Originally posted by Serial_Apologist
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Have you overlooked the Classical Music Exchange a few doors away from the Notting Hill Gate tube station? It's downstairs and is choc-a-bloc with CDs and LPs from yesteryear, as per the illustrations via this link. I'm really surprised if no-one here knows about this place ...
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Originally posted by seabright View Post
I've spent a happy couple of hours and some amount of money in that establishment! To be honest, it's only a shadow of its former self but there are still delights to be found.Comment
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Must admit I'd never heard of the place, so thanks for this vital bit of info, seabright - I must pay it a visit soon. If anybody should know about the CME I would have thought it would be Caliban, who lives quite nearby.Originally posted by seabright View PostComment
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If Harold Moores has closed, and the remaining HMV store in Oxford Street is due to do so too (see link below) how many record shops will actually be left in London, including Gramex and the CME at Notting Hill Gate? ...
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Originally posted by seabright View Post
We saw our last classical devoted shop in Edinburgh close last month. Afaik, there's only Blackwell's shop close to the University still selling classical discs in Edinburgh and I suspect they'll use the space for something more profitable in the future. The only place to find classical CDs now are charity shops.
The times, they are a' changing.Comment
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That's really sad. I was in there last August, during the Festival. The shop was obviously run as a labour of love.Originally posted by pastoralguy View Post
Amazingly, there is one classical CD shop still standing...in Nottingham, of all places. Classical CDs and Books in the Lace Market area still chugs along: the music section is at the back of the premises, a charity bookshop at the front. Well worth a visit if you're in the area.Comment
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Yes, the owner, Anne McAlister, retired. It's very sad although, if I'm really honest, I found that new releases were often just more than half the price online. The shop appealed to the better heeled customers for whom paying premium rate was neither here nor there. (I once saw a couple spend £800 in one go during the Festival!)Originally posted by Conchis View Post
The shop is now being run as a brand new vinyl emporium although I really fail to see how that could pay. Still, good luck to them.Comment
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That's interesting - I had no idea. I shall be there this week. Thanks.Originally posted by Conchis View Post"...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
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I was in the shop at the end of last May - as you say, the prices were certainly "premium", but (and I think that this is as much a problem for shops as price) there was also nothing in stock that I really really wanted: the very Earliest and most recent Music didn't feature - it seemed to be Monteverdi to MacMillan, with only a couple of representations of important works. I had intended to show solidarity, but there was nothing there that appealed.Originally posted by pastoralguy View Post
The thing with Amazon etc is the huge range of repertoire, the wide selection of versions of that repertoire, and the affordability of their "stock" - far more than any single specialist shop could hope to compete with.[FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]Comment
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People no doubt used to feel that way about coopers, wheelwrights and charcoal burners... but I do feel nostalgic about being in London as a student at the end of the 1970s and spending entire days doing the rounds of the record shops when I ought to have been attending lectures and suchlike.Originally posted by ferneyhoughgeliebte View PostComment
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This shop was even better in the 'old days' (up to about 2009) when it was its own shop in the row of the same-owned shops (one for each genre!) It was quite big - a MASSIVE selection of well-orgaised classical vinyl was the bulk of the space - vinyls being bulkier than CDs. Then up a few steps to a 'mezzanine' where the classical section was housed - equally well-stocked, well-orgainsed and categorised. At the foot of said steps, were high-rise shelves - one to the right, one to the left where there were hundreds of marked-as bargain CDs - some fantastic ones, too. A separate section again was for the many box-sets. Now there really were some diamonds here, I can tell you... Oh, and downstairs was another vinyl section of bargains - but although it was prodigiously stocked, I never found anything there that took my interest. (I had a very brief flirtation with vinyls again in the 90s...) I was shocked the last time I was there, when I couldn't find the shop - only to discover it had been reduced to a mere few shelves and incorporated into a more general shop.Originally posted by seabright View Post
("Fings ain't wot...) Anyway, I am rambling uncontrollably! 
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... not at all - happy memories of the Notting Hill Classical Music Exchange here too. Back in the day my life was arranged so that twice a month I had to trek to Notting Hill to do some banking at Lloyds, then some more next door at NatWest - that done, I was free to amble the next hundred yards up to the CME, then cross the road to the book shop at the top of Kensington Church Street (lots of review copies, many good academic titles) - and if feeling particularly flush, a light lunch at the Ark restaurant next door. Happy days indeedOriginally posted by visualnickmos View Post... Anyway, I am rambling uncontrollably!
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If this forum had a "Like" box, I would tick it!Originally posted by vinteuil View Post... not at all - happy memories of the Notting Hill Classical Music Exchange here too. Back in the day my life was arranged so that twice a month I had to trek to Notting Hill to do some banking at Lloyds, then some more next door at NatWest - that done, I was free to amble the next hundred yards up to the CME, then cross the road to the book shop at the top of Kensington Church Street (lots of review copies, many good academic titles) - and if feeling particularly flush, a light lunch at the Ark restaurant next door. Happy days indeed
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Ditto, on my arrival as a west London resident in the early '90s. I'd forgotten the Ark - was rather good, wasn't it...Originally posted by vinteuil View Post... not at all - happy memories of the Notting Hill Classical Music Exchange here too. Back in the day my life was arranged so that twice a month I had to trek to Notting Hill to do some banking at Lloyds, then some more next door at NatWest - that done, I was free to amble the next hundred yards up to the CME, then cross the road to the book shop at the top of Kensington Church Street (lots of review copies, many good academic titles) - and if feeling particularly flush, a light lunch at the Ark restaurant next door. Happy days indeed"...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
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I'm rather enjoying this thread! Just for the sheer nostalgic value, I'm listing here all the CD outlets I knew in the late 80s - very early 00s
Oxford Street HMV(2) Virgin
London in general Farringdon Records(3)* then MDC(3)* ENO shop, Caruso, Covent Garden Records, that place in Cecil Court?, Steve's Sounds-Soho, plus various other shops in Soho that had a classical section, Templar Records - near Leicester Square, Gramex, Collet's Bookshop in Charing Cross Road (excellent for Olympia bargains) Tower Records at Piccadilly Circus.... there must be more? Dinner beckons and I just heard the pop of a wine cork! Bye.
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