Crouch End

Tomorrow, Saturday the 20th of April is Record Store Day 2013.

Not only will we have FREE BISCUITS as in previous years but we'll also have FREE BADGES and GUEST DEEJAYS to edutain whilst you get your browz on.

Yes indeed, we've a crack team of vinyl junkies assembled to (metaphorically) whistle while we work. Bob Stanley of Saint Etienne and music enthusiasm fame, will be kicking things off at 12 noon. He'll hand over to magnetic tape archeologist, Jonny Trunk of Trunk label fame, at 1pm. After that, around half two, we'll have former Rocker in Chief of the Times and general General of music journalism, Pete Paphides. He might be playing records exclusively sourced from our pound bin. Not sure. Next up on the Murphy Meteor (pictured below) is Liam Large of the Jukebox Jam night and record label. To finish things off, when the staff are on their last legs, we'll let one of them, Duke Murphy no less, play some of his own records.

Should be A GREAT DAY OF RECORD SHOPPPING.

Oh, the EXCLUSIVE RELEASES? Yeah, we've got somes of those...

Here's the full list of what we have received. We'll have all of it in our Essex Road shop and very much almost all of it in our Crouch End store, only missing the things we got a paltry 1 of (They're mostly pretty niche).

10am opening.

Without further ado.

Continue reading →

ERA Statement on HMV

January 15th 2013

Director General Kim Bayley said:

“No one can say this is a surprise, but it is still a shock. HMV has been part of the fabric of the music and entertainment business for decades. But there are signs that this may not be the end of the story.
“It would be wrong to underestimate the affection which HMV is held by consumers and the determination of music and video companies to see HMV survive in some form.
“We know there is consumer demand – in a poll last year HMV was ranked in the Top 10 of the stores people most want to see on their High Street. Data suggests they generated 170 million in-store visits last year and another 40 million online.
“At the same time both music and video companies are painfully aware of the consequences of losing a retailer responsible for around a third of UK physical music and video sales. We have to hope they will not stand by and watch HMV go down.
“There has been much misinformation published in the past 24 hours about the relative strength of physical and digital entertainment formats. Physical formats like CDs and DVDs still account for three quarters of the entertainment market. In other words HMV going from the high street is in the interests neither of consumers nor of suppliers.
“For their part, our members – although competitors of HMV – have been quick to express their support.
“We believe it is possible for the administrators to rescue something out of this situation. There is a precedent that you can streamline your costs and in particular the number of stores a chain trades from and still retain the bulk of sales – that’s precisely what happened with Game.
“There is clearly is a viable business model for an entertainment retailer on the UK High Street. It is up to the administrators now to do their job and take the steps necessary to make it possible.”

ENDS

For more information, please contact:

Steve Redmond, steveredmond@btinternet.com, 07770 924720

It's RECORD STORE DAY!!!

The Queen's Official Birthday of record shop days.
The only day of the year when people still queue for records.

Below is a list of everything we have received from our dear distributing friends as of 20:46 on Friday the 20th April 2012. We may well get a few more bits in the morning. We have outstanding orders.

If you're planning to be out standing in the rain tomorrow morning outside our Crouch End shop then they should have most of this list too but a couple of things, which we only received one of, will only be in the big mummyshop in Essex Road.

Don't forget our Stackridge instore at Crouch End at 2pm and Essex Road's Fair Ohs instore at 7pm. By seven we ought to be dead on our feet and needing a beer. So that's what we'll have.

Without further ado, here is the list...

Continue reading →

It seems easier than ever to sell expensive records. I think those of us who spend money on rotating-disc-music are inherently impervious to the gloomy practicalities of a recession. It never made economic sense to buy expensive records. It was just good, and it is still good.

With that said we weren't inundated with £800 Beatles albums as we were in 2010. The top ten most expensive records that we sold in 2011 are either first pressings of classic albums that went on to sell millions, or shockingly obscure genre records that probably failed to sell at all. Continue reading →

2011 has been another record (no pun intended) year at Flashback. In April, Record Store Day helped us to our best week since we opened, some 14 years ago, and we almost matched it in the run up to Christmas. November and December takings were up almost 20% on the year before.
Vinyl is dead?

Our Top 40 selling artists of 2011 are mostly the established titans of 60s and 70s music, but with our expansion into selling new vinyl alongside second hand you can see some fresher faces creeping in.
Continue reading →

Friday 25th November is Black Friday. Loads of Limited edition Vinyl is released on that day. Come early to ensure you get what you're looking for. If it's anything like Record Store Day. we'll have queues down the street when we open. In fact we may open early...watch this space...
http://www.recordstoreday.com/Home

Yes that's right Essex Road's younger little sister has turned FIVE YEARS OLD and to celebrate we invite you all for some good times on FRIDAY 24th JUNE from 7pm @ 144 Crouch Hill, London N4 8DX.
WEIRD DREAMS play a special (yes very cosy) acoustic show instore. There will be drinks, good music and we will party like it's not 2006.

After all this we will cross the street and keep the party going at the Harringay Arms.
Come celebrate!!

New new podcast podcast, in which Matthew, Tom and Kevin drink more Polish beer than their professional radio presenting style can cope with. They also play a load of music. All kinds. All available (at the time of recording) in our Crouch End store.

Tell a friend.

Flashback Radio Hour - Episode 4 (Crouch End Again) by FlashbackRadioHour

Don't forget you can hear (and download) all our podcasts here.

Our Tom, our Matt and our Kev have done a special ALL-CROUCH-END-ALL-THE-TIME edition of the Flashback Radio Hour podcast. A varied mix of musics and gentlemanly conversation. Like John Peel meets Countdown's Dictionary Corner.

Put it in your ears and the ears of your compatriots!

Flashback Radio Hour - Episode 3 (Crouch End Special) by FlashbackRadioHour

A Good Question.

Answer One - Sound Quality

When an analogue (Non-Digital) recording is made, all nuances of the sound are recorded. In the transfer process to Vinyl, none of the recorded information is lost. What you hear is a full faithful rendition of the actual recording.

When a recording is digitised to master it for a CD release, approximately 90% of the information is discarded. This information is the nuances which fall outside the range of human hearing (so they claim), but it is very apparent when listening to the same recordings on CD and Vinyl (on a decent system) that the lost information is not inaudible and there is a distinct loss of texture and warmth. So CDs are noticably inferior to Vinyl on a decent system. On an average system, you probably won't be able to tell the difference.

A typical 50 minute CD album uses about 500MB.

Ok - so now we get to downloads. The file size for a typical 50 Minute CD Album download is currently about 50 MB in standard MP3 format. So suddenly we've lost another 90% of the information on the CD, which had already lost 90% of the Vinyl information. So your average MP3 contains only 1% of the information recorded. If you are listening on cheap headphones or in the car, then you probably won't notice the difference. If you are listening on even an average system, the MP3 will sound cold, sharp and lacking in depth and resonance.

Answer Two - Artefact

An Album is a piece of Art. Intrinsically, it combines Music and Sleeve Artwork. Whilst many have tried to deliver CDs in strange packages, there is nothing that comes close to holding a 12" by 12" work of art as part of the experience of listening to music. CDs are 5" by 5" and the impact of the artwork is correspondingly lessened. It's like looking at the Mona Lisa on your Iphone. Mp3s have no artwork, so draw your own conclusions...

Somehow, the 12" Album format captured the best way to experience music - if you've never put the needle on the record, you should try it...

ps - 7" Singles are just cool anyway...