Canals, charcuterie and beer: how record shops are staying afloat
A little more than a decade ago, the decline of the British record shop looked terminal. But, in a dramatic turnaround, numbers doubled in the first half of the 2010s, and even now, after Covid lockdowns, they are at levels not seen since the 1990s: 407 independent stores were counted in 2021. Since it came to the UK in 2008, Record Store Day – celebrated this weekend – has gone from having the sense of a charity appeal for the afflicted, to one of the biggest music industry beanfeasts in the calendar. But behind the vinyl hype, things remain precarious, and a record shop now is rarely just a record shop.
It’s commonplace for them to also be cafes or bars. But how about one with a built-in radio station (Some Great Reward in Glasgow or the Book and Record Bar in West Norwood)? Or with a bakery renowned for its pie and mash (Coffee and Vinyl in Torquay), an entire charcuterie counter (Bradford’s Record Café – whose blunt Yorkshire slogan is “Vinyl, Ale, Ham”), or an organic brewery and record label all in a stable block (Futtle, on the outskirts of a Fife fishing village)? How about one that exists for only a day each month and is as much party as shop (the Re:Warm pop-up in a Bournemouth bike shop-cafe), or one which is also the owner’s home (The Record Deck): a barge, setting up stall wherever it finds itself on the canal system?
The ways in which the shops are founded and run are just as various: quitting a successful 25-year tech career to start a shop with a membership scheme in a sleepy New Forest tourist town (Black Star in Lyndhurst), or setting up an employee cooperative to save an almost 60-year-old establishment (David’s Music in Letchworth). What unites them is very hard work.
Fresh out of prison with £150 to his
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