Record & Music shops


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I've posted this somewhere before, but I'm surprised it isn't on this thread; Arkwright Street, but I don't remember there being two shops almost next to each other. And this, the version on Goldsm

Jabez Gregory, musical instrument dealer, was your man at that time. 27 Lister Gate is the one almost on the corner into Broad Marsh, opposite the Walter Fountain. The lettering on the wall on the l

Arkwright Street 1971  

Firbeck, the name of the record (and dirty book!) shop was Ace Records, and was run by a guy called Ben (ny) and his sis. he was a big mate of Les's, who worked downstairs at the Rediffusion shop that started this topic!.

When I worked on Goldsmith street in the mid 70's, I would spend a lot on my time, and money in Selectadisc, whilst secretly wanting to go upstairs at Ace!!!

Aaah Ace Records ! They had a copy of Aladin Sane in the window for yonks.

Can you remember the newsagents just round the corner from Ace Records? Funny looking bloke, with a comprehensive range of continental magazines, used to run the place. When they redeveloped the site I think he moved to opposite Central Fire Station.

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(about the same connection as hooleys on derby road) haven't heard this one mentioned yet Jack Brentnall's, used to be on a corner on Radford Road, next to Leno's cinema

For a time Jack Brentnall was in that little parade of shops underneath the County Hotel. I'll always remember the Serpent he had on display in the window.

Here be serpents

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Word Association? Did it also have the word Vauxhall?

I do remember as a kid, mid 60's, being on the bus travelling from Canning Circus down Wollaton Street.

There was a car dealers at the top on the left near the top, and the big signs were for Austin Morris and MG. Who would that dealer be?

This garage was Morkhill & Carnhill. They were agents for BMC. Hooleys was om Derby road and sold Fords.

Cheers, Johnl/

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Re Brentnalls, yes sold records, prob about 1960, as first record I ever bought was Cathy's Clown (first WB release, recall number was WB1 or maybe WB00000001, something like that) think at one time he had a shop on Market Street? his widow about 15years ago had new/secondhand music instruments shop on Alfreton Rd just down and other side from Music Inn, About 1970 am pretty sure Carlsboro Sound had shop in Basford flats complex, as I recall sold only drums? if not them then similar, didn't last long! Can anyone remember when Woolworths sold their own brand of records! You'd get a 1950/60's hit in the charts and within a week they'd have a copy version in their shops recorded by some unknown band! also did their own range of electric guitars

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I'll always remember the Serpent he had on display in the window.

Here be serpents

Talking of 'odd' instruments in shop windows,,,,, there used to be a couple of shops up mansfield road, on the left (sorry - 'junk shops' we called 'em) They always had a Phono-fiddle in the window, priced at £1.

I always intended to get one,,,, don't know why, cos I can't play music (tone daft),,, just fancied the oddity.

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Talking of 'odd' instruments in shop windows,,,,, there used to be a couple of shops up mansfield road, on the left (sorry - 'junk shops' we called 'em) They always had a Phono-fiddle in the window, priced at £1.

I always intended to get one,,,, don't know why, cos I can't play music (tone daft),,, just fancied the oddity.

I remember them, one particular shop used to be a mecca for buying really old Victorian postcards for naff all, I bought a violin bow from there for about 10p so I could attempt to play my Futurama the Jimmy Page way.

I recall another small record shop at the top of Alfreton Road, right next to Canning Circus. On the day that Sgt Pepper came out, and I don't think it was released until 12:00, I drew out the requisite 30 bob from my post office account and cycled up there from Wollaton. I cycled home with this precious item under my arm, wobbling all over Ilkeston Road, fortunately my old man caught up with me on his moped near the Wheelhouse and put the record in his pannier bag.

By the time I got home he was already listening to it, cheeky sod, he loved it too.

I've still got it, in perfect condition with the cut outs untouched, probably not worth much though even if it is a first edition.

