Woebot
Well-known member
Rapidly coming to the conclusion that the only place to buy records is online.
The best thing about them is you're confronted with stuff you didnt think you wanted, that which you never knew about, but you can engineer chance encounters like that online. I suppose also there's the psychogeographical thing, but can't one just do a lit bit of flaneur-ing on the side to compensate.
The main problem with record stores is that the stock is nowadays picked clean, for one the staff ensure this. Furthermore all the interesting records now never come anywhere shops. Dealesr take them straight from the kind of diggerati sources you and I have scant time to explore and sell them on eBay or GEMM.
Obviously I'm mainly talking about second-hand records, but for my money something like Independance outperforms any of the high street stores and while not to insult London's greatest stores (lets face it there are no contenders) Honest Jons, Rough Trade and Soul Jazz more and more I suspect their hearts aren't in it (all three have their own labels as there is no money in retailing) and also they're stylistically hamstrung (Rough Trade which tried to keep up with Jungle has given up in the face of Grime (says a lot about their approach in general). Besides you can get all this new stuff cheaper online anyway.
Accordingly here is a snapshot of the new letterbox i'm getting fitted:
The best thing about them is you're confronted with stuff you didnt think you wanted, that which you never knew about, but you can engineer chance encounters like that online. I suppose also there's the psychogeographical thing, but can't one just do a lit bit of flaneur-ing on the side to compensate.
The main problem with record stores is that the stock is nowadays picked clean, for one the staff ensure this. Furthermore all the interesting records now never come anywhere shops. Dealesr take them straight from the kind of diggerati sources you and I have scant time to explore and sell them on eBay or GEMM.
Obviously I'm mainly talking about second-hand records, but for my money something like Independance outperforms any of the high street stores and while not to insult London's greatest stores (lets face it there are no contenders) Honest Jons, Rough Trade and Soul Jazz more and more I suspect their hearts aren't in it (all three have their own labels as there is no money in retailing) and also they're stylistically hamstrung (Rough Trade which tried to keep up with Jungle has given up in the face of Grime (says a lot about their approach in general). Besides you can get all this new stuff cheaper online anyway.
Accordingly here is a snapshot of the new letterbox i'm getting fitted: