Small Town Digging
This weekend I had a day digging in the City of Ely (population 15,102). Ely is
about the least disco place you could imagine so my hopes were not very high
to say the least - but i had seen a new charity shop there and started
speculating in my head the treasures it held.
First up was the newly opened Scope:
As soon as i opened door I spied the wall at the back, records on the bottom,
cds/dvds/video cassettes above. I crouched down on the floor and dug in, almost
straight away a very heavy man looking at the cds stood on me, not a great
start but whats thats i see...
Nothing really to write home about (and scraping the barrel for a blog post
really) but not bad, and better than nothing.
Next stop, the shop next door:
Thankfully the records here didnt require me to be in a position that may end
up with me being stood on, and in the 7"s I found a few bits:
And i found this in the lp's, I think I heard a Rita Coolidge track on a
Balearic Mike mix so i took a gamble and added it to the pile. 2 shops in and
things are going OK, whats next in store I wondered:
I found another Rita Coolidge lp in here and again it's only a quid (thats one
pound sterling for overseas readers) and it may have been on a Balearic Mike
mix so I have it. Once again the records are on the floor and whilst digging I
get stood on several times, I begin to wonder if I have mastered the powers of
invisibililty- sadly i see my reflection on the way out and this bubble is
burst. Next up Oxfam:
Over the years I have had the odd bit of luck in here so I was hoping for some
treasure...
"oh do you like records?" asks the lady behind the counter as i flick through
the classical box sets and intersting looking lp of bavarian drinking songs.
"yeah" says I, "I have just priced a few up, here they are" she says handing me a
little pile of lps with this on the top:
This is in mint condition, looks like its never been played so i have it
(despite it being £10- oh yeah Matt about that £10 I owe you, can I give it to
you next week?)
sadly nothing else in the pile was anywhere near as good, and i returned to the
racks and pulled these 2 out:
Next up was a charity shop with no records so I didnt even get a picture.
Moving swiftly on to this place:
I found a Bohannon 12" in here a few weeks ago so my hopes were high...
this optimism was short lived, I found a grateful dead "Live in Europe" double
lp, but the sleeve was mould-ridden and had been eaten by rodents by the looks
of it, still I was going to have it. Then i noticed it only had one of the two
lps inside, so I left it behind.
By now my hangover was starting to really hurt, so it was off to this place...
and a little sample of some Irish Whiskey what with it being St Patricks day
and all, having said that I left with a bottle of Scotch Whisky:
On the way back to the car I decided to go into this place
It doesnt like a record shop but this little sign indicates that they are there
This was the first time I have ever been in this shop and found another human
being in there, usually the antique shop owner upstairs just tells you turn on
the light when you get down there. The other human being was a super
enthusiastic school kid sorting the 7"s into alphabetical order. I had a chat
to him, persuaded him not to spend £7 on a sound effects lp, because it was
over priced. In fact to be brutally honest this shop would be best summed up in
the words of a fellow customer who turned up whilst i was there. After spending
maybe 90 minutes looking through every box. On his way back up the stairs and
out he turned and said to me "I'm just off to mortgage my house". However he
only spent 90 minutes and I spent 95, in that last 5 minutes I found these
The B-side of "Alphabet St" is the "this is not music,this is a trip" version
and its rather lovely, also I've wanted the accapella of "Real Love" for a
while.
So that's my morning digging in pictures for you, over to you now dear reader.
Hit up those charity shops/thrift stores, car boot sales, jumble sales, church
fetes. Especially the church fetes, usually very few or no records, but tons of
cakes...
Happy digging
Andy
x
