Guest article by Wooden Artifact.

The city of Bristol, England. With large areas having been bombed flat in the war, it was decided to build a tribute to that versatile substance the romans apparently loved and knew how to utilise so well: concrete. Unfortunately, lacking any kind of artistic vision whatsoever, a new hellish canyon of jagged edifice and cliff emerged from the bloody churned sea of blitzed devastation.

The purpose of this new-fangled development of abomination was to provide the perfect natural habitat for numerous species of large corporate “shops”, or “stores” as Americans called them. People could peer in through the windows and imagine owning the products enticingly displayed within, memories of war, maimed loved ones and thoughts of death growing more distant with each new product desired. Most shops not owned by major conglomerates were thus forced out into the wilderness, and in later decades those seeking underground metal music were therefore required to cross dangerous rivers of effluent, brave urine stinking burrows under roads and to smile or scowl at drunken beggars and other human refuse as necessary.

Such was the case with Replay Records. Having reluctantly visited Bristol city with parents as a child, no intelligent person would be eager to return, however, I’d seen a small advert in a local newspaper which promised a large secondhand record shop; vinyls, CDs, magazines and, YES, a wide selection of independent music. For a young man with not many other options at the time, it seemed like a worthwhile adventure. As I had thought, the city centre was bad, very bad. Seeing as I’d grown up in a small rural town with a population barely pushing 20,000, it was still always an unpleasant culture shock to descend into cities of surging crowds and heavy traffic fumes.

A brief walk out of the centre’s limits, a few wrong turns and several subterranean tunnels later and in front of me lay a pair of small shops both adorned with graffiti covered metal shutters, one of which sold paraphernalia pertaining to sexual gratification, and finally, the aforementioned Replay Records. As I entered the dimly lit, never been cleaned, stale smelling premises, I espied two large racks of CDs and another longer rack filled with LPs spanning the wall.

Somewhat self-consciously I began carefully flicking through the CDs while a fellow metaller nearby ran an expert hand quickly along the rack, scanning for any new stock. To my surprise, as he came nearer he looked up, and dismissively brandishing a copy of Metallica’s “Black Album” said “cool shirt mate, look at this shit, must be about 15 copies of this”. I nodded in amazement, in agreement with his assessment of Metallica’s icon of final artistic doom but also in shock of even being addressed in such a casual, natural manner. This was England, in a large city, in the late twentieth century and this sort of thing just wasn’t done. As I visited more frequently over the next couple of years, I learned to accept this behaviour and met a variety of interesting people, some of whom went on to form bands active in the “scene” even today, years later.

As the WWW became more ubiquitous, record shops lost a lot of business to downloads, internet sales and auction sites, with even major companies facing critical difficulties in the physical retail sector. Although independent record shops should manage to stay open in theory, due to a loyal clientele often travelling some distance just to visit them, they often close down anyway (including all those I was eventually familiar with), most likely never to be replaced. For those still lucky enough to have such a shop near them, perhaps you will still be familiar with the arcane, slightly redundant knowledge collected below.

For me it is as distant a memory as that first trip home to my rural town, tightly holding a large yellow bag filled with several LPs and CDs, looking very conspicious and faintly ridiculous against my black jeans and jacket…

Thee arcane knowledge and etiquette of secondhand independent record shops:

- Don’t steal. There’s no point in stealing anyway, only the cases/sleeves are on display, the discs themselves are filed away behind the counter. Independent secondhand shops can’t afford to security tag their stock. The shop needs every penny they can get just to stay open.
- If you’re looking for something specific, remember that the shop is probably only very loosely arranged in alphabetical order and you may need to look carefully around the adjacent letters as well. You could also try asking the staff if they aren’t busy. They’ll probably have a list of stock and could check it for you.
- There’s a reason why there are 10 copies of a certain album on their shelves, it’s rubbish awaiting removal to the landfill.
- The condition of the booklet is quite important. If it’s badly bent, creased or waterdamaged then chances are the previous owner didn’t care too much for the disc itself either. Most shops claim to test all stock before putting them out on the shelves but it’s best to err on the side of caution and not risk a purchase, unless it’s a particularly rare or sought after record. 
- If you see something you really want, pick it up there and then, or someone else may take it before you. You can sometimes ask shop staff to hold items for you behind the counter so as you can buy it another day. Though if you haven’t returned before a certain date it goes back on the shelves again.
- There are usually classified advert boards on display which are useful for selling old instruments, seeking band members, promoting gigs and such like. Independent record shops are often focal points for local “scenes” and musicians, the Helvete shop in Norway being a well known example. The members of bands such as Sadistik Exekution also got together from an advert placed in such a shop.

Tags: beherit, bristol, metal, Music, record stores, records shops, replay records, underground

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