FOREWORD by DAVID SINCLAIR There is a romantic image
of the local record shop which Nick Hornby captures with
exquisite detail in his novel High Fidelity. "The shop
smells of stale smoke, damp and plastic dust-covers, and
it's narrow and dingy and dirty and overcrowded....this
is what record shops should look like, and only Phil
Collins' fans bother with those that look as clean and
wholesome as a suburban Habitat." The shop in Hornby's
book is staffed by a bunch of oddballs, united by an
obsessive love of recorded music and committed with an
almost missionary zeal to the business of supplying it
to the public. The owner measures out his life in an
endless succession of music-related lists – everything
from his Favourite Records (Singles) to his Top Five
Dream Jobs. Graham Jones, one of the founders of Proper
Music Distribution has been doing his dream job – or
variations on it – for most of his life, and the true
story of his time spent working in and around the world
of independent record retailing is every bit as
colourful, funny, strange, and occasionally sad as any
fictional yarn. Graham has some lists of his own, and in
Last Shop Standing he has amassed many extraordinary
tales of the best shops he has done business with over
the years and hilarious accounts of the worst. He
reveals the truth about chart hyping and shines a light
on some of the extraordinary shenanigans that have
regularly gone on behind the scenes as record companies
go about promoting some of their biggest hits (and
misses). But the most shocking list is the one that
begins and defines Last Shop Standing: a roll call of
some of the 540 record shops that have closed in the
last four years alone. For record retailing is an
industry in crisis. Beset by the onward march of the
supermarkets, the growing popularity of music
downloading and a host of other rapidly emerging market
trends, the traditional record shop has become an
endangered species. While Graham recognises such
problems, and explains them with an insider's knowledge
and eye for detail, he remains committed to the future
of the industry that he loves. As well as being a eulogy
to an era that is fast fading into history, Last Shop
Standing is also a celebration of the unique spirit of
comradeship and entrepreneurial ingenuity that has
enabled so many shops to keep operating successfully in
such a harsh trading environment. All of which makes
this a most timely and important book. Graham has
amassed a fantastic collection of anecdotes on his
travels around the record shops of Britain, and Last
Shop Standing is a unique slice of social history and
record industry folklore. It is also a damn good laugh.
- David Sinclair November 2008 |
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