Guide Remembering the record shop magic

Festival Was there ever anything more exciting than a gatefold album sleeve? Do you remember the smell of a gatefold as you opened it?

And then the feel of the vinyl inside? The excitement of discovering which track closed the first side and which track opened the second… and the fun of wondering why, trying to penetrate the thought processes behind the ordering of the tracks.

Garth Cartwright will discuss the magic of vinyl for the Festival of Chichester. He will also discuss the magic of the record shop. His talk – part of the Amici Concerts series – will be entitled

and will take place on Saturday, July 13 at 3pm at St Pancras Church.

Illustrating his talk with music from old records, Garth will discuss how the humble record shop grew from selling wax cylinders into the huge HMV chain, sparked Richard Branson’s Virgin empire and, after the collapse of record shops, has a happy ending with the vinyl revival.

New Zealand-born Garth is an award-winning author, journalist, critic, broadcaster, poet, DJ, raconteur and music promoter, all of which makes him well placed to tell the story. As he says, the old record shops were far more than places of commerce: “They were temples of music, and you went into them to get the most exciting music, whether it was the brandnew stuff, the top 40 stuff or something more obscure. There would be all kinds of stuff in there, and they were run by people who were really passionate about them.”

And then the CD took over, after which the supermarkets killed the big chain record shops: “The supermarkets were relentless in selling huge numbers of CDS as loss leaders.”

Downloading and Amazon also bit into the market for the likes of HMV, but with their niche markets, the independent record shops and the jazz record shops managed to adapt, particularly as the wheel started to turn full circle and we started going back to vinyl.

“The rise of vinyl surprised the hell out of me,” Garth admits. “When the shops started closing in 2007,

2008, 2009, it just seemed like it was game over for the record shops. Everybody was downloading or going to Napster or buying off Amazon, and it just seemed like that was the future.”

But that was the point that the younger generation, a generation that was able to get whatever it wanted off the internet, started saying “What is this old thing that people used to have? And so interest in vinyl started to grow from young people who were used to getting absolutely everything off their computers. I remember interviewing people buying vinyl. They were students, and they thought vinyl was so cool.” And yes, the sound is so much better, Garth says: “If you have got a decent turntable and speakers, yes, the sound is so much more punchy. You get a Beatles 45 and listen to the vinyl and the sound just leaps out at you. Vinyl is just better. It is not as functional as a CD. With a 45, you have got maybe three minutes of music before you have to get up; with an LP, you have got maybe 25 minutes. But it is like the reaction against fast food. People want slow food now. They want to be able to appreciate it. And the other thing is that vinyl has still got that wow factor.”

Garth predicts that vinyl will remain a niche market, however: “When you look at the big superstars, their fans are not buying the new single on vinyl. They are streaming it. But for people that really appreciate music, that really enjoy the tactile feel of it, vinyl is perfect.”