Record Store Day 2014

As I turned into Merchants Arch I heard Mick Jagger singing an old blues song "I followed her to the station with a suitcase in my hand."

 His long drawling tones filled the shaded walkway and the sound drifted up between the buildings either side.

The song was coming from a speaker over the door to a staircase that led you up to Mojo's Records.

 

"I moved upstairs because the rent was cheaper", said the owner. I found Mojo's on my first visit to Dublin but it was after closing time.

On this sunny afternoon off I was lured back by records and posters. 

It was worth the trip to see these album covers alone...Tom Waits, Keith Richards, David Bowie-wearing a dress, Bob Dylan and The Beatles dressed like Eskimos...now that's what I call a party!

 

Guest Post from Mr B, the 'birthday boy'. Not as old as The Queen but for one month only, the same age as me!

Happy Birthday Mr B!

 

Record Store Day 2013

Vintage Vixen wrote that her partner, Jon, would sit in their kitchen and contemplate the 'Girl on a Motorcycle' poster, from the film of the same name starring Marianne Faithful.

 

 

The book of the film, although with a different cover, was in the middle of the display  of paperbacks when I once again visited the Record Store.

 

Tucked between Bruce Lee and the David Bowie Story, Marianne Faithful stood like a leather-clad jewel in the crown.

 

 

But my eye was on a different prize. Jayne Mansfield's 'Wild, Wild World', which I thought would not only be a good read, but the cover would also make a great T-shirt. I asked the Record Store owner if I could take a photograph of the book display, because it looked so good.

"Of course you can", he replied. " A lot of people don't bother to ask."

The owner seemed a lot more upbeat than on my previous visit. It was good to see him. Wearing a dark velvet jacket, he was busy cataloguing singles as the '13th Floor Elevators' played in the background. He smiled as I said I would take the Jayne Mansfield book.  

"Not many people know who Jayne Mansfield was these days", he said. The opening credits to 'The Girl Can't Help It 'came to mind, but I just smiled back.
 

"I see that you've sold that copy of 'Aladdin' by Cliff Richard and the Shadows" I said, having looked through the 'Soundtrack Section.'

"I may've put it in the 'Cliff  Richard Section'" he replied, retrieving it in an instant.

"I've got to take that" I said.

I left with a copy of  'Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp' ( a mono recording of a pantomime performed at The London Palladium, for which 'the Shads' wrote the music) and a paperback full of Hollywood glamour about a woman with a heart-shaped swimming pool.

 

I'm not sure if Jayne Mansfield's 'Wild, Wild World' has made it onto Kindle yet?

 

As for the vinyl...I can't wait to hear Side 2, Track 4, 'Genie With the Light Brown Lamp.'

 

 

A Guest Blogger Post from Mr B

Record Store Day

Guest Post by Mr B

A few weeks ago I had a free afternoon in London. I popped into the Gift Shop at The National Portrait Gallery, to try to get Mrs B a postcard of a BP Award entry that she liked from last year. I found a booklet of all the entries and the painting with the artists' name, to the cashier, asking if it was possible that they had a postcard. The lady was absolutely brilliant, informing me that I could get a digital print starting at A4 upwards. The BP Award pictures are only held on archive for a year, but, having phoned through, got the catalogue number and keyed it into the printer, I left with a beautiful print. Good to know.

Louis Smith's 'Holly'

I wandered up to Leicester Square tube. Stopping outside of a shop called 'Formal Wear', noting that they had a sale on. Patch had told me just the day before that he was thinking of getting a bowler hat befitting with his position as Senior Lighting Technician. A Japanese couple came out of the shop. The man was wearing, you guessed it, a bowler hat! They stopped outside of an antiquarian bookshop, looking through a box of Edwardian caricature prints; people of notoriety, politicians and the like.

I was trying to get a photograph of the bowler-hatted man by loitering behind a Faberge Egg Hunt plinth, when I gave up and spotted "101 Nights at The Roxy" in a bookshop window. I went in admiring a collection of British and American punk fanzines displayed on the wall. "They're not for sale" said the man behind the computer. I enquired as to the price of "101 Nights at The Roxy" - "£300", he said. Three hundred pounds! I can remember reading a review in a music paper when it came out. This prompted me to journey up to Tottenham Court Road, where, back in the 80s and 90s, small independent record stores lurked in a little backstreet opposite the Dominion Theatre, where back then, punk gems like flyers and posters could be found.

I was pleased to see a Davy Jones LP in the window of 'On The Beat'. I am sure that there used to be another record store almost next to this one. It was like entering a cave, with the counter at the back. There was a Cramps T-shirt on a hanger above the till and a poster of Sid Vicious eating a burger wearing a badge that said "I'm a mess". I remember taking Damian and Ian there one afternoon when Screamin' Jay Hawkins was playing in town. I bought a paperback copy of the Beatles film, 'A Hard Days Night'. When I was 2 years old, my parents took me to Dunster Station, to see the steam train that 'The Fab Four' were filming on as it passed through.
My mum told me that they held me up so as I could see over the crowd on the platform. The walls of 'On The Beat' still display old music papers. One thing that caught my eye, was 'Aladdin & His Wonderful Lamp' by Cliff Richard & The Shadows. "Do you know what this sounds like?", I asked the proprietor. "It sounds like Cliff Richard & The Shadows", he replied! "Is it possible to hear a bit?" He asked me which track I wanted, turning off the English folk music that he'd been playing. 'The Entrance of The Emperor' was first and sounded like the overture to a pantomime. The owner told me that it had been recorded as a pantomime. (1964 at The London Palladium, the same year as The Beatles filmed 'A Hard Days Night).

I don't know what prompted the conversation at work, but Chloe had asked me if I liked Glam Rock. She told me that, with her boyfriend, they had bought 2 German record players from Cash Converters. They were sold as a pair and both had something wrong. Being 'techies' she said they fixed one as soon as they got them home, selling it on eBay and covering what they had paid for both of them. The other is set up and they now have a collection of Rod Stewart, Fleetwood Mac, (Rumours), The Best of 10cc, ("I love 10cc" she said), Cat Stevens and Dark Side of the Moon which she ordered specially as it was her boyfriends' favourite. "I bet your neighbours love you" I said. Apparently the 'old lady' next door had come up to her and said "Was that Rod Stewart you were playing?", "I love Rod Stewart". "What she really meant" I said; "That Rod Stewart LP you were playing was SO loud, I could hear every word, turn it down!". It was funny hearing someone who had grown up in the CD generation telling me how the sound was so much better on vinyl.

Chloe

Back in the record store, there was a 1940s telephone for sale.

I wondered if you lifted the receiver you could hear The Big Bopper say "Hello Bay-by". Looking at the phone it was more a case of "Ring, Telephone, Ring", (The Ink Spots). Maybe, if you ran a cleaning cloth over the Aladdin/Cliff rarity as it spun on the turntable, a genie would crackle into life and appear as if by magic like The Shopkeeper in Mr Benn.

Just a minute, who's this city gent coming in?
Could it be ... Mr Benn?
No, it's just Patch in his new bowler hat!

Patch, with the 1948 London Olympics Torch.