Where to buy Recordings in the U.K.

[teamsaint]

Borders tried something like that, but extinction beckoned anyway.

Borders UK failed, I suspect, in large part because they opened big stores in some awful locations. Southampton...on a retail park, less than a stone's throw from 2 Waterstones....and frankly not in a "book buying" location.
Newbury was hopeless too.
The Bournemouth branch was a great location, and very busy, but must have been horrendously expensive...but I reckon it stood a chance of turning a profit, Bristol must have turned over good money...but again, it was both floors of a(presumably) vey expensive property..its a supermarket now, which says a lot.
They had some goo ideas, and were often well run , from what I saw, but its a tough world.....

[Flosshilde]

I think Borders in Glasgow was, I believe, the only UK shop that made a profit. If it could have been sold seperately from the rest of the group there would have been a good chance of it surviving.

[Flosshilde]

We didn't make it to Cheltenham. We are traveling by trian, and we stayed in Chiiping Camden. We have been York the last 2 days, but not much to report on the music buying front. Tomorrow is Edinburgh and I am looking forward to McAllistairs.

The train journey to Edinburgh (the East Coast route to Scotland) is one of the great train journeys in the UK, with York Minster & Durham Cathedral, & the arrival into Newcastle across the Tyne notable sights, & then the route along the coastline of Northumberland. If it's clear you just get a sight of Lindisfarne Island across the sand.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

We have been York the last 2 days, but not much to report on the music buying front.

No joy with Banks', then? Ah, well; hope you enjoyed Jorvick, the city walls, the railway museum, the shops museum!

[mangerton]

The train journey to Edinburgh (the East Coast route to Scotland) is one of the great train journeys in the UK, with York Minster & Durham Cathedral, & the arrival into Newcastle across the Tyne notable sights, & then the route along the coastline of Northumberland. If it's clear you just get a sight of Lindisfarne Island across the sand.

Yes, it certainly is - quite superb. There's also the Royal Border Bridge at Berwick. It rather falls away after that with Torness nuclear power station and the cement works at Dunbar, but picks up as one nears the capital.

I hope our transatlantic guests enjoy Scotland.

[Flosshilde]

There's beauty even in Torness

[scottycelt]

Yes, it certainly is - quite superb. There's also the Royal Border Bridge at Berwick. It rather falls away after that with Torness nuclear power station and the cement works at Dunbar, but picks up as one nears the capital.

I hope our transatlantic guests enjoy Scotland.

I used to travel that line very often working in both Newcastle and Leeds and then returning to Glasgow. It is indeed a joy, though when I worked in Leeds there was nothing quite like the old main Settle-Carlisle route, then on via Dumfries ... quite stunning!

In those days (the 70s) when you crossed that rail bridge at Berwick you got the definite sense of entering a different country ... red-brick houses to the south and their stone equivalents to the north ... this was equally true of the WCL at or near Carlisle ... now the houses all seem to look the same ... somewhat ironic in these days of a possible return to a quite separate political identity?

[mangerton]

I used to travel that line very often working in both Newcastle and Leeds and then returning to Glasgow. It is indeed a joy, though when I worked in Leeds there was nothing quite like the old main Settle-Carlisle route, then on via Dumfries ... quite stunning!

In those days (the 70s) when you crossed that rail bridge at Berwick you got the definite sense of entering a different country ... red-brick houses to the south and their stone equivalents to the north ... this was equally true of the WCL at or near Carlisle ... now the houses all seem to look the same ... somewhat ironic in these days of a possible return to a quite separate political identity?

Yes, the S-C route is one of the country's - the world's - great railway journeys. How I wish we could still continue from Carlisle to Edinburgh via the Waverley route. I have done S-C quite a few times, once in 1985 on a steam excursion from Kilmarnock, hauled by the Union of South Africa. As we approached Ais Gill summit we were greeted by an amazing crowd of photographers.

Talking of trains, did you - or did anyone else - ever throw pennies from the train when crossing the Forth Bridge?

Houses? Yes, modern houses are all little boxes, as Pete Seeger used to sing, but the countries' different styles of older houses remain. I'm thinking of course of Scottish tenements and English terraced houses.


