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ARTICLE
For many DJs, vinyl isn’t just music; it’s a journey, a memory, and a story. Before the digital age revolutionised DJing, record shops were the heart and soul of our craft.
They were where DJs spent countless hours and a significant chunk of their earnings building collections that defined their careers.
My own journey started at a young age. Between 1970 and 1976, when I was 6 to 12 years old, I lived in the South West of France with my Moroccan grandma and aunt
Aunt Huguette sang and played the piano, just like my mum, and when she wasn't playing, the house was filled with Moroccan music from Samy El Maghribi, along with French music from the likes of Edith Piaf, Georges Brassens, and Yves Montand.
My cousin Hélène’s taste for The Beatles had a huge impact on my music journey, but she also gave me records that opened my ears to other music that I had never heard before. One memorable present was the Catch a Fire album by Bob Marley and The Wailers – produced in the shape of a Zippo lighter, which opened in the same way as the lighter to reveal the record inside. This was magical! Until then, I had never heard reggae, and this was undoubtedly one of the best albums of all time.
Family circumstances changed and in the scorching summer of 1976 I returned to England to finish my education, moving in with my parents in Surrey. My mother used to play classical music on the piano, including Chopin and Beethoven, and had been well known for entertaining with her sister in wartime Morocco. She also loved jazz, especially Ella Fitzgerald and Ray Charles, which, having moved to Paris as a young woman, she had seen live several times.
Discovering music in the 1980s
Unlike today, radio was the main way you would discover music in the 1980s, and record shops would be the way you would acquire it. As a teenager, I started listening to radio stations like Capital Radio, BBC Radio 1, and the early pirate stations. DJs like Peter Young and Greg Edwards played dance music and soul, which I absolutely loved and started collecting. I would also go and watch rock bands, so they featured heavily in my little collection too.
But this was not the only music I collected. Why? Because I was considering becoming a DJ.
Growing up in the 80s and 90s in a town called Leatherhead was interesting, and the world of the mobile DJ was still very new. If you wanted to see local DJs in action, you could go to a Scout youth disco or school disco, or to The Riverside Club, or the local football club, or even the leisure centre. Occasionally, a big roadshow would put on a night – Funk-a-Duck or the Mike Allen Roadshow for Capital Radio would attract many.
My personal tastes in music would have me buying singles and albums from artists, whilst my DJ collection meant I also bought more 7" singles, 12" singles and music compilation albums of all sorts.
Falling in love with record stores
As my music collection grew, I became even more interested in DJing. So I started helping an established DJ as a roadie and joined the local Hospital Radio Station before launching as a mobile DJ in my own right. All my spare cash and time went into buying records, unlike many of my friends who settled for recording music off the radio.
Leatherhead wasn't a huge town, but there were at least five record shops. The best by far was the amazing Tower Records, a small but well-stocked independent shop run by a knowledgeable and friendly owner. It was there that I bought my first 12" single, ‘Use It Up And Wear It Out’ by Odyssey.
Woolworths stocked a range of chart records and albums. They occasionally had special offers on records that had fallen off the charts, as well as stocking low-quality compilations that were useful for DJs or anyone building a music collection. I remember there was also an electrical shop that exclusively stocked classical music – snobbishly, I thought. Our Price Records also moved into town, and corner shops would stock cheap records that came out of jukeboxes, usually well-worn and missing their centres.
As my tastes became more specialised, finding rare music was more of a mission. Once I had a car, I was able to drive to Diamond Duel Records in Stoneleigh. They stocked a wicked range of 12" singles, including ‘The Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel’ – which cost me 66p. This masterpiece in live mixing and scratching from 1981 totally blew my mind, and remains one of my treasured tunes. (10 years ago, I saw a poster in a Worthing cafe advertising a DJ night with Grandmaster Flash. Amazed that this legend was coming to the sleepy seaside town, I got four tickets for me and the family, who, not understanding my excitement at first, ended up loving his incredible performance.)
A work trip to Holborn led to me discovering City Sounds, a brilliant record shop that specialised in the latest club and dance music.
The owner, Dave, made sure none of his clients left disappointed, and I spent so much money there every month! I'm pretty sure the record shop scene in the film Human Traffic is based on him….
Other shops I visited in London were the huge Virgin Megastore in Oxford Street, Tower Records in Piccadilly Circus, and Bluebird Records in Edgware Road. Bluebird was more like an essential pilgrimage – the 80s soul and dance music I got from there was fabulous. And in Soho there was the phenomenal Groove Records, where you could always find rare imports. I vividly remember the day I managed to lay my hands on a rare 80s electro tune called ‘ET Boogie’ by The Extras (on Sunnyside Records). It cost me a whopping £12 at the time, and I still have it now! Sadly, Groove Records is now gone and the building is home to yet another vape shop.
