Everyone has a relationship with music
· Stereotype
When I was very young, me and my family moved to the North of England, my Dad leaving his ‘safe’ job at a bank to set up a second-hand record shop in our new