When I was a salesman reaching targets were never a problem, people buying music loved music and the people selling music loved music. Customers would go to their favorite store and talk to the people behind the counter before they bought anything, they’d compare notes and ask their advice on what they thought was worth [...]
Archive for December, 2008
On December - 31 - 2008
On December - 30 - 2008
With the New Year barely upon us you can but wonder what is in store for the record business. Mmm, records and stores, you don’t hear those two words together much nowadays. One thing is painfully obvious is that record sales continue to drop year after year and together with the miserable state of the economy [...]
categories: Places, View from the "Engine Room"
On December - 29 - 2008
Where I worked as a salesman in the 70’s, Transatlantic Records they used to have an incentive at Christmas, a drinks offer….like retailers needed an incentive! Buy music and get drunk. It was very hard to entice them, they were going to buy the stuff anyway so why not tempt them in to buying more [...]
On December - 26 - 2008
And so endeth another year, put a yuletide blog on the fire and cast your mind back. It’s a time for the mind to wander (any lame excuse will do!), a time for thought and why not. It still feels strange basking in 80 degree heat when half the world is freezing it’s ass off [...]
On December - 22 - 2008
If you’re still running around frantically looking for a last minute Christmas present and you’re a fan of The Boss then I suggest you go check out www.foryoubruce.com where there is a great new book out. After my last blog I got a comment about Bruce being the reigning king which prompted me to go [...]
On December - 20 - 2008
I don’t miss going to gigs. I spent most of my life there for the best part of 25 years either with bands I was working with or choosing to go and see others in the time I had off. And looking back I saw pretty much everyone I wanted to.
Now here’s the difference. Iactually [...]
On December - 19 - 2008
The weekend came upon us for the Bickershaw Pop Festival, the glorious British month of May. If there was ever a worse weekend for weather you’ll have to remind me, I think it rained from the moment we left home until our last gasp return. It was the pits (SHITE!) It happened early on in [...]
On December - 18 - 2008
“PEEL OR NO PEEL” Continued from “John Peel is a man we must never forget.”
So there was Barry, an avid John Peel fan recruited from his teenage years languishing at boarding school. He hadn’t got overly friendly with his fellow classmates, some of whom were sons of diplomats, air force kids, and the like. The [...]
On December - 16 - 2008
Barry was remote and feeling isolated at public school, not only was he picking up a formal education, he was being formally educated in music. John Peel introduced him to a whole new world and one that would evolve in to a career. Such was the effect Peel had on him that later on he [...]
On December - 14 - 2008
I wouldn’t deprive anyone who worked hard any success but I always maintained Robbie Williams was the luckiest pop star alive. I think his management team have done a marvelous job under the circumstances as I would imagine that at times he’d be a hard act to handle. He’s prone to doing what he wants, [...]
categories: Archives, To Be Sorted
