Record shop favourites in birmingham

[ade]

Haha that's so true about the reddingtons label, I've got a couple of old hawkwind and tangerine dream albums I picked up from there years ago and they still have the label on, I reckon they'd been on that long they had fused to the album cover

 

[wam]

Next batch of old bags. These are scanned from singles/CD bags rather than photographed. Highway 61 only dealt CDs and was up at Fletchers Walk by the library. A HMV logo from when they still put the dog on everything. Plastic Factory from the far end of Corporation St - not the same place as Virgin used to be. Swordfish when they were still in Needless Alley. I think Tempest had the place on Bull Street when they used that logo. Wayahead were (a stall?) in the Bull Ring but I don't remember much about them.

 

[Paulo76]

Next batch of old bags. These are scanned from singles/CD bags rather than photographed. Highway 61 only dealt CDs and was up at Fletchers Walk by the library. A HMV logo from when they still put the dog on everything. Plastic Factory from the far end of Corporation St - not the same place as Virgin used to be. Swordfish when they were still in Needless Alley. I think Tempest had the place on Bull Street when they used that logo. Wayahead were (a stall?) in the Bull Ring but I don't remember much about them.
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Great pics! They've brought back some memories. I recognise most of those, especially the Plastic Factory bag, I spent hours and a lot of money in that shop. I remember Reddingtons had a reputation (not sure if unfairly) for being overpriced and it seemed a bit chaotic and scruffy in there. Tempest was great for new rock and indie releases. Didn't use Swordfish much and I'd totally forgotten Way Ahead. There used to be a music t-shirt shop very near to Tempest that I can't remember the name of that took a lot of my cash too. Apart from record fairs at the NEC, I also used to hang around the record shop in Wylde Green most Saturdays in the early 90's.

 

[ade]

Some second hand vinyl is so expensive now not many bargains out there anymore, even the charity shops are wise to it now so the one's you do find are dear. There's a little market shop in Worcester called market hall records http://www.markethallrecords.co.uk/ he has some great stuff and all reasonably priced, he's a nice chap aswel, well worth a look lf your over that way

 

[Elmdon Boy]

Hurst St was the first place for the Diskery which is still going in Bromsgove St.
Swordfish Records is also still active in Dalton St off Newton St by the crown courts.
Great little independents if you want difficult to get hold of CD or vinyl. I was in Swordfish the other week, still being run by the original guy.
Give them a visit and support your independents, its all we will have left soon.

Don't forget Swordfish Records are still going.
I was in there today and bought 2 cds at £1-99p each, not a bad price .

 

[ade]

Absolutely elmdon well said, if we don't support our small traders once they've gone there gone forever ever, some of these shops would have gone through some hard times when downloading was a big thing so hopefully now vinyl is back they can start to make some money

 

[wam]

for what it's worth, Diskery still has something approaching a bargain bin. You can find some of the real mass market stuff at £1 a piece.

 

[wam]

I remember 2 when I worked at Patrick Motors on Dawlish Road Selly Oak, I worked with a guy Adrian Stanley who would walk down to the Bristol Road on pay day at lunch time and buy a least 2 LP.s.
Then the other I walked past every day going for lunch it was at the bottom of Ryde Park Road on the Bristol Road just down from Colmers Farm School, I remember going in and buying Diamond Dogs by Bowie 1974, the woman who owned the shop was very well feed, but she new me because my mum worked in the grocery store a couple of doors down and she always came out to talk, it looks like it may be a vape shop or the Rednal Café now, and the café where I would eat lunch every day from school is now a fish bar.
What great places record shops use to be even into the 80's just as good as a book store browsing looking to find a surprise.
My record buying days came to a end in England I got to know a record producer for the beeb and he got so many records from labels sent to him he would just give me stacks of records and would say "any sound good let me know", there was a lot of junk but many good one's, all the LP's had a small gold stamped sign on the front with a rectangle boarder with the words not for sale printed in gold.

The shop closest to Dawlish Rd would have been S G Beckett on the other side of Tiverton Rd.
The one close to Ryde Park road was Music Box.
These from 1972 Kellys

 

[Robert Ensor (bob)]

The shop closest to Dawlish Rd would have been S G Beckett on the other side of Tiverton Rd.
The one close to Ryde Park road was Music Box.
These from 1972 Kellys

I can see now the front of the music box, the woman who owned it was a little bit of a busy body and would stand by the front door waiting to pounce on a unsuspecting passer by, now of course I realize that during the day she probably did not have a lot of foot traffic

 

[Vivienne14]

I remember the Virgin shop on Corporation Street. Don’t think it actually had a name, well at least I don’t remember the name. Used to sell ‘imports’ - albums you couldn’t get in this country. It was a right scruffy place - it was in one of these shops near Coleridge Passage, I think it might have been the one just inside the archway.



