Entertainment For Lively Minds
"Is it the right one?" - the end of the record as Christmas gift
The most illuminating thing to emerge from the discussion about Cowell/RATM/Brooker and co is the correct observation that at this time of year most records are bought as presents. If you take that along with the parallel observation that over 90% of singles are sold as downloads, you must conclude that the record business's systemic crisis is made far worse by the fact that surely, NOBODY BUYS RECORDS AS PRESENTS ANYMORE.
Of course you can buy somebody a voucher to get something online but, much valued though that is, it will never replace the thrill of ripping off the wrapping paper from a CD-shaped present and finding that a relative has managed to correctly identify and purchase a record that you wanted or - and this is where it gets sticky - come up with something that "the man in the shop thought you would like."
I well remember in my record shop days the girl who came in just after Christmas to return a scratched record. She had been given it on Christmas morning, rushed to the record player to put it on and then, hearing the click, had her whole festive morning ruined. Who exactly would want to play "The End" by Nico while getting outside the selection boxes it's difficult to imagine.
Anyway, as we lay to rest another venerable tradition, any particularly memorable cases of records given - or mis-given - as Christmas presents?
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Primitive Records, Candleriggs Market, Glasgow, December 1982
I worked on a record stall in Candleriggs Market, and I had a very busy time the year that Renee & Renato were number 1. As the name suggests, our core business was rock / rock & roll. You were more likely to hear The Cramps or The Stooges than anything else.
That year we had an endless procession of grandparents / aunts & uncles asking "Have you got that record ? It's for the wean". They would often ask to hear it to make sure it was the right one - I always declined to do so, explaining that I was playing the current record (usually "Psychedelic Jungle", sometimes "Raw Power", occasionally "The New York Dolls") for a customer. Of course, I was the customer in question.
In that week, from a tiny stall, we sold 250 copies of the single. I'm sure you could get a top 40 hit most weeks of 2009 with those as physical sales.
My eyes are dim, I cannot see...
...and the memory isn't much to shake a stick at (if that's your idea of a good time!), but, was this business associated at all with James T Gardiner?
Not as far as I recall
Mickey Rooney and his mate Gary (whose surname has disappeared in the mists of time) ran it, and I worked there for about 18 months, along with various other combinations of ducking and diving. They had both worked at Listen / Bloggs.
We sold some new records, lots of second hand records, and Gary had a large collection of cassette bootlegs and we sold these on order : customers would come down, indicate that they were known quantities, and go through the list to order items like "Lou Reed New York October 75, Quality Rating 4/10". They would then come back the next week to pick them up, and return the week after that to grumble that the quality wasn't very good, and also to order some of the Throbbing Gristle ...
Abba - Super Trooper
A gift from my mum along with a portable record layer with a 7 inch turntable. If ever I smell a leaking battery the memories of winners taking everything and lights that are going to blind you come flooding back. I also got a cheap hessian red football top with a LFC badge sewn on it that year which, obviously, I was a horrible little sh*t about that.
A few years later I bought a young lady this for Christmas.
http://www.discogs.com/Various-Meanwhile-Back-At-The-Go-Go/release/59958...
It was all over by Boxing Day.
Just the once
My godfather, a kind and wonderful man, once read my christmas list and really went to town. We're in the mid 1980s and I'd asked for Queen albums. I suspect my list looked like this
QUEEN ALBUMS
-A Day at the Races
-A Night at the Opera
-Jazz
I suspect he saw the last entry and ran with it. On Christmas morning I opened a small parcel containing no Queen albums, but a Charlie Parker live set and Dave Brubeck's 'Time Out'. I was probably 13 and not yet ready for the king of Bebop and unusual time signatures.
Ah, he was probably trying to *educate* you
A lesson for us all there.
If he was, it worked
Sort of. I've probably listened to the Charlie Parker album more times than I ever did the Queen album that I must have bought with 'Christmas Money'. The Dave Brubeck has gone missing over the years, but I'm just starting Spotify now...
Norman Gunston
In 1976 ( I think) I gave my older brother (who was 13) two 45s: one was Norman Gunston's Salute to Abba and Rick Dees "Disco Duck".He is still prone to complain about that gift over thirty years later. At least it was memorable.
I must be in the minority
For Xmas this year I bought cd's as follows:-
Wife - 1
Son - 2
Nephew - 1
Work colleagues -2 (incl 3cd boxset)
Friend 1
Godsons 2
Brother 1 (triple Bela Fleck album)
Do I get a reward for keeping the flailing record industry afloat?
Most treasured memory of a record received as a gift was the Beatles Cant buy me love ep.
Most difficult record received as present was John Williams 5 lp boxset (classical guitarist not film score writer).
And grannies always got it wrong
Oh how we laughed !!
Many years ago, when the FPO and I were in the first throws of romance, she went Christmas shopping to London.
Knowing I was a huge fan of Atlantic records (I'd dropped enough hints) she espied a 10 album box set in HMV. Having purchased it early in the day, she then lugged it around London all day, before returning home, wrapping it and sticking it under the tree.
Christmas Day arrives. I open it and although thrilled, I couldn't help but mention that it was the Rhythm 'n' Blues Box Set that I'd really wanted, not the Blues boxset that she had purchased.
Ooops !
I wanted Level 42
I got UB40
"That's the right one, isn't it? The group with the numbers?" said my nana.
