62

IN WHICH… I WONDER WAT’S GOING ON

In Watford I unexpectedly discovered a surprisingly listenable, previously unknown-to-me psych record in the LP Cafe. I’d noticed that this Bump album, priced at £15, was not wearing an inner sleeve, prompting a ‘10% off’ reduction offer from the boss, which I rejected, demanding, and getting, it for a tenner. This was recompense for having to put up with the lack of vinyl manners by the bloke who had parked himself at a table, with boxes full of records which he was working his way through, at the same time cutting off access to several of the racks, and only shifting slightly and not exactly willingly to let me pass, when nudged to do so. Perhaps it is a Watford thing.

It is early February 2018 and I am in the subsequently closed down Sounds Retro in Watford. There is only one other customer in the shop, and we have ended up next to each other. This youngish chap in mod-style gear is flipping through a rack, next to the one I have just begun to examine, but his arm is impinging on my section. A non-verbal battle of wills, subtle nudges, sighs and meaningful grimaces ensues. Finally, he reaches the end of his section and, without ever having surrendered any space, moves away. If record shop owners don’t always see eye-to-eye the same is true of record collectors.

For example, I risked the wrath of psych-ologists in May 2018 when, during a Facebook group discussion about which records contributors have found to be disappointing once they’ve acquired them, I ended up in a row with punk musician Lenny Helsing. I had watched as people put forward LPs by psych groups such as Open Mind, Fire, Human Beast, then decided to weigh in with an opinion of my own: ‘As for overrated, how about 13th Floor Elevators? One song wonders to me, I’m afraid.’

Lenny, vocalist, guitarist, songwriter for bands including Belsen Horrors, November Crime(s), The Green Telescope(s) and Thanes, as well as a writer for Ugly Things magazine, was outraged:

‘Graham Sharpe: ehhh are you joking man the Elevators are one of the key groups in the whole of the 1960s psychedelic music spectra. Not only that but they reside right up at the top end of this realm with all three of their studio albums containing many, many great songs and electrifying performances, to say nothing of the screeds of truly far out lyrical poetry... and all the other bewitching sounds they possessed!’

We agreed to disagree, as I pointed out that I hadn’t actually said I disliked the 13th Floor Elevators and do own most of their work.

The Harpenden Record Fair was quite crowded, pretty warm, and there was a considerable aroma of mustiness in the air. Who can say why? There were a significant number of dealers flogging new reissues, some of them from Japan, for reasonable pricebands of £10 and £15. These took up much of the display benches. They were doing pretty good business and I heard a guy, who was apparently buying for the Aussie market, and having his purchases sent over there, chatting with one or two of them, although he mentioned that the UK was now no longer his major source of vinyl to sell at home.

I was tempted by a live Free CD of two gigs in Japan, then wondered why. Presumably, they weren’t singing ‘Alright Now’ in Japanese, and I already own that song about nine times on different Free records, so I put it back even though it was only £8 and the buyer had a sign saying he welcomed ‘reasonable offers’. I didn’t think 50p would count as reasonable. A man was telling his friend, ‘I was sure I’d find a copy of Hendrix’s “Electric Landlady” here.’ I wasn’t sure whether he’d mistaken the great but no longer with us Jimi for the equally worthy but also no longer with us Kirsty MacColl.

A little annoyed that I had forgotten to bring my phone with me, as the publisher of this book, whose offices are in Harpenden, had promised to buy me lunch if I called him while at the record fair, I thought I’d cut my losses and leave vinyl-less and lunch-less. I decided to make one more quick circuit of the hall before heading off. A dealer at one of the stalls told me, ‘I’ll take an offer for anything’, then I heard a possible customer telling him: ‘I love Grand Funk Railroad. I’ll buy anything you’ve got by them.’

‘I’ve only got the one you’re holding.’

‘I don’t want this one, I’ll buy any other one. I love Grand Funk Railroad, but this is the only LP of theirs I’ve got.’

‘I haven’t got any others.’

‘But I’ll buy anything by them. I really like them.’

I pondered telling him I have a GFR oddity – a 33 rpm single which plays the same track on each side despite the label claiming different songs. But I couldn’t be bothered, and again set off to take my leave, pausing briefly to flip through a box of records I hadn’t yet seen. In it was a copy of Stretching Out by Alan Bown. This record has a memorable gatefold cover, depicting in black and white a close-up view of someone, it looks like a man, deliberately pinching and painfully pulling the skin on his left arm farther outwards than it seems to want to go. I recognised it, but thought I didn’t own it. I looked at the surface of the record which, in the dingy, dim light of the hall looked OK. The price was reduced from £12 to £10 which seemed pretty generous. After a little more thought, I reckoned probably I did own it. But at a tenner, it was still a safe bet that I could flog it in the event that I did, so I thought I’d buy it.

Then I turned up another gatefold record, Buzzy Linhart’s The Time To Live Is Now. I have one of his already and remembered it being decent, so a four quid price tag was appealing, as was the Grease Band one – okay, it was not an original, but a Charly label reissue but, still, that’s a quality label and they were a quality band. Then there was the £4 Fanny Hill album by early 1970s US female rockers, Fanny, the one of theirs which I didn’t have. It came with an original lyric sleeve, and hand-decorated inner sleeve boasting a previous owner’s illustration which spelled out ‘Fanny Hilly’ but advised ‘ignore the last “y”, it just looks good’. And, oh, karma – here was a Lesley Duncan LP, Everything Changes, the one I’d recently been planning to buy in Chesham’s Heroes, before I’d been driven out of the shop by the banging club dance music!

By now, I was chatting away to the very personable man selling the records, who had been telling me about the despicable behaviour of some people claiming to be dealers who had been rude to him and mishandled some of his records earlier on. Not so despicable as the behaviour of the two men who, according to Andy Hibberd of 101 Collector Records in Farnham, were guilty in early 2019 of stealing thousands of pounds worth of records from various vinyl outlets. He posted photos on twitter and described the perpetrators as ‘scum’. I hoped he didn’t mean me and my friend Jon, who had been in his shop the day before.

But back to Harpenden, where the records I’d sorted out totted up to £27. After a little bartering we agreed on £22. Surely saving a fiver by bargaining didn’t amount to industrial level stealing.