(Apologies - we've dragged this thread rather off topic, but Flosshilde started it! )

[Dave2002]

Bath Compact discs is a nice shop but somewhat limited inventory. There is a difference in terms of what one can find here vs. Stateside. Can't wait for Edinburgh and London!

In what ways do you find the US different? I lived in and travelled in the US during the last 25 years, and it used to be good, though different. Some stores in the UK used to be very good, and probably better than many in the US - though I didn't go to any in NY. Boston had some good ones. I got one of my copies of Idomeneo in a great store in Boston, and some Bruno Walter and George Szell CDs near MIT. The last couple of times I visited, Berkshire Record outlet in Lee, MA near Stockbridge was a great find, but that does sell mostly deleted or remaindered stocks. Do you know that one? A good place to visit. It clearly also does mail order and Internet orders, but it's fun to go, and see if you can get out of the shop without spending more than $70 - probably impossible, IMO.

We used to have some very good shops in the UK. The HMV shops in Oxford Street used to be good, but one has now gone, and I fear the other is going downhill. Tower Records at the bottom of Regent Street was one of the best ever - brilliant. You had those in the US too, and some of them were good, though it depended on the town/city - as here. MDC (Music Discount Centre) had good outlets in the Strand, next to ENO and the RFH - all these have now gone. There were nearly always better shops in London than elsewhere. Farringdon Records was a find 20-30 years ago, but has long since gone - moved, subsumed into other businesses.

Mostly the record shops in the UK have collapsed or disappeared in the UK in the last 10 or so years. Some remain (including one of the last chains - HMV), selling (for me) mostly junk - T Shirts, a few books, pop music and DVDs.

I never found any really good shops in France (slight lie - I found a reasonable one in Nice, where I bought a set of Brahms symphonies by Walter at a low price), though I did find some excellent ones in Germany, such as in Aachen. Despite this, I did buy some interesting bargains in French hypermarkets. Spain and Italy also seemed bereft of large and good shops, though again I have picked up some interesting material in small shops, or even newsagents. Italy had a series of classical music magazines with some very good CDs attached. Sweden had some moderately good shops, and there was more Scandinavian music available there. I think the downhill trend has also reached there, with even the big stores such as Åhléns in Stockholm having smaller and more limited stock now. It never was as good as the London stores, though the shop in Uppsala used to have a good collection, and I picked up quite a lot of (then) cheap CDs in Sundsvall. There was a very good small shop in Budapest, near to the famous tea salon/metro station. That seemed to have gone last time I visited.

So - do you still have good stores in the US, or is the pattern in classical music retailing similar to here? We can still get CDs, and indeed some very good deals, but I think these are mostly via internet stores such as Amazon. Buying and selling behaviour has certainly changed.

[richardfinegold]

No joy with Banks', then? Ah, well; hope you enjoyed Jorvick, the city walls, the railway museum, the shops museum!

Regrettably, I didn't find Banks that special. Everything they had was easily obtainable in the states. Bath CD at least had quie a bit of material not available there.
In Edinburgh today, love walking The Royal Mile and especially New Town. The Art Museum has 2 great sounding exhibits that we hope to catch, and of course we must do the Castle. McAllisters was closed today. We have a 5 p.m. London train to catch but I hope to squeeze in a fe minutes there!

[Flosshilde]

(Apologies - we've dragged this thread rather off topic, but Flosshilde started it! )

Cheek.

[richardfinegold]

Went to Harold Moore today. Great shop. Purchased a disc of Leonid Kogan playing the Brahms and Khachaturian concertos, with Monteux and Rozhdeventsky, late 50s apparently stereo recordings. I could have done much more damage but at this point of the vacation the credit card is already overheating...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Regrettably, I didn't find Banks that special. Everything they had was easily obtainable in the states. Bath CD at least had quie a bit of material not available there.

Banks continues to decline. The sheet music department now contains a tiny fraction of the selection available before its assimilation by the Borg. Even the trashily commercial downstairs department appears near to death.

Although this seems to be a characteristic of shops taken over by Music Sales, there does appear to be one exception: the Early Music Shop in Saltaire (and its London sibling). This has held on to its independent style. Banks (upstairs) tried, but failed.