Counter was at the back with the main shop area having rows of home-made looking wooden units to house the albums. There were headphones mounted on a pillar in the middle of the shop where you could listen to albums of your choice. Don’t remember a downstairs area, but there might have been one. Used to go in here every Saturday but don’t think I ever bought anything in there. We just used to ‘hang out’

Viv.

 

[Morturn]

That's right Viv, in the archway and to the right. I remeber those headphones too

 

[Vivienne14]

Thanks Mort - even the split doors are the same. Seems incredible to think about how basic the shop was and what the organisation later became. I think I was ‘hanging around’ there in the early 1970s, maybe 72 or 73. Don’t think it was there for very long. Pretty much off the beaten track. Viv.

 

[Morturn]

Well I remember listening to Rory Gallagher ‎– Live! In Europe on those headphones. Released in 1972, so there you go with a year.

 

[Elmdon Boy]

It was just called Virgin Record Viv. The start of Bransons empire.
They moved to Bull St around 1975 I think.

 

[Vivienne14]

I have a vision of loon pants thinking back to that shop. Lots of purple, maroon or black loon pants, on men and women ! I think this shop was probably one of the first to stock Bob Marley music (one of many other artists) - imported (ie not generally available in uk record shops). Viv.

 

[Elmdon Boy]

I had a pair of purple loon pants Viv !! , I'm still fairly slim, I wonder if I can still get into them
Perhaps it was me you saw at this time, I bought many albums there.

 

[Sugar]

My first single I ever bought was kung fu fighting by Carl Douglas in 1974 before that my mum worked in a pub and she bought single records from the man who came to change the records in the juke box even though they had no middles in them but I think all the records them days had removable middles that you could put in any record to play. I remember getting my records from a little stall in the indoor bullring market I cannot remember its name in the 70s also I remember going to the diskery on Bristol rd looking for my boy lollipop by millie I could not get it anywhere cus it was an old record but they had it but only in an album so I bought it for 50p !!!!!! Even though all the records went out of fashion years ago they are now coming back in fashion ,well that says it ALL!!!!!!!

 

[Morturn]

There was a chap on Erdington market who sold ex jukebox records. You could get the inserts for the records that had got the centre removed, or alternative just pop it on the turntable about centre

 

[Astoness]

My first single I ever bought was kung fu fighting by Carl Douglas in 1974 before that my mum worked in a pub and she bought single records from the man who came to change the records in the juke box even though they had no middles in them but I think all the records them days had removable middles that you could put in any record to play. I remember getting my records from a little stall in the indoor bullring market I cannot remember its name in the 70s also I remember going to the diskery on Bristol rd looking for my boy lollipop by millie I could not get it anywhere cus it was an old record but they had it but only in an album so I bought it for 50p !!!!!! Even though all the records went out of fashion years ago they are now coming back in fashion ,well that says it ALL!!!!!!!

hi sugar i dont think the 50s 60s and 70s music has ever really gone out of fashion...i play it a lot...will todays music still be remembered and played in 50 or 60 years time ?? somehow i doubt it...

lyn

 

[ade]

My first single I ever bought was kung fu fighting by Carl Douglas in 1974 before that my mum worked in a pub and she bought single records from the man who came to change the records in the juke box even though they had no middles in them but I think all the records them days had removable middles that you could put in any record to play. I remember getting my records from a little stall in the indoor bullring market I cannot remember its name in the 70s also I remember going to the diskery on Bristol rd looking for my boy lollipop by millie I could not get it anywhere cus it was an old record but they had it but only in an album so I bought it for 50p !!!!!! Even though all the records went out of fashion years ago they are now coming back in fashion ,well that says it ALL!!!!!!!

The diskery has come up alot in this topic and is quite famous now, I used to work in bissell street highgate and would often walk up there on a Friday afternoon wage packet in hand here's a link with a bit of info about the shop

Birmingham Music Archive

Celebrating Birmingham's Popular Music History

www.birminghammusicarchive.com

 

[Sugar]

hi sugar i dont think the 50s 60s and 70s music has ever really gone out of fashion...i play it a lot...will todays music still be remembered and played in 50 or 60 years time ?? somehow i doubt it...

lyn

Sorry lyn I did not mean the songs went out of fashion (I know they never will) I meant the vinyls there put on .

