The romance of the record shop

The first single I ever bought for myself was Tubeway Army's 'Are 'Friends' Electric?'. I bought it, of course, because I loved the song and, indeed, this was the very beginning of my lifelong affair with electronic music but I don't think I was particularly excited about the medium itself.

At some point, though, I fell in love with the the vinyl experience: browsing the racks in record shops; sitting on the bus, poring over the outer and inner sleeves on the way home or to a friend's house, and then the whole process of playing a record. It was a consuming romance that surrounded the music itself. 

Record shops became a vital part of my life. I can still recall the rush of joy but also the feeling of homecoming on walking into a record shop. In Kingston, we had Our Price (still cool back then), Beggars' Banquet, and the prosaically named The Record Shop. One could also pick up second hand singles at Books, Bits And Bobs, and cheap imports - thin vinyl, badly coloured covers - from Millets. 

It all began to change at the end of the eighties with the advent of the CD. Flicking through racks of CDs did not bring the same pleasure, and the limited size and format of the CD booklet detracted from the imagery and text that came with a new purchase. They did make the compilation of a 'mix tape' loads easier, though, and the sound was so much better. 

Over the ensuing twenty years, vinyl disappeared to the extent that when I went into a charity shop to buy singles for 7x25, I had to ask the staff to bring the record boxes down from the storage room. As I selected my twenty or so singles, I recovered the pleasure of flicking through a rack of records and I was also acutely aware that it was the last time I would have that pleasure. 

Over the last few years, however, there has been a huge resurgence in vinyl. When I see people posting pictures of their vinyl on Twitter and Instagram, I feel a huge pang; how I miss those sleeves, oh the nostalgic rush for the process of playing a record. 

I felt an echo of that, today, when I passed this record shop in Kendal. For a moment, I imagined walking in and attempting to recapture that sensation of homecoming from my teens.

But to be honest, for all my romantic and nostalgic aches and longings, vinyl is a terrible format for the music itself, which is why, a few years ago, I gave all of my vinyl away to a friend of mine. I couldn't bear to throw it away or to sell it, so I was very happy to find a new and caring home for it. 

Of course, I did keep a few records back - my Kraftwerk albums, a few rarities that I had chased down, a handful of sentimental items - but I never play them. The low frequency distortion on vinyl may lend the music a warmer sound but for all my love of records growing up, I prefer the digital domain these days. 

This evening I was out in Kirkby Lonsdale with Bob and Rich, and we talked a bit about the record shops from our youth, particularly Probe and Backtracks in Liverpool where Rich grew up and Bob and I went to university. I mentioned the anticipation but also frustration of first hearing Depeche Mode's 'Just Can't Get Enough' at breakfast one morning, knowing I'd have to wait until Saturday to get the bus into Kingston to buy it (if it hadn't sold out). 

It's easy to be nostalgic about all that but to be truthful, I much prefer my recent experience when I pre-ordered the recent Nick Cave album, 'Ghosteen', and on the release date it simply slipped into my iTunes library. I started it playing on the Sonos without even getting out of bed.

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Reading: 'Plan For Chaos' by John Wyndham.