The Record Collector

The Man of The Place is a committed vinyl junkie.  He has a large and diverse record collection that is the work of a lifetime.

It was obvious a few years ago that the shelves that he built in 1992 were no longer enough.  We had small stacks of records on the floor leaning against the shelves as there was no more room.

There used to be room, but over the years, that shelf space shrank.  To prevent records from being squished, an annex to the shelves was made.

As you can see, to the left there was a bit of space for the shelves to stretch out.

Now the shelf annex is done and the records are off the floor.  Look!  There's space!

This means that there doesn't have to be a lull in the acquisition of more records.  Not that there ever was.

Yesterday we found ourselves in Stirling dropping Polly off to have her knee fixed.  After saying goodbye to our dog we trundled to the centre of town and Europa Music.

The front of the store looks like every music store that I've been to before. In addition to CDs there are Beatles mugs, band t-shirts, bongs, etc.  The USP that draws my husband is the back room.

This back room is not the place to go if you are hunting for a specific album.  It is a place to flick through stacks and stacks of cool but unsorted records to find one that you don't have and have always wanted.

Here are a few action shots.

The 45s under one of the tables - Notice there is somebody's old 45s carrying case that was exclusively for Status Quo singles.

Over in the back is the World Music...stretch!

He has a recurring dream in which he is in a record store just like this.  A bit of a jumble and there are boxes of records that are undiscovered gems.

In this dream,  The Man of the Place gets a dusty box down and discovers a single with a picture sleeve.  It is REM doing a cover version of The Crusher by The Cramps.  At this point he is woken and the thrill of discovery swiftly changes to sadness.  It was all a dream and REM never did a cover of The Crusher. 

I asked if he liked having somebody in there with him.  This way he could have somebody with him when he finds a brilliant album "Look at this!  I used to have it, but the first wife kept it during the divorce." or if he preferred to be by himself.  

He thanked me for my sensitivity but this flipping through records activity is really best done alone.  

I took the three that had already been selected up through to the front of the shop.  I told the staff that these were for the vinyl junkie in the back room and that if or when he surfaced, I wouldn't be far away having my lunch.  It felt like record collector day care.