52

IN WHICH… I’M BEATLING ALONG

Once again it seemed to come down to a choice between Beatles or Stones. Both of my football teams were playing away, giving me a ‘free’ day to concentrate on record collecting. But where to go? Perhaps The Christ The Saviour Parish Church in Ealing, advertising itself as: Record & CD Fair & Beatles Day, Christ Saviour Church Hall, New Broadway, Ealing W5 2XA – beatlesdays.com. Or, maybe the latest Twickenham Record Fair, being held at St Mary’s Church Hall, just a minute away from the Eel Pie Records’ shop down Church Street, Twickenham, and very close to Eel Pie Island, where, in June 1963, the fledgling Rolling Stones took to the stage, beginning a five-month residency at the Eel Pie Island Hotel.

The Stones’ residency that summer coincided with the release of their debut single ‘Come On’ – a rallying cry that proved presciently irresistible to a significant section of the teenage audience, including myself. Not only that, the promotional photograph showing the previous record fair at the venue included a shot of the back of yours truly’s head, snapped during crate-digging activities there. I decided not to press for an image rights’ payment. But, as I hadn’t experienced a ‘Beatles Day’ I headed for Ealing.

Arriving there I could spot the spire of the church hosting the record fair, piercing the cloudy sky above the town. Approaching the venue there were several posters and notices pointing the way in, and a large yellow Beatles-decorated van was sitting in the grounds. The arrows on the posters sent me all the way round the church without identifying a way in. On my second circuit I spotted a youngish chap looking equally baffled.

‘Any idea how we get in?’ I asked him.

‘All the doors seem to be locked,’ he replied.

‘Not the best business plan for encouraging visitors,’ I responded. He agreed.

‘Are you a Beatles fan?’ I asked.

‘No, I love visiting churches.’

Eventually I located the very modern hall nestled alongside the ancient-looking church and, after another false start trying to identify a door that actually opened, I was finally inside. The advertising blurb was accurate. There was Beatle bootie galore on display. However, in the interests of accuracy, most of the music being played while I was there was 1960s psych and the majority of buying interest did seem to be in the general stock of the sellers present. I felt the vinyl on offer – new and original – was generally overpriced. The exceptions unfortunately were not titles I wanted. Once again, though, there were very reasonably priced CDs, of which I nabbed four: an Andy Fairweather-Low, a Boz Scaggs, a Franz Ferdinand and a Wishbone Ash. All four for… any guesses? A tenner.

The Beatles’ memorabilia didn’t really appeal to me. I have all the Fab 4 LPs I need or want, along with a decent collection of Beatle-related books and mags, all acquired a good few years ago. There was a relaxed atmosphere in the hall, the sellers seemed well acquainted with each other and quite happy chatting, no one worrying that there weren’t hordes of buyers. The impression was that these were people happy to be sharing a day with like-minded folk, listening to music they enjoy, possibly making a few quid, but probably covering the relatively modest costs of hiring out a church hall. More of a hobby than a business. I could see the attraction, and if I wasn’t tied to football or horse racing on Saturdays, then I’d probably consider joining their amiable congregation.

A day or two later I was in the Notting Hill Gate area’s Music & Video Exchange shop, resisting the temptation to buy what I felt was a very reasonably priced (£9 reduced from £14), original copy of the Mystic Number National Bank LP on the Probe label. It looked in decent nick, but I was turned against it by very poor reviews when I looked on online. (‘Some of the least impressive soloing you’ve ever heard on a major label – rating one star’; ‘absolutely nothing going on here’; ‘this track sounds like something they might have played at a local Marriott Hotel’; ‘boring beyond tolerance. Bloody awful, I would suggest true psychedelia fans ignore it’.) I did listen to it on YouTube later in the day and it is a bit ‘heavy rock by numbers’, with somewhat unoriginal, uninspiring guitar licks, and almost comedy vocals. The ‘Blues So Bad’ track is one of the most appropriately named tracks I’ve ever come across. I was so alarmed by the bad reviews, though, that I found an £8 CD of Antipodean 1960s band, Larry’s Rebels, and bought that instead. It’s terrific.

I walked the mile or so to Rough Trade West in Talbot Road. I think it must be me, but I’ve never really bought into the Rough Trade philosophy. Their shops always seem a little predictable and pricey, if I’m honest – and I rarely spot my idea of value for money records. Canadian band Rough Trade (whose 1982 LP, Shaking the Foundations, I own) adopted their name in 1974, two years before that name appeared over a shop frontage. RT shops are usually in areas frequented by plenty of passing trade and/or tourists, so they probably believe rightly that the clientele they attract can afford, and is happy to pay, prices calculated to help support hefty running costs. The first shop opened in 1976 and they now have five – in Bristol, Nottingham, two in London, and in Brooklyn, USA. As their website boasts: ‘Fundamentally, our stores provide creative, independent minds, a shared place of discovery and congregation’.

Of course they do. But are they making – or do they want to make – friends? People who will walk away very happy with what they’ve bought, and who will rush to return again and again. Not people who feel that perhaps they’ve been overcharged. I don’t quite get that vibe. I may be mistaken and may just find myself in a bad mood every time I enter one of their shops.

This one had all the new vinyl and CDs upstairs with, in the corner, a steep stairway with a notice: ‘DOWNSTAIRS FOR VINTAGE VINYL’. It was accurate enough, but the only reason I kept flipping through the ranks of pretty run-of-the-mill rock at prices I’d rate some 25 per cent higher on average than they could be found for elsewhere, was to listen to the mellow-voiced ‘longhair’ sitting behind the counter who was conducting a conversation about the shop’s stock, saying that he’d recently asked his boss whether sales of vinyl were still increasing as rapidly as they had been. The answer he’d had was that they weren’t. But he felt this was probably because when they had been rising they had done so from an extremely low level, and now had to be compared with recent much higher levels of sales. He was also critical that so many saleable items were being left ‘in the back, gathering dust, rather than being put out for sale’.

As I left, empty-handed, having found absolutely nothing whatsoever to tempt me, I was thinking: ‘That’s really pissed me off’.

At precisely that time I saw in the playground over the road, a man kicking a football towards his son to head into an imaginary goal, only for the ball to flash too high, over his head, rolling towards a small, dirt area:

‘Damn. Straight into the dog toilet.’

‘Know how you feel, mate,’ I thought and walked on…