Interview: Graham Jones

It’s fantastic to see the resurgence in vinyl record sales and even better to see new record shops opening. Keynsham gained its own vinyl outlet when Longwell Records opened earlier in the summer. It’s a fabulous old school record emporium with second hand recordings, new pressings, t-shirts and more – they even have live music on occasion, including amongst others Keynsham’s own Steve Mercy. There’s a great opportunity to celebrate its arrival and the glory of vinyl in general on October 7th with a unique multi-media event. Graham Jones, an industry veteran, has done much to support independent record shops via his hugely entertaining book Last Shop Standing and spin-off tomes: he will be presenting clips from the associated film (with plenty of anecdotes); hosting a pop quiz and there will be live music from Julia Turner. Event details are here, meanwhile here is his State of the Vinyl address:

For those who aren’t familiar with your delightful tome, give us a quick potted history of how it came in to being and how the film fits in to the scheme of things? What’s changed since the book came out – what are the good news stories, what are the bad news stories and feel free to tell us about any ugly stories?

I reckon I have visited more record shops than any human ever. The reason is for 30 years my job has been to sell to independent record shops. When I started we had over 2,200 independent record shops but by 2009 just 269 had survived. The major record companies had numerous sales reps covering different parts of the country. I have always worked for small music distributers and for the majority of that time I have covered the whole of the UK. It is still my job today. In 2008 it looked to me as if record shops would go the way of the stamp shops, coin shops and candlestick makers who were regular fixtures on our high street 100 years ago so I thought it was important that somebody documented their stories before they vanished. I set off around the UK to interview 50 shops who I thought would be the Last Shops Standing. So although the book started off as an investigation into why we had lost nearly 2,000 record shops it ended up becoming a celebration of them describing how the shops left were surviving in an industry that did not seem to care. I would take the shop owners out for a drink and they all had incredible funny tales of their life in music. They also revealed the shenanigans the record companies had got up to trying to get their records up the chart. To my surprise the book was a success. I discovered their where thousands of people just like me who love record shops and the book is now on its 6th updated edition and was also made into a film.

There are many more outlets for records now – clothes shops sell ‘em, Sainsbury’s are selling them nowadays too (albeit limited quantities in rather naff self-service point of sale type displays), and HMV are prominently featuring both LPs and singles – what does that tell us about the state of vinyl?

Vinyl has become fashionable. Watch your TV and see how many adverts feature a vinyl record somewhere on it. At my last count I was up to 12. Vinyl has saved the record shop and I work for a music distribution and for the last few years our vinyl sales have increased 100% year on year. I have no problem with other outlets selling vinyl. One of the few negative things about the format is the price but the more vinyl produced the cheaper it gets. My main worry about the likes of supermarkets selling vinyl is that they normally have cheap budget record players alongside the display of 20 or so albums. One of the arguments for vinyl is it sounds better. I can assure anybody buying a budget record player it doesn’t when played on one of them.

Charity shops still stock a lot of records… but Oxfam in particular are well aware of their value – it’s great that they are making money, but it’s a dichotomy as this must have an impact on independent record shops. What’s your take?

How can we criticise charity shops? I think we have to accept their presence on the High Street they do a good job and won’t be going away. I appreciate that for some record shops in towns throughout the UK that charity shops are their main competition. Any vinyl fan will know though that the days of picking up a real bargain there are long gone and the format is completely over-priced. You can still pick up CD bargains though.

Record Store Day is going from strength to strength, but how much of that is driven by people hoping to make a quick profit on eBay, even to the extent that items are being posted within in minutes of the shops opening for business?

RSD has been the catalyst that started the vinyl revival. Before RSD the only coverage in the media gave record shops was another one closing down. Now running up to the event they get a whole week of positive publicity driving people into the shops. People tend to concentrate on the negatives and forget it is not just about the product it is about celebrating the day. Most shops have live bands playing and a party atmosphere prevails. The eBay situation is nowhere near as bad as it was but still a problem. In the early days many shops would just sell on a first come first served basis but now days most limit customers to say a maximum of three items then they have to go to the back of the queue. The problem lies with the people who are prepared to pay ludicrous prices on eBay for the product. I think there are more important issues such as making the right amount of stock available to keep it both collectable and to ensure a fan who has stood outside for a couple of hours obtains it. What is the point of sending a shop 2 units of something when they have 50 customers who want it? You manage to make 2 people happy and cheese off the other 48 giving them a negative experience of the day and of RSD

Speaking of eBay and the wide world of the web – records on sale on the internet – good or bad; independent shop owners have told me they make a lot of dough through virtual shops – so what’s your view?

Record shops need to make money where they can. I do like the policy of many shops I visit who tell me they always try to sell stock in the shop first before using eBay etc.

Another outlet for recordings is at gigs – some bands going so far as to sell tour only CDs and records, and they often sell exclusives from their websites – as do the record labels; clearly good for the bands but presumably bad for shops? And similarly what do you reckon to the whole Pledge phenomena, helps bands to fund recordings and physical releases but presumably also undermines the shops?

No problem with bands selling their music at gigs but I have a major problem with record companies selling exclusives on their website. These same companies will then expect the shops to support their new releases. From our company’s view we always ask the labels producing exclusive box sets to make sure we are given a percentage to offer to independent record shops. I can’t be negative about crowdfunding as the Last Shop Standing film was financed this way and it was a positive experience. What many people don’t realise is that these records funded by crowdfunding still make the way into the record shop. Bands sell them via their own websites but look for independent distributers like us to get the stock into record shops. A good example for us was we distributed the latest record by Penetration and the system works well for us all

Finally – what’s the future for music – physical products as an increasing anachronistic piece of cultural ephemera junk as people stream or…something better?

I think vinyl will plateau in the coming years but never go away. CD sales will continue their very slow decline with downloading suffering a significant reduction as more people embrace streaming. One thing is for sure. In 2009 I feared for the future of record shops, not anymore as we have over 50 more than we had in 2009