The vinyl countdown: Indie record stores get in the groove for biggest day of the year
IN A SPIN: Andy Sparrow, left, and Gary Matfin, who are preparing for Record Store Day on Saturday at their Out of the Attic store in Paragon Arcade
Chewing the Fat, out to lunch with Phil Ascough
This week’s guests: Gary Matfin and Andy Sparrow from Out of the Attic
Venue: Paragon Arcade
Across the country guys who run independent record shops are gearing up for the event which puts their businesses at the top of the charts for one day only.
In Hull city centre we’ve got three of them within a few minutes’ walk of each other, all collecting and communicating the latest information about the special offers, one-off releases, picture discs and more.
Just as on Time by Pink Floyd, the clock is ticking. With apologies to Europe for tinkering with the title of their iconic 1986 release, it’s the vinyl countdown!
Record Store Day on Saturday, April 20 brings a big boost to the individual retailers and to their business neighbours, and particularly in Paragon Arcade with its food and drink outlets standing ready to keep customers fed and watered.
Some of them are likely to have queued through the night to get their pick of the pop offers from Out of the Attic, the record shop which opened just before Covid, was still there afterwards and did so well that it expanded to occupy double the space on the other side of the arcade.
ICONIC: The cover of Let It Bleed. But who baked the cake?
Old school pals and Out of the Attic owners Gary Matfin and Andy Sparrow grew up with music. They used to save their dinner money to spend at the legendary Sydney Scarborough record shop as well as in HMV, Our Price, Boots and Woolworths.
Gary said: “HMV is still around but Boots hasn’t sold records for a long time and the others are long gone. We always said we wanted to open our own record shop and 40 years later we did it!
“Initially, we had no idea whether there would be any interest in the business but it has just grown and we have been blown over by the support we have had. People seem to like what we do and where we are. It’s the kind of shop you would expect to find in an arcade.”
Andy added: “It’s a community down here. Each shop is different and has something unique to offer and often we work together. When Record Store Day comes around we let the other businesses know and they prepare for a busy day!”
Gary cites the impact of downloads as one factor in the changing market. Yet the demand for physical products is still there and the people who run the modern music shops can gear for the specialist tastes.
He said: “The supermarkets have moved away from music and there are about 9,000 fewer outlets than five years ago. Also, the number of independents has increased by about 30 per cent over the last three or four years and that’s the main place people go to get their music.
“There’s been a shift in retail but you have to really know your customers. We sell general interest records. Chart stuff that came out from the 70s and 80s and music that a new collector might be interested in. Also people rebuilding their vinyl collections after getting rid of CDs. It helps that the shop isn’t too big. Sometimes you can give people too much choice.”
The irony is that one of Out of the Attic’s most effective tools when it comes to selling vinyl is Spotify. In a different age punters at the legendary Syd Scarborough’s underneath Hull City Hall could listen to their vinyl before they bought. Out of the Attic gets its records shrink-wrapped and doesn’t have the space to give them a spin anyway, but Andy and Gary have a speaker on the counter and run a Spotify playlist of 40 tracks which varies every month and which they can use to give customers a taste of a potential purchase.
I mention that as we call this column Chewing the Fat we should have some food and drink angles. Lacking the time to sit down and enjoy a late lunch we settle for slipping in references from records to items you might find on a menu as we enjoy coffee, hot chocolate (for example) and a chocolate and hazelnut brownie from Milchig across the arcade.
One of the staff tells how she got into vinyl by listening to her grandparents’ collection. Her colleague said he discovered records during the lockdowns, when he had a fair bit of money and wanted to find a housebound hobby to spend it on. He’s become one of Out of the Attic’s biggest customers.
UP ALL NIGHT: The queue for Record Store Day in 2023
“A good 30 to 40 per cent of our customers are Covid collectors,” said Gary.
“They tend to be in their 20s and 30s. When they were stuck at home they started collecting vinyl”.
The pair were already selling online when they opened their shop in February 2020 so the impact of lockdown wasn’t too damaging as customers followed them onto Facebook.
Andy said: “When we reopened we had a whole host of customers that we never thought we would get, so different from the stereotype of the middle-aged male who has been collecting for years.”
The industry is alert to the opportunities for building new audiences, notably with marketing ploys which rely on visual stimulation as much as audio.
LIVING THE DREAM: Andy Sparrow, left, and Gary Matfin, old school friends who used to spend their dinner money on vinyl and now own a record store
Gary said: “Our biggest selling album is Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. We have probably shifted 250 copies overall and 40 since Christmas. For Record Store Day it’s coming out as a picture disc.”
Andy added: “Something from the 70s can fall dormant and then people get into it again. It gets discovered in a film or a TV show or an advert. Stranger Things on Netflix took the work of so many artists to a new audience – Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush, Master of Puppets by Metallica.
“There’s a TV ad running now with I Saw the Light by Todd Rundgren. It’s the only way that kids get to hear a lot of the old stuff.”
The growing significance of vinyl was underlined at the beginning of March when the Office for National Statistics announced the return of records after more than 30 years to the basket of goods used to track prices and work out the rate of inflation.
Reports which accompanied the announcement quoted figures from the British Phonographic Industry showing that UK sales of vinyl had hit their highest level since 1990, with a 16th successive annual increase.
Out of the Attic is also taking steps itself to generate more interest in its products. Gary and Andy launched Music Junkie sessions in the shop last September, welcoming customers who get together every month to share their vinyl ventures.
“There’s a hard core of about 25 and usually we get 15 to 18,” said Andy.
“There’s a wide range of music tastes embracing metal, rock, pop, punk, new wave, electronic and the age group is from 19 to 77. Everybody gets to listen to everybody else’s music. You give other people’s music a chance and you make new friends as well. It’s somewhere to go and talk about music. They all contribute in some way.”
There’s usually a different theme every month. January was a review of 2023 albums. Other gatherings have explored members’ favourite albums, and a recent session focused on soundtracks.
Every third meeting is the Music Junkie Quiz, set by Andy, who puts us back in the area of music and food with one of his recent questions: “Which chef baked the cake that features on the cover of Let It Bleed by the Rolling Stones? Fanny Cradock, Delia Smith or Nigella Lawson?”
The answer is Delia Smith, although she has admitted that she took inspiration from Fanny Cradock early in her career, and that her brief for the cake was for something “really gaudy”. Nigella Lawson was only nine when Let It Bleed was released.
You can play this game at home. Peaches by The Stranglers. Echo Beach by Martha and the Muffins. Breakfast in America by Supertramp. Strawberry Fields Forever by The Beatles.
Gary said: “And of course there’s Bread. We’ve got about ten copies of The Sound of Bread. That’s almost a full loaf!
“There’s also the date night thing. Music is an affordable luxury and we get young couples who decide to choose a record off the rack for their Saturday night entertainment, buy a bottle of wine and a takeaway.
“But most of all music is a time machine. People buy it to connect with the time they first heard the song. It takes you back to that point. It might be listening with grandma, a live gig, first time you met someone, a wedding song. As you get older it becomes more important.”
Record Store Day is on Saturday, April 20 and will be celebrated at Out of the Attic in Paragon Arcade, Wrecking Ball Music and Books in Whitefriargate and Spin-it Records in Trinity Market. You can research them on Facebook but be sure to call in because to bag the best bargains and the real rarities you have to be there in person on the day.
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