around with me, he didn’t treat me like a stupid little kid, he fascinated me. Born To Run by Bruce Springsteen, fourteen years of age, walked into Probe and he said “here you are boy”. He brought me the badge and programme back from the Rolling Stones gig at Bingley Hall.

CHUMKI: If money were no object would you open a record shop? How would you make it work?
CARL: I would wallow in it. That’s what hurt, when Hairys closed. Someone with a bit of genuine bit of business savvy, with a bit of money and me with them and that shop should still be going.

Part 1 - Vinyl Addiction, My Plastic Predilection and Pushers Tales
Part 3 - An in depth interview with Geoff Davies of Probe and Probe Plus

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