Smallfish Records

aww, nice shop

this is a real shame.

It is a shame and it's strange because it doesn't seem that long since they moved to bigger premsises with more vinyl.

yeh it is sad.

i'm working about 50m from the store at the moment, so have been spending more spare time there than normal.

now i feel terrible for bringing up the subject of their steep prices a few weeks back to some guy behind the counter. it clearly hit a sore spot - after i watched him deflate, he went into some long explanation.

now i can understand his real concern!

to be brutally honest, i don't think they were doing everything right in that store, whcih in the days of ebay and online stores you do. but i don't think it's worthwhile going into why at this point in time.

suffice to say, i'll miss my work breaks in there..

it never seemed that busy when i was in there and it was a bit difficult to get around, i'm sure rents are probably the factor plus the expanding sucess of the online vinyl shops. I'm not sure they really sold the kind of stuff that the shoreditch crowd were into. There was no "All manner of Hoxton nonsense" section.

Interesting that Phonica seems to get busier and busier as all these others close down. But that's clearly a more populist kinda shop.

Sad!

we'll just miss them. Definitely had been planning to drop by on the tour.

It seems the internet is killing off all the small retailers, so that only the big chains can afford to stay open. Most of the independent bookshops have already gone. In fact most bookshops have gone.

Even online - shops like Recommended (aka ReR Megacorp) - how long are they going to last? I've been buying stuff from ReR for 25 years or more and I want to keep supporting. But when you can get CDs from the Amazon marketplace for half the price...

Great shop - a worthy successor to Fat Cat. Was a bit off the beaten track though - I remember treking down Old St from the tube station on a few occasions.

God help us if we all end up having to shop in Phonica - which is a throwback to the bad old days of record shops. Staff have serious attitude problem there - have forgotten what manners are and seem to prioritise putting records away and looking cool over serving customers. Big contrast to Smallfish's approach...

spreadlove said:

Great shop - a worthy successor to Fat Cat. Was a bit off the beaten track though - I remember treking down Old St from the tube station on a few occasions.

God help us if we all end up having to shop in Phonica - which is a throwback to the bad old days of record shops. Staff have serious attitude problem there - have forgotten what manners are and seem to prioritise putting records away and looking cool over serving customers. Big contrast to Smallfish's approach...

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really? i don't shop a lot in phonica but the times i went in there, they seemed friendly. in fact its hard to remember the last time i went into a moody shop where the assitants had attititude since fat cat shut.

wonk_vitesse said:

I'm not sure they really sold the kind of stuff that the shoreditch crowd were into. There was no "All manner of Hoxton nonsense" section.

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there was a much more shoreditchy record shop that opened near smallfish on charlotte road last summer but it recently closed too.

bassnation said:

in fact its hard to remember the last time i went into a moody shop where the assitants had attititude since fat cat shut.

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there is a real prick who works/used to work at the music and video exchange on berwick st

big satan said:

there is a real prick who works/used to work at the music and video exchange on berwick st

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ah yes, the mve. there were some similar people at the camden branch too. they used to pick out the best records for themselves and look at you with undisguised contempt when they viewed your choice of purchase at the desk. sort of made you feel soiled going in there.

if there are any shops that have contributed to people buying online instead it thats one.

"I'm not sure they really sold the kind of stuff that the shoreditch crowd were into"

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True, but I thought that it was a "destination" shop ie people would travel to Old St just to go there.
I've always thought that the staff in both Smallfish and Phonica (mostly) are fairly friendly. Sister Ray staff were always ignorant and rude but that's gone to the wall now as well hasn't it? Hmm, seems to be a pattern here.
My girlfriend used to work in Vinyl Vault in Dalston (now shut). The guys who owned it supplied records to the shop on Broadway Market (also now shut) and they said that the owner didn't seem to have much interest in music and so wondered why he was running a record shop. I believe it was him who opened the shop on Charlotte Road that someone refers to above, hardly surprising if that went under I guess.