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Re Brentnalls, yes sold records, prob about 1960, as first record I ever bought was Cathy's Clown (first WB release, recall number was WB1 or maybe WB00000001, something like that) think at one time he had a shop on Market Street? his widow about 15years ago had new/secondhand music instruments shop on Alfreton Rd just down and other side from Music Inn, About 1970 am pretty sure Carlsboro Sound had shop in Basford flats complex, as I recall sold only drums? if not them then similar, didn't last long! Can anyone remember when Woolworths sold their own brand of records! You'd get a 1950/60's hit in the charts and within a week they'd have a copy version in their shops recorded by some unknown band! also did their own range of electric guitars

Woolworths own label was 'Embassy'. I still have a couple of their EP's. One is called 'Swinging guitars' and the the other one is 'Roaring twenties'. Don't ask me why I bought that!

They also sold very nice loose biscuits from tins with transparent lids.

Cheers, Johnl.

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Wasn't the record label red, and wasn't the reason for them bringing out these versions of 'hit' songs something to do with copyright and objections by performing artists.

If you remember, when Radio One first started, they were forced to employ naff live bands doing cover versions of hit records because the Union of Performing Artists thought, and quite rightly so, that their jobs would be on the line due to the fact that the BBC were about to go wall to wall with recorded music, which quite frankly is what the public wanted, I seem to remember that the situation didn't last long.

Woolies were quite keen to introduce their own brands, I seem to remember a train set called Playcraft, the Woolies version of Hornby Dublo and Triang. At the time, Triang were a bit dodgy with their realism but Woolies Playcraft made Triang look like hand built kits!!

The best bit about Woolies was the Airfix kit section. Airfix produced their models in polythene bags with the instructions and lable attached with staples. These used to be displayed in a very haphazard way in Woolies, bits used to fall out of the bags. We used to trawl through the displays and pick up the bits that had fallen out into the bottom of the display shelves. The nice young Sandie Shaw look alikes on the counters couldn't give a damn, we were positively encouraged to tidy up for them.

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Can't recall the bands thing on radio 1 ? know "Flowers in the rain" by The Move was first record played though, when was Joe Loss Show on radio friday dinners? was that radio 1? not what the teenagers wanted! except when The Who did guest spot c/w with Moon and wrecked everything!

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I had a "Woolies Special" electric guitar and amp, Hawaiian arm al la Hank Marvin etc ,I won't go into detail as to why I bought it (Second hand for £50), but suffice to say it was another 'Mum thing' . I never did learn to play it and flogged it in about 84 for the same price .

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It's the common missomner

I am willing to bet that the others weren't the 'first played' either, as there would have been tests done for weeks beforehand on music and vocals.

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Can't recall the bands thing on radio 1 ? know "Flowers in the rain" by The Move was first record played though, when was Joe Loss Show on radio friday dinners? was that radio 1? not what the teenagers wanted! except when The Who did guest spot c/w with Moon and wrecked everything!

When Radio's 1 & 2 started in 67, the amount of actual 'needle' time was restricted by what was called the Phonographic Performance Ltd, this meant that only 7 hours of record music could be played across both channels during one day.

This meant that we had to suffer a cool DJ like Dave Cash having to feature such live gems as the Ray McVay Sound, ( didn't he play for Notts as well ), other epic bands as Denny Piercy, Bob Miller and his Millermen, The Northern Dance Orchestra and of course Joe Loss. What these traditonal dance hall musicians thought of having to play such Classics as 'Purple Haze' is anyones guess.

I can't find out though when this practice stopped, I don't recall it lasting very long.

Of course the creation of Radio 1 was brought about by the pirate stations, though from my recollections, it was almost impossible to pick them up in Nottingham, they were mainly broadcast from the Thames estuary and my little transistor radio couldn't cope, no doubt more sophisticated sets could, but they were always in the living room and parents wanted to listen to 'Sing Something Simple' on a sunday night, not Johnnie Walker, though they do now. Even Radio Luxembourg was a bit fuzzy, the reception used to really wax and wane. I won a competition on the Kid Jensen show once and never even heard it, I only found out the next day when I went to school and kept being congratulated, I thought it was a wind up till a big parcel arrived in the post, a very nice hand written letter from Mr Jensen and my prize, an album called 'Moves of Vegetable Centuries', I bet Luxembourg couldn't wait to get rid of that one, it met it's demise at Pete Bowdens party in Wollaton, mangled under a chair leg, accident or design????

