Friday 15 January 2010

'Morgans - A Suitable Case For Tribute' (The Record Shops Of North London)

More (brief) autobiographical background and scene setting.....
I was born on 3rd October 1964 at home in my parents’ house in Bounds Green Road, North London and that’s where I lived for the first 17 years of my life, up until we moved to Rickmansworth in November 1981.

I have loved music and records for so long, and started buying records at such a young age, that I can’t even remember for sure the first single I bought (possibly ‘Theme From White Horses’ by Jacky in 1968)

The most important record shop in my formative buying years was Morgan Records in Bounds Green Tube Station. I know it has long since closed but I’m not sure when; it was certainly still going when we moved in ’81. The two blokes that ran the shop were fairly easy going, tolerant of endless browsing , more than willing to play a little bit of any single that looked slightly ‘punk’ and be happy to answer questions of pretty alarming stupidity, eg ‘what version of ‘The Kids Are Alright’ is better, The Pleasers or The Who?’ Shortly after Ian Curtis of Joy Division committed suicide in 1980, I went to Morgan’s to buy my bandwagon hopping copy of ‘Closer’ and one of them said ‘actually mate I think you might prefer this’ and sold me a copy of ‘Strange Days’ by The Doors, which kick started a love of West Coast and psychedelia that I have nurtured ever since.

It was Morgan’s that I would leg it to the instant I heard the latest Bowie single on the radio, getting them to play me both sides in full before handing over my 45p and it was from Morgan’s that I bought nearly all of those 1976 reissued Beatles singles in the green sleeves with a photo on the back. They also had the honour of selling me the first proper rock album I bought in my own right which was Bowie’s ‘Pin-Ups’, just after Christmas 1975, £2.99 plus 12p for a protective PVC sleeve (I do however remember the first actual album I bought – it was ‘Pinky & Perky’s Hit Parade’ in October 1968, aged 4 – a cracker of an album with some top notch cover versions – similar in fact to ‘Pin-Ups’)

Up until I started secondary school and my horizons broadened to Finchley and beyond, the only competition Morgans had when it came to my pocket money were the boxes of ‘ex juke box’ singles in newsagents (cheaper at 25p a throw, lots of tat to rummage through but great for an occasional lucky find**) or the record departments of WH Smiths , Boots or Woolies in Wood Green High Road. However once I hit my teens and certainly once I had started earning a few quid a week in my Saturday job (another subject for another time) I showed a shameless lack of loyalty to my long suffering friends at Bounds Green tube as I sniffed out bargains or elusive back catalogues further afield.

Now then, this is my blog and my golden rule to myself in starting it is not to be in any way ashamed or apologetic as to subject matter, content or quality of the ‘product’ – therefore having got that out of the way, here is a list of my favourite long gone record shops of North London, with a purchase of note from each;

Harem Records (Muswell Hill) – The Jam – All Mod Cons, December 1978
Arcade Records (North Finchley High Rd) – The Rolling Stones – Goats Head Soup , Summer 1980 (the year I finally ‘got into’ the Stones)
Mr Music (North Finchley High Rd) – David Bowie – Low, October 1977 (I actually cried tears of anger when I first played side 2, but now love it as one of Bowie’s best)
Derek’s Records (Wood Green High Road) – Jefferson Airplane – White Rabbit (reissue single), Summer 1981
Loppy Lugs (Finchley Central) – Blondie – Picture This (single) – September 1978
Oldies Galore (Finchley Central) – One very scratchy second hand copy of Alice Cooper’s ‘Billion Dollar Babies’ album

There are many more of course, but it was Morgans Records that made a hopeless music junkie out of me and to those chaps that used to run the shop, whoever they were and wherever they may now be, I sincerely thank you.

As the 1970s became the 1980s, I turned to the record shops of Rickmansworth (the inimitable Strawberry Fields) Watford and Harrow for my fixes and spent my early years as a working man in crazed back catalogue binges on Hawkwind, Steely Dan, Dylan, Gong, Floyd.............. and the list goes on......and on.

The record shops I remember were slowly buried by the high street megastores, which are now in turn being slowly buried by online shopping and downloads. In the far distant future, what will bury the online empires and the download giants?

I’d like to think it might be Robby the Robot, a youthful Leslie Nielson, and the two blokes who made sure I always got a proper RCA company sleeves on my Bowie singles in Morgans all those years ago.

So for now, farewell

Col

** I once found a copy of David Bowie’s ‘The Prettiest Star’ single on the Mercury label (nowadays ridiculously rare as like most of his early singles it bombed) in a box of 25p singles in Mick’s Newsagent at the top of Bounds Green Road, but didn’t buy it because I hadn’t heard it before. Crap. On the plus side I did once find a copy of one of the greatest ‘slowies’ ever; ‘Love Won’t let Me Wait’ by Major Harris in a similar bargain box which I knew my brother Dave was on the look-out for so I bought it for him. I wonder how many slowies Dave got as a result of that purchase. Eh?

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