I still hate UB40, twenty years later.
Depends what era UB40........
Anything up to and including @UB44' and you were on to a winner!
Whereas, all Level 42 has been slap bass hell!
Xmas 1981, 11 years old, my uncle got me the 'Kings of the Wild Frontier' album. I honestly don't think I've ever been as thrilled. My Dad gave me a lend of his Sanyo quadraphonic music centre to play it on. I felt so grown up!
I got Prince Charming that year
on cassette which featured something called Dobly. I also got a clock/radio/cassette player to play it on and a single ear piece to listen to it with so as not to disturb any sibling. It was very modern. The next year I got an imitation walkman with orange headphones! The future had never been so bloody terrific.
Single Earpiece!!!
Oh yes......
I remember those! - got one with a Phillips radio for my (I think) 9th birthday. There's a photo of me somewhere listening to "Sport on 2" looking like a young Johnny Ray!
Yup. Looked like...
...a 1950's hearing aid. Had one of those.
Just had to pop into HMV last night
to purchase the latest Streisand waxing for an aged relative so yes.
My parents bought my then six year old brother the Supertrouper album for Christmas in 1980...always thought he was a bit too young, but Mum & Dad were big fans...
Christmas 1977
I got the compilation Disco Fever, which I still have, and which contains such gems as the long-forgotten Punch and Judy/domestic violence workout Naughty Naughty Naughty by Joy Sarney, Silver Lady by David Soul and the groovy electronic stomper The Crunch by the RAH Band.
I also got Take The Heat Off Me, the debut album by Boney M. Mum had to think twice about it because the cover was some rather racy shot of the band writhing about half-naked in chains.
Monty Python
Your story about the cover reminds me of a friend of mine who asked for a Monty Python book for Christmas one year. It was the one with a plain white paper dust jacket over a spoof porn mag underneath. His dad went through the whole pile in WH Smiths to try and find a copy without dirty fingermarks on the otherwise clean white cover and only bought it when the staff insisted that the prints were by design.
For years I went without...
...Costello's Get Happy album, because the copy in my local record emporium looked like a ropey second hand copy.
Disco Fever
A rush of recognition - our family had that, played incessantly because we didn't have many albums back then, apart from Geoff Love's "Big Terror Movie Themes". Am I right in thinking it was a K-Tel compilation?
I think
you're right Malc - my copies of both are sitting in a box in my parent's home. I know the Geoff Love album was on MFP.
Does anyone remember...
...the Xmas Woolies advert, where there's a youngish girl unwrapping a pressie, obviously an album, which turns out to be Iggy & The Stooges' Raw Power.
I'm sure I didn't imagine it, but can't find it on YouTube, which seems to have a fine collection of Woolies Christmas ads archived.
Unfortunate confusion
One Christmas in the late 80s, a fiend of mine requested an album by the Robert Cray Band, the well-known blues artistes.
His aunt bought him an album by Richard Clayderman...
Well, I suppose they do sound fairly similar...
Christmas 81
11 yr old me got Queen's greatest Hits. Spent all day spellbound. Christmas 84, got David Live a Dame Double. Was a bit scared of the state of him on the cover and have never bought a powder blue suit as a result.
Shades of Homer Simpson in this
One Christmas my brother gave my mum a brand new copy of Led Zeppelin 4.
She asked him to play it for her, he did, and after no more than 30 seconds of track 1 side 1 she said, "That's lovely can you play it in your room?"
My 19 year old wanted the physical Cd's of...
The Holloways, Muse, The Editors, Arctic Simians and Kasabian tha is winging its way fron Santa .My significant other is getting the Paolo Nutini (I know) and brother in law has the Bob Dylan Christmas offering.
I usually have a list but I have everything i want (apart from The Fabs in mono)
I think its more a case of £8 from amazon is something most of the family can afford (fortunately) and so the relative cheapness of the CD as opposed to the gig comes into play here,and visa versa back in the day when the LP was "a treat" for Christmas.
My 19 year old wanted the physical Cd's of...
The Holloways, Muse, The Editors, Arctic Simians and Kasabian that is winging its way fron Santa .My significant other is getting the Paolo Nutini (I know) and brother in law has the Bob Dylan Christmas offering.
I usually have a list but I have everything i want (apart from The Fabs in mono)
I think its more a case of £8 from Amazon is something most of the family can afford (fortunately) and so the relative cheapness of the CD as opposed to the gig comes into play here,and visa versa back in the day when the LP was "a treat" for Christmas.
Eels - Souljacker
2001. Good times. Well done Auntie.
my other half has got me one cd...
i know as i have been feeling the presents (naughty !) . i have become a sneeker looker ( as my ten year old daughter says )
I was eight years old in 1967
and I wanted Rubber Soul. I wanted it so bad I could taste it. My cousins (all older and the ultimate arbiters of cool) all had copies. No matter it was a year or so old, I was eight and I had to have it. My father asked me to describe this record to him that I wanted so badly and maybe, who knew? but maybe Santa Claus would bring it. On Christmas morn I torn into the living room and found what I was looking for. Tore off the wrapping paper to find... More of the Monkees. Look at the covers and you can understand how a 38 year old father of three in 1967 could make that mistake. Nevertheless, it started me on a life-long infatuation with Boyce & Hart tunes that continues today. Maybe the old man knew something...