"It seems the internet is killing off all the small retailers, so that only the big chains can afford to stay open"

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"ah yes, the mve"

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I would have thought that the internet would have more effect on second hand shops and dealers. People are beginning to realise that some records they have always been told are incredibly rare are ten a penny in Australia or whatever and it's cheaper to order them than it is to pay a UK dealer's price. As far as I can see the MVE buys records off people at £3 and sells them at £12, if you stick it on ebay and it goes for £7.50 both seller and buyer are better off so the MVE should stop ripping people off or shut - tough luck in my opinion.
Er, bit or a disorganized rant there, sorry about that.

i have mixed feelings about this shop thing. when they did exist i did my best to avoid them, precisely for the same reasons everyone mentions: mean-spiritedness, croneyism, under the counter elitism. overpricing. to see these people pitch an obviously bad record to someone who didn't know better - this dishonesty made my blood boil. as these shops began to die, with the exception of one headed by an exceptionally friendly person, i shed no tears. good riddance.

but there is the aspect of carving out a singular place in the city, a condensed vision expressed through physical things and sound, that i feel sympathy with. it's heroic. if it could be done without humans getting in the way it would be perfect. an online shop like forced exposure, for example, but physical, without people, that i would get out of bed for.

shame really. never really carried anything i'm much interested, but the cafe was a nice place to meet people. personally i think disque in islington is an absolute treasure of a shop. good selection of stuff, multi-buy deals and fall-over-themselves-to-help-you, lovely staff.
just wish london had anywhere worth even thinking about going to to buy hip-hop, reggae, other global street stuff under one roof. in fact, i don't think there's a single decent hip-hop shop in town anyway.

"i think disque in islington is an absolute treasure of a shop. good selection of stuff, multi-buy deals and fall-over-themselves-to-help-you, lovely staff."

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Funny, but one shop I've always hated is Disque. I find the staff slimy and they seem to desperately stuff records in to your hand the second you walk through the door. Also, if you request something that they haven't got they ask for your phone number to notify you - and then phone up to try and sell you something else!
I don't want to sound overly negative about record shops in general though. I think that they're great and it would be a terrible shame if you have to start adding automatically adding on the p&p and waiting for days for everything that you buy.

stelfox said:

shame really. never really carried anything i'm much interested, but the cafe was a nice place to meet people. personally i think disque in islington is an absolute treasure of a shop. good selection of stuff, multi-buy deals and fall-over-themselves-to-help-you, lovely staff.
just wish london had anywhere worth even thinking about going to to buy hip-hop, reggae, other global street stuff under one roof. in fact, i don't think there's a single decent hip-hop shop in town anyway.

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do you like sounds of the universe dave? not sure how they are with hip hop but they have a fair bit of reggae - or are there better places even for that?

for reggae i just use dedicated reggae shops. they're better, easier and cheaper.
for hip-hop, i buy online direct from the US or download stuff.
sounds of the universe is nice enough and i usually get given some soul jazz stuff when i go in there, but it's pretty overpriced and a bit of a "cool record store" for me.
i just want a big shop with lots of records and up-to-the-minute mixtapes, no frills, like music depot in houston or beat street in brooklyn or something.
unfortunately that ain't happening, though.

IdleRich said:

Funny, but one shop I've always hated is Disque. I find the staff slimy and they seem to desperately stuff records in to your hand the second you walk through the door. Also, if you request something that they haven't got they ask for your phone number to notify you - and then phone up to try and sell you something else!
I don't want to sound overly negative about record shops in general though. I think that they're great and it would be a terrible shame if you have to start adding automatically adding on the p&p and waiting for days for everything that you buy.

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yes, I concur with this too...I found it it quite desperate and they always had some godawful jazz-funk thing playing too. They also had those awful 'fit the demographic' recommendation chain promotions, things like "do you like Stereolab, hey we think you'll like this by Broadcast and this by Electrelane blah blah"

I quite liked Smallfish event though it specialises in the IDM, microhouse stuff that I'm generally not too bothered about. It was the sort of place you could get the staff to dig out personal recommendations (which tended to be good) and spend alot of time listening. I still think the Bonnie Camplin thing I picked up from there earlier this year is the best thing I've heard all year. Although that said, I remember asking about the availability of uk garage around 2000 when the shop opened and the manager guy (Nik?) said something like "that shit goes straight in the bin"