Retail Trauma
How much I enjoyed, in the August issue, reading of the traumas experienced by infant music-collectors with more money than confidence. It reminded me of my time in the mid-70s spent working behind the counter of Bristol Wireless. That sounds today like the name of a perfectly viable business opening the door to a cable-free world of technology. Back then it was middle-Britain’s way of referring to the radio.
Behind the daunting array of radiograms on offer was the record department, specialising in classical music, but also open to Radio Two fare and the top 50 albums and singles. It had listening booths on one wall and carousels with cassettes and 8-Tracks on the others. It was a civilised environment where the staff wore suits and ties but we relied heavily on our customers for so much of our entertainment. The occasional requests for a twelve-inch were standard fare, but the real riches were served up at Christmas when people were obliged to buy music which had never previously featured in their universe.
We had surreal requests to decode, such as ‘Have you got “Long Live the Leaves” by The Who?’ from someone who had obviously never been to Leaves University. Others drew inspiration from Carry-On films, like the customer on a quest for ‘Scheherazade’ who volunteered that it was by ‘Rips yer corsets off’. Being Bristol, Handel’s Missile was a seasonal favourite. We won’t forget Dvorak’s ‘News of the World Symphony' in a hurry either.
The crowning glory was undoubtedly the telephone enquiry that corpsed my colleague for a full ten minutes and almost suspended trading. It’s not often that you’re asked for the ‘I’m inclined at night music’, and I think that’s a pity.
I’ve probably forgotten more than I’ve remembered but I wondered if anyone else had made or heard of similar errors when buying music. Len Zeppelin was very good by the way.
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My best day. . .
working at the HMV Shop in Oxford Street was the little old lady who came in through the door, which had been incorporated into a massive Rolling Stones window display, past the row of tills with queues of people clutching albums and cassettes, making her way up the stairs, which were lined with posters for records by everybody from Aerosmith to Zappa, Frank, confidently steering herself around half a dozen 20-yard-long rows of bulging album racks, and plopping her handbag on the counter, behind which I was casually slipping a pink-vinyl 12-inch single back into its sleeve.
"Right, young man," she said. "I need a frying pan. Non-stick, please. For omelettes."
We used to keep one under the counter.
The Old Gold label seven inch of Dobie Gray's "Give me the Beach Boys..."
The customer is sometimes not right
You reminded me of another one: America's famous 'Horse with no Mane'. We enjoyed that one quite a lot.
3 tickets for Jimi Hendrix please...it's 1998
This came straight to mind. A young impressionable guy, naive to music, was persuaded by his two mates to run to the local record store asap to buy concert tickets for the local Empire to see Jimi Hendrix...but its 1998. He was also told, the guy in the shop may say he does not have any left so persist with him....that poor guy was laughed out of the shop...
I remember
working for the old Our Price shops in the late 80s and early 90s. I nearly lost my job when I burst out laughing at a customer who came in looking for a song he had heard on the radio. It was called "Me Myself and I" he told me, and he thought it was by Del Arsehole.
I didn't stop laughing for a week.
Bolton
As impressionable youths, if we were not running into Bolton pet shops to do the Monty Python parrot sketch we would usually be found sauntering into local disc emporiums to ask for he latest LP by the Brummie supergroup formed by Trevor Burton with fellow members Denny Laine and Steve Gibbons.
"Do you have any Balls?"
Sharp exit before we got a clip around the ear.
"Brummie supergroup"
Lovely concept, if a tad oxymoronic. Were they any good? I'd love to hear some.
Steve Gibbons does a solo show, along the lines of Roger McGuinns accoustic career retrospective, albeit with fewer hits.(um, Tulane. that's it.)It icludes raves from the graves by both Balls and the Uglys, another "brummie supergroup".
Mr Gibbons and Trevor Burton currently on the road with a mortgage satisfying tour with Bev Bevan.
All roads lead to the Bull Ring, eh?
Not quite in the same vein, but ....
...I worked at the Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street in the late 80s, early 90s. I spent a while on the Customer Service desk. A guy came in with a vinyl LP that he said was faulty.
"It's a really noisy pressing. Can I have a replacement?"
He then handed me a copy of Psychocandy by the Jesus And Mary Chain. I laughed. He looked offended. I laughed again and managed to tell him that it was meant to sound like that. He asked to see my manager. Who listened to the complaint. And laughed. We gave the guy his money back and laughed him out of the shop.
Absolutely hilarious
That showed him
Absolutely juvenile
but it was hilarious to be frank. I suspect that kind of thing happened/happens a lot in record shops - cd shops now I guess?
I was once in a comic shop....
I was in my local independent comic shop in Swansea called The Comix Shop when a man came in and asked the proprieter if he sold "rubber goods". That phrase still brings me out in a cold sweat now, which is probably the right condition for enjoying rubber goods I suppose.