Later on, in my hometown of Horsham in West Sussex, I used to buy records and CDs from a lovely little shop called Heartbeat Records. Every Saturday morning was taken making sure I had the week's chart toppers as they were released, and before they sold out. It would be a disaster to not be able to play something hugely popular getting hammered on the radio, just because someone else got the last copy! And this is where a lot of us mobile DJs miss those smaller local shops. The staff got to know you and they understood that you were a passionate DJ. They would always have a reserve of singles they knew YOU would want to get, even if they’d sold out – and this relationship was pure gold.
Record shops also did something else that was invaluable to us working DJ. They would receive stock a few days before the embargoed public release date, which was usually a Monday, but our relationship with the store meant we could usually buy these records as soon as they arrived, allowing us to play them out at that weekend's gigs. Notable records that I managed to lay my hands on in advance of the embargo include the album Thriller by Michael Jackson, and the single ‘Relax’ by Frankie Goes To Hollywood – both had a massive impact on my gigs those weekends.
These record shops were also organic hubs for networking and collaboration. They attracted people who shared a love for music, creating the perfect environment to exchange ideas, tips and connections. When I’d walk into my favourite shops, it wasn’t unusual to run into other DJs flipping through crates. And conversations sparked easily about upcoming gigs, new tracks, or go-to tunes for getting the crowd hyped. These casual chats occasionally led to more significant opportunities, such as sharing upcoming gigs, trading tracks, or even collaborating on events.
Shop owners played a crucial role in connecting DJs based on their tastes. Many owners had an encyclopaedic knowledge of who was who in the local DJ scene. Another great thing about these shops was the spontaneous listening sessions. Someone would find a record, play it on the store’s deck (yes, just one!), and suddenly everyone ...
To read the full article, you’ll need to have a physical copy of the magazine which you can sign up for here for 6 issues delivered to your door from just £16!, this will also give you access to the full digital copy of each issue
https://store.promobile.online/products/pro-mobile-magazine-6-issue-1-year-subscription
You’ll also get full access to this article and the last year of magazines via the Pro Mobile Magazine App which is available from both the Apple App Store and Android PlayStore
They were where DJs spent countless hours and a significant chunk of their earnings building collections that defined their careers.
My own journey started at a young age. Between 1970 and 1976, when I was 6 to 12 years old, I lived in the South West of France with my Moroccan grandma and aunt
Aunt Huguette sang and played the piano, just like my mum, and when she wasn't playing, the house was filled with Moroccan music from Samy El Maghribi, along with French music from the likes of Edith Piaf, Georges Brassens, and Yves Montand.
My cousin Hélène’s taste for The Beatles had a huge impact on my music journey, but she also gave me records that opened my ears to other music that I had never heard before. One memorable present was the Catch a Fire album by Bob Marley and The Wailers – produced in the shape of a Zippo lighter, which opened in the same way as the lighter to reveal the record inside. This was magical! Until then, I had never heard reggae, and this was undoubtedly one of the best albums of all time.
Family circumstances changed and in the scorching summer of 1976 I returned to England to finish my education, moving in with my parents in Surrey. My mother used to play classical music on the piano, including Chopin and Beethoven, and had been well known for entertaining with her sister in wartime Morocco. She also loved jazz, especially Ella Fitzgerald and Ray Charles, which, having moved to Paris as a young woman, she had seen live several times.
Discovering music in the 1980s
Unlike today, radio was the main way you would discover music in the 1980s, and record shops would be the way you would acquire it. As a teenager, I started listening to radio stations like Capital Radio, BBC Radio 1, and the early pirate stations. DJs like Peter Young and Greg Edwards played dance music and soul, which I absolutely loved and started collecting. I would also go and watch rock bands, so they featured heavily in my little collection too.
But this was not the only music I collected. Why? Because I was considering becoming a DJ.
Growing up in the 80s and 90s in a town called Leatherhead was interesting, and the world of the mobile DJ was still very new. If you wanted to see local DJs in action, you could go to a Scout youth disco or school disco, or to The Riverside Club, or the local football club, or even the leisure centre. Occasionally, a big roadshow would put on a night – Funk-a-Duck or the Mike Allen Roadshow for Capital Radio would attract many.
My personal tastes in music would have me buying singles and albums from artists, whilst my DJ collection meant I also bought more 7" singles, 12" singles and music compilation albums of all sorts.