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We certainly used to listen to the pirates in & around Nottingham in the 60's,,,, if my memory is correct, Caroline and London and another that I can't recall, but didn't last long.

Luxembourg went posh in the latter years. It went on a proper freqency & in stereo,,,,,, & even went on to Satellite for a while,,,,, I guess this was late eighties.

I used to pick it up on a Drake Land Station (still got it - For Sale !?) ,,,,, but it was never the same. Then I think they just pulled the plug.

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Talking of PPL, when I occasionally did the overnight show on Trent, ( a little night music) we had to play a fair number of "Non PPL" tracks, so as to keep needle time down, (the amount of time we were allocated to play "normal" music, as opposed to "NNT" non needle time tracks, which were usually really crap bits of music, not even covers, but usually instrumentals that we had never heard of, which, if my memory serves me well, any instrumental even by a known band, could be played, as it counted as an NNT track......Hmmm....that last bit might be wrong, the days of worrying about needle time is long past!!

Just talking about the pirates, add Swingin Radio England to London and Caroline, although there were lots more, they were the big 3!

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Craig, as you've mention Swinging Radio England you might be interested in this,

http://www.nowthatsradio.co.uk/

If you click on the listen again bit, you can download the various shows that were done this year - not sure if you'll recognise any of the jocks but you might remember the jingles.

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Does anyone remember this little story.

Pre Radio One, and the Pirates, the only thing really worth listening to on the radio was 'Saturday Club' with good old Brian Matthew. As those old gits like me can recall, it was a platform for the success of the Beatles, it was the only live media where they could not only entertain us with their music, but with their natural wit, charm and repartee as well, no-one could compare to them at the time, old BM loved it.

I recall one day some typical sombre voiced BBC school tie operative announced that experiments were to be carried out in 'Stereophonic Sound' on Saturday Club.

The cunning plan was that you tuned your radio to one frequency and your telly to another, voila, we have instant Hi-Fi.

Unfortunately, our massive bakelite radio installed under the equally massive bakelite TV didn't produce the required effect, apart from that, our old man wasn't very impressed with all this fiddling about with the telly, he thought he would lose the Billy Cotton Band Show forever.

What happened, remember the Co-Op assembly rooms opposite near where Gee Dees now lives, or they did the last time I went that way, George Street?

They set up a massive sound system in the Hall, huge speakers on the stage. My brother dragged me over there and we sat in the seats and listened to Saturday Club on this awesome sound system, bouncing around the room, absolutely incredible, did anyone else experience this or am I dreaming. I recall at another time they set up a surround sound system, and once I went to a lecture there by the film maker Tony Palmer, who introduced a film with amazing sound of Creams last performance.

Any one recall any of this happening, were you there, I would be interested to know.

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  • 1 month later...

I remember well many saturdays in the early 70s going to selecta disk on Arkright st....and browsing through all the 'junk' shops....seemed to be on every corner with their signs all over the wall advertising ' House clearance'

....but....

..............Can anyone remember a little further down the road ( nearer trent brigde ) a little old very dark shop with the scariest guy in it.....it sold old record 78s and even 16s ( first time i ever found out what that '16' on my dancette was for )...also sold Gramophones with big brass horns on...the shop didnt look like it had been touched for about 40 years...nor did the guy in it.....He used to sit at the back behind a little counter had long grey hair ( bout as long as mine is now ) and had about 50 or so earrings in each ear that hung onto his shoulders...Massive rings on all of his fingers 'and' thumbs....the shop had records and old prams stacked up everywhere and all looked like they would tumble if you touched em...but he knew where everything was.......used to go and talk to him quite often after the first few shocks of seeing him....turned out to be a nice guy....cant remember his name or the name of the shop ...if it had one.......think when they flattened the meadows he would have been still sitting behind his counter in the dark.

....anyone ????

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There also used to be Pearson which had quite a sizeable record department plus the old fashioned listening booths, if bored at lunchtimes we used to sometimes go in there and listen to an album.

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