Good names for record shops (real ones)

[BillF]

One in Manchester (maybe no longer there) - Sifters. I always thought this a good name; conjures up images of sorting and sifting through racks of vinyl. I believe it was namechecked on an early Oasis song.

Don't know if it ever had a jazz section, as the last time I went was well before I started listening to jazz. You must know this one Bill?

Certainly I know it and it's still there. It doesn't have a jazz section, but I used to go in there with my daughter who was an indie fan. The Gallaghers used to reminisce about their youth in Burnage spent trespassing on the railway, breaking into cars and looking through records in Sifters!

P.S. Same daughter tells me there used to be a Criminal Records inside Affleck's Palace (Manchester yoof clothing emporium) owned by one of the Inspiral Carpets.

[brownie]

Always liked going past Sawano's Paris record shop 'Moby Disques'...

going past but not often inside (the prices were too rich for my taste!).

It's closed now but the sign is still there!

[BeBop]

There used to be a Moby Disc in Southern California, I think it was.

[Aggie87]

There's still a Cheapo Records in Austin.

Two cool-named, defunct music stores in Austin I used to like:

Technophilia

Stashus Mule

Edited October 26, 2009 by Aggie87

[BeBop]

An old Berkeley hangout: Rather Ripped Records.

[A Lark Ascending]

I saw an LP 'fair' advertised as 'The Vinyl Countdown' at the weekend.

Bath's jazz shop, 'Music Matters', says it all.

[Big Beat Steve]

Needmore Discs.

This suburban Kansas City store went out of business in August.

Oh, I like that one!

MG

Me too!

Great and fitting name.

There is a shop in Frankfurt (Germany) that used to specialize in punk etc. underground records and goes by the name of

SICK WRECKORDS

It has since expanded to all sorts of subculture music, including R&B and rockabilly, but still quite a fitting name.

And would anbody venture a guess as to who was the favorite artist of that Munich jazz record shop called

BIRD'S NEST RECORDS?

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

And would anbody venture a guess as to who was the favorite artist of that Munich jazz record shop called

BIRD'S NEST RECORDS?

Lyndon Johnson?

MG

[Big Beat Steve]

Lyndon Johnson?

Ah, that must have been the one who wrote the song that Fat Navarro etc. recorded on Blue Note 559. :D

Edited October 26, 2009 by Big Beat Steve

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Missed a trick there - should have said Sonny Til.

MG

[Bill Nelson]

20 years ago, we had a store, Ruthless Records, which more than lived up to it's name.

Let me count the ways:

They sunk one regional record distributor, Southland, after repeated non-payment for goods received.

The owner moved the downtown Athens store location about every other year, making a killing in commercial real estate each time.

As for customer relations, I suggested the slogan, "Ruthless -- Where Every Day Is Customer Depreciation Day!"

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I think there was a record label called Ruthless, at one time.

Ah yes - it was a Rap label - Bone thugs-n-harmony recorded for that label.

MG

[Guest Bill Barton]

Wall of Sound - Seattle

Licorice Pizza? That was an album-feature show on a radio station I worked for back in the dark ages too. Pre-DMCA obviously. 1970s-1980s.

[A Lark Ascending]

There was a chain in the 80s/90s called 'Our Price'.

Don't know if they were being ironic but they were generally more expensive than other places.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

There was a chain in the 80s/90s called 'Our Price'.

Don't know if they were being ironic but they were generally more expensive than other places.

And they didn't have anything in them that you couldn't get elsewhere. Essentially, they were like grocery convenience stores; their major factor was location - they were in railway stations and business/office districts, not consumer stores locations, which have high rentals.

MG

[A Lark Ascending]

And they didn't have anything in them that you couldn't get elsewhere. Essentially, they were like grocery convenience stores; their major factor was location - they were in railway stations and business/office districts, not consumer stores locations, which have high rentals.

They had a high presence in the high street up this way - shops in Nottingham, Sheffield, Meadowhall etc. I recall the first one opening in Nottingham in the late 80s and it had a fair stock of to be expected jazz records - ECMs and the like. Just rather expensive. When I moved to Worksop in 1991 they had one here - in fact they were often the only chain record store in smaller towns. Not much of a back catalogue but for a while new releases that had some mainstream cache were stocked. I didn't buy much jazz in them but recall buying back catalogue rock, solk and some classical.

I think they lost the plot in the later 90s. Like all such stores the CD stock went down as video/DVD went up. And then they started giving huge amounts of floorspace over to mobile phones. Don't think they could compete there with the big boys.

The 'Last Shop Standing' book I mentioned a while back has some things to say about them - I think the writer worked for them for a while.

[clifford_thornton]

In Austin:

End of an Ear... excellent, excellent shop and not surprisingly, the owners are big Robert Wyatt fans.

Always liked going past Sawano's Paris record shop 'Moby Disques'...

going past but not often inside (the prices were too rich for my taste!).

It's closed now but the sign is still there!

Ah, too bad he's gone. I remember walking in randomly on a visit and talking to the owner. Very nice guy and a pretty sick grip of stuff. He gave me a deal on some hard-to-find Japanese pressings and a few odds and ends.