 

[JohnJames]

The Diskery when it was in Hurst St. They moved to near the Bristol Rd during the early seventies. Great place for Motown and Soul. Also the record shop in Woolworths at the Bullring was good. We went there to "chat up" the young ladies who worked there and ask them to play Motown records. Also there was a place in the indoor market that only sold Reggae. Can't remember what it was called..

 

[Sugar]

The Diskery when it was in Hurst St. They moved to near the Bristol Rd during the early seventies. Great place for Motown and Soul. Also the record shop in Woolworths at the Bullring was good. We went there to "chat up" the young ladies who worked there and ask them to play Motown records. Also there was a place in the indoor market that only sold Reggae. Can't remember what it was called..

Yes that's probably the stall I went too in the market as I was well into reggae them days .I remember the stall being on a corner and very dark and about you chatting the girls up in woolworths it was all in jest ! Nowadays it would be classed as assault . How times have CHANGED!

 

[ade]

The Diskery when it was in Hurst St. They moved to near the Bristol Rd during the early seventies. Great place for Motown and Soul. Also the record shop in Woolworths at the Bullring was good. We went there to "chat up" the young ladies who worked there and ask them to play Motown records. Also there was a place in the indoor market that only sold Reggae. Can't remember what it was called..

the record shop in the bullring would have been Don Christie, after they moved from ladypool road

 

[Griff_401]

Did there used to be a record shop on Summer Row in the early 80's, just down from the Shakespeare Pub?
(I remember there was a shop there that sold movie posters and memorabilia, a cafe and an adult bookstore, and a snooker club called 'The Anchor')

 

[wam]

Did there used to be a record shop on Summer Row in the early 80's, just down from the Shakespeare Pub?
(I remember there was a shop there that sold movie posters and memorabilia, a cafe and an adult bookstore, and a snooker club called 'The Anchor')

I remember the shop but can't remember what it was called. They must have known some DJs there because they had quite a few stamped "not for resale".

 

[wam]

[cut]
Even though all the records went out of fashion years ago they are now coming back in fashion ,well that says it ALL!!!!!!!

They say vinyl records are making a comeback, even outselling streams. Trouble with that is that streaming a record will pay someone slightly less than a penny and a vinyl record will cost you £20 (they only count the new ones).
As to the thing about the music going out of style. Remember 50 years from now most of us (if not all) will be dead and the pensioners will be remembering what they heard in their youth. That's going to be something from the end of the century not the stuff we knew as kids. The golden age of pop music is somewhere between 15 and 25 for most people and somehow I doubt that will change.

 

[ade]

That record shop in summer row was called second city sounds, not sure how long it was there for tho before it moved to Perry Barr

 

[Griff_401]

They say vinyl records .......................... for most people and somehow I doubt that will change.

As a 16 or 17 year old I wouldn't have listened to the stuff my Dad listened to (Dean Martin, The Platters, Marty Robbins et etc) for love or money.
Now in my 50's I work in education, so I'm around 16 and 17 year olds a lot. I'm continually amazed at how many of them choose to listen to the music we grew up with, everything from Mettalica and Guns n' Roses to ELO and OMD. A while back I heard a group of plumbing students doing a sing-a-long to 'Take On Me' by A-ha !!

(No point to make - just an observation)

 

[wam]

The thing you get more often today is that there is so much music available and no focus on record charts. Consequently you get rankings that aren't driven by the younger people. Since that feeds back to the streaming services, radio stations etc. you get actual sales that include material that is much older and everybody (young and old) will be getting it. So what if you're a teenager, your radio/stream supplier is going to try to sell you the hits of today which, this week, include Queen, Elton John, Beatles, (it's what's at the cinema) as well as Bob Marley, Fleetwood Mac (they still sell Rumours in enough quantity to get it in the top 50) and Hank Marvin. https://www.officialcharts.com/charts/albums-chart/ . However, you're not going to go and see those acts now so what you'll remember is more likely something current. Maybe it will be some of the stuff that you bought on your first record or something from the disco. Then again there are probably recent acts that will survive too. From the list I'd guess Ed Sheeran and the Arctic Monkeys but you might find something else.