Falling in love with record stores
As my music collection grew, I became even more interested in DJing. So I started helping an established DJ as a roadie and joined the local Hospital Radio Station before launching as a mobile DJ in my own right. All my spare cash and time went into buying records, unlike many of my friends who settled for recording music off the radio.
Leatherhead wasn't a huge town, but there were at least five record shops. The best by far was the amazing Tower Records, a small but well-stocked independent shop run by a knowledgeable and friendly owner. It was there that I bought my first 12" single, ‘Use It Up And Wear It Out’ by Odyssey.
Woolworths stocked a range of chart records and albums. They occasionally had special offers on records that had fallen off the charts, as well as stocking low-quality compilations that were useful for DJs or anyone building a music collection. I remember there was also an electrical shop that exclusively stocked classical music – snobbishly, I thought. Our Price Records also moved into town, and corner shops would stock cheap records that came out of jukeboxes, usually well-worn and missing their centres.
As my tastes became more specialised, finding rare music was more of a mission. Once I had a car, I was able to drive to Diamond Duel Records in Stoneleigh. They stocked a wicked range of 12" singles, including ‘The Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel’ – which cost me 66p. This masterpiece in live mixing and scratching from 1981 totally blew my mind, and remains one of my treasured tunes. (10 years ago, I saw a poster in a Worthing cafe advertising a DJ night with Grandmaster Flash. Amazed that this legend was coming to the sleepy seaside town, I got four tickets for me and the family, who, not understanding my excitement at first, ended up loving his incredible performance.)
A work trip to Holborn led to me discovering City Sounds, a brilliant record shop that specialised in the latest club and dance music.
The owner, Dave, made sure none of his clients left disappointed, and I spent so much money there every month! I'm pretty sure the record shop scene in the film Human Traffic is based on him….
Other shops I visited in London were the huge Virgin Megastore in Oxford Street, Tower Records in Piccadilly Circus, and Bluebird Records in Edgware Road. Bluebird was more like an essential pilgrimage – the 80s soul and dance music I got from there was fabulous. And in Soho there was the phenomenal Groove Records, where you could always find rare imports. I vividly remember the day I managed to lay my hands on a rare 80s electro tune called ‘ET Boogie’ by The Extras (on Sunnyside Records). It cost me a whopping £12 at the time, and I still have it now! Sadly, Groove Records is now gone and the building is home to yet another vape shop.
Later on, in my hometown of Horsham in West Sussex, I used to buy records and CDs from a lovely little shop called Heartbeat Records. Every Saturday morning was taken making sure I had the week's chart toppers as they were released, and before they sold out. It would be a disaster to not be able to play something hugely popular getting hammered on the radio, just because someone else got the last copy! And this is where a lot of us mobile DJs miss those smaller local shops. The staff got to know you and they understood that you were a passionate DJ. They would always have a reserve of singles they knew YOU would want to get, even if they’d sold out – and this relationship was pure gold.
Record shops also did something else that was invaluable to us working DJ. They would receive stock a few days before the embargoed public release date, which was usually a Monday, but our relationship with the store meant we could usually buy these records as soon as they arrived, allowing us to play them out at that weekend's gigs. Notable records that I managed to lay my hands on in advance of the embargo include the album Thriller by Michael Jackson, and the single ‘Relax’ by Frankie Goes To Hollywood – both had a massive impact on my gigs those weekends.
These record shops were also organic hubs for networking and collaboration. They attracted people who shared a love for music, creating the perfect environment to exchange ideas, tips and connections. When I’d walk into my favourite shops, it wasn’t unusual to run into other DJs flipping through crates. And conversations sparked easily about upcoming gigs, new tracks, or go-to tunes for getting the crowd hyped. These casual chats occasionally led to more significant opportunities, such as sharing upcoming gigs, trading tracks, or even collaborating on events.
Shop owners played a crucial role in connecting DJs based on their tastes. Many owners had an encyclopaedic knowledge of who was who in the local DJ scene. Another great thing about these shops was the spontaneous listening sessions. Someone would find a record, play it on the store’s deck (yes, just one!), and suddenly everyone ...
To read the full article, you’ll need to have a physical copy of the magazine which you can sign up for here for 6 issues delivered to your door from just £16!, this will also give you access to the full digital copy of each issue
https://store.promobile.online/products/pro-mobile-magazine-6-issue-1-year-subscription
You’ll also get full access to this article and the last year of magazines via the Pro Mobile Magazine App which is available from both the Apple App Store and Android PlayStore
The full review can be found in Pro Mobile Issue 130, Pages 52-58.
