49

IN WHICH… I’M FLOATING AN IDEA…

Do you remember that 1977 hit ‘Float On’ by The Floaters? It made Number 1 in the charts, although Number 2 may have been more apposite, and caused the more scatological amongst my circle of friends much hilarity. It came floating back into my mind when I received an email from a friend: ‘Just back from a nice day out. Started at Regents Canal floating market in Mile End – basically 6 barges. However one of the barges was selling vinyl (ended up with 2 albums to carry round all day!).’ Really? A floating record shop on a barge? Crikey, I have to catch up with that.

Which I did on 23 August 2018 when Luke, skipper of the barge, occasional performer in small venues and owner of the records, parked his vessel in the posh Thames-side town of Marlow. We found him easily enough and I was soon rifling through a varied, decently priced selection of records, as well as a few CDs – one of which was a double Seeds set which I bought for a fiver. Luke has a wide selection of obscure folk LPs – and that, I think, is his own personal preference, but he is knowledgeable across most of the genres. He’s been doing this since 2014. ‘I started it with my own collection, I had a boat already and a job that I wanted to leave, my only real asset was my addiction to records.’ Luke’s vinyl activities are seasonal. ‘I spend winters mostly in London and then once the festivals and events start I travel to as many as I can. I’m based at Springfield on the River Lea. Generally, I’ll only stay somewhere for a weekend. I travel as far up country as Birmingham.’

I found an LP of very early Jefferson Airplane material which I snapped up, along with a two quid obscurity by Limey, a four quid Robin’s Reign by Robin Gibb, one of my not-so-guilty pleasures, and a Marble Arch label psychsploitation album by Hell’s Preachers, Supreme Psychedelic Underground. Some have claimed that this is a freelance outing by Messrs Blackmore, Lord and Paice on a Purple day off, although it probably isn’t. But it is nice to have a disc which, reckons website psychedelicbabymag.com: ‘leads the listener to wonder what dimension these performers were operating in’. My most expensive purchase was the eponymous String Driven Thing LP, in a most acceptable condition, for 15 quid. I enjoy their work and am gradually picking up their entire oeuvre.

Luke Guilford was engagingly chatty, happy to pose for a photo; the location was attractively scenic, my good lady was very happy for once to accompany me on the hunt and pleased to be able to enjoy a leisurely elevenses in a pleasant local cafe in which we were served by a startlingly Ian Wright-lookalike barista. Early in 2019 Luke announced: ‘This weekend is the last upon my current boat, the good ship Tashtar! She’s been a fine base for many years but it’s time to search for a slightly larger, but mostly taller home…’ Whilst talking to and reading about Luke, I discovered where he goes to refresh his own collection – a place I’d never come across before – a stall within Wood Street Market in Walthamstow, called Vinyl Vanguard, and run by ‘Mike’. So, within a couple of days of my jaunt to the floating shop, I was being brought back to terra firma by the delights of Walthamstow Central!

I arrived at the town’s over- and underground train and bus hub, entirely baffled as to which direction I needed to point myself in, and a little concerned that if I asked anyone for the way to the one landmark I knew of ‘Hoe Street’, I ran the risk of being misconstrued. It was around 11am but Walthamstow, including Hoe Street, which I had now managed to locate courtesy of a street map appeared unnervingly underpopulated. Had some national disaster occurred whilst I was sitting on the tube train? There seemed to be no one around. From Hoe Street, I took Forest Road, which then joined Wood Street – where the market lives, so in I went to this atmospheric warren of little units, each with its own speciality.

I soon found the record unit – or so I thought. It was only after I’d spent a good few minutes looking at the vinyl, which was sharing space with football memorabilia, that I realised that it wasn’t run by Mike at all. In fact, it was run by guitarist and artist, Jeff, and was called Nobby Lawton’s Olde Footy Shop. Whatever the name, I bought a record I’d never heard of before. I’d been trying to sell a single, ‘Spare the Children’, by a group called Studd Pump on eBay. It was on the little-known Penny Farthing label and dated from 1971, but didn’t attract a single bid. I’d tried to find out details of the group, and it transpired that it had links to psych favourites (Les) Fleur de Lys and that one of the members was called Graham Maitland

When I picked up one of Jeff’s LPs by a group called Glencoe, released in 1972, I noticed that one of the members was called Graham Maitland On keyboards and vocals. Not only that, one of the others was bass guitarist Norman Watt-Roy, the Blockhead-cum-Wilko-Johnson sidekick. I bought it for a tenner and on hearing it later, loved it. ‘Hippie-rock’ one of the publications I consulted, called it, which I thought was rather damning with faint praise. Then – as seems to be the way of things record collecting – it turned out that Mr Maitland was also briefly involved in another group that I have enjoyed. Hopscotch produced two singles: ‘Look at the Lights Go Up’ (co-written by Mr M, although he didn’t co-write the B-side, boasting the inspired title, ‘Same Old Fat Man’) in 1968 on United Artists, worth £140 says RRPG; and a year later, ‘Long Black Veil’, (a tenner) which has Maitland’s co-written ‘Easy to Find’ on the difficult to find B-side. Before this he was also a member of the group The Scots Of St James, who banged out a couple of 1966/67 singles which appear on various compilations. Delving deeper, here was Graham M again, this time as part of Five Day Rain, a psych-cum-prog outfit whose one LP appeared in 1970 in very limited quantities. I found yet another reference to him on a recently issued record attributed to One Way Ticket, and called ‘Return Journey’. This actually consists mostly of Brian Carroll, whose name appears as co-producer of the Five Day Rain release, along with the other One Way Ticket man, Damon Lyon-Shaw.

How could anyone ever have accessed this type of fascinating trivia by downloading or streaming, I wonder?

Back in Wood Street Market, I was now wondering where the ‘Mike’ I was looking for was. The unit called Mike’s Records seemed to offer a clue, so I wandered in. I engaged in a very interesting chat with said Mike, who has run the unit since 2002. He no longer has a personal collection, he told me, but the unit doubles up as such, which doesn’t apparently inhibit him from selling the stuff he likes himself. Mike’s had a sign above the unit, indicating that he sells ‘Record’s, CD’s, DVD’s and Video’s’. Apostrophes thrown in for free, clearly.

But there was no sign of the artworks which were said to adorn the unit run by Mike which Luke from the floating record shop frequented, so I was again in the wrong place. Which meant, unless someone was literally taking the Michael, that there were an impressive and varied three record-selling units in the market, and further investigation duly saw me in the shop concerned, Vinyl Vanguard, admiring the oils by local artist Ruth. This Mike was equally as welcoming as the earlier one, but was also unable to come up with a record I wanted to buy, despite having a wide spread to choose from. You know how it is – you can’t always get what you want. Mike has an admirably binary take on music: ‘The great jazz musician Duke Ellington was once quizzed about the best kinds of music; his response: “There’s only two kinds” – good and bad. That’s my take on music too – my tastes are highly eclectic and that’s reflected in what I offer for sale.’

Mike has written a book and presented radio programmes about jazz, adding that he has ‘spent a lifetime building up my own cherished collection of records’. Having recently read a piece raving about them, I’d bought a Mamas & Papas LP, Deliver. When I returned home, I discovered that I already owned it.

But at least they are both real copies…