We can’t believe nobody has based a sit-com in a record shop. We have kids buying 90’s indie reissues on LP, 50 year olds buying the latest alt.country CD, jazz fans, the odd doom obsessive, people buying tickets for dance events: all sorts. I don’t think we have an average customer. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.Īlthough record shops used to be seen as a gathering place for the young, can you describe your 'average' customer in the 21 st century? The future of Le Pub is still far from certain and if that disappears then it’ll be back to square one. Science Bastard did something similar and there are some other great bands coming out of the city too: The Boy Royals, Dirty Goods, The Lash and The Vestals to name four. We have a member of local glunk (glam punk to the confused people out there) band The Sick Livers working in Diverse they’re funding their own album by playing gigs and selling merch and releasing it on vinyl.
We’ve had the aftermath of TJs closing and the negativity that created, but out of the gloom has come some good bands and a DIY ethic not seen since the 90s. Is the Newport music scene currently thriving and how involved do you get with local bands? One encouraging thing was that a fair few customers took the time out to visit both ourselves and Spillers in Cardiff. In previous years it tended to be all of our regulars piling in on one day but this year saw a bit of a shift and I saw a lot of new faces. It’s the busiest day of the year in the shop by miles. How important a day in the music calendar is it for you? You can’t send it back and there’s no use having a good sales day if the profit is all in the split 7”s you can’t sell! There may need to be a limit to the number in future though, as many shops can’t risk taking quantities of everything in case they’re stuck with it. There are some cracking releases and it’s great seeing customers excited about them. At the end of the day, the aim is to get people back in their local shop and I think most people understand this. It’s a brilliant day in the shop but given its first come, first served nature, it does tend to frustrate our mail order regulars as they have to make do with leftovers if they don’t live near a shop.
What have your experiences of it been?īroadly good. Record Store Day seems to be as much about celebrating vinyl as it is about celebrating record shops. They’re not worried about spending £50 on an American 45rpm import. Quite a few have listening rooms and have spent a fortune on hi-fi equipment. Then our mail order customers tend to be a bit older with a few more quid in their pocket. There’s the kids that are starting to buy records rather than CDs, which is great to see – these are the people that come in the shop and buy the new indie rock type stuff. I’m sure shops that stopped selling it, noticed more and more people asking but we’ve always had our regulars.
It’s strange for us because we’ve always sold vinyl. How popular actually is it as a format these days? Our customers come out and it’s good to put names to faces.Įvery year there seems to some national news article about the 'return of vinyl'. We often travel around the country to hi-fi shows and individual events organised by ourselves and shops. We still manage to build up relationships with mail order customers by taking the show on the road. Unfortunately, to keep a shop going these days you need a hook, whether that’s mail order, a coffee shop, Bruce Springsteen or being the oldest in the world, you can’t just rely on people to flock in and buy records every Saturday. How important is the web retail side of the business and are you still able to build up relationships with customers as you do over the counter? To provide the good people of Newport with quality music and give the world a mail order site they can rely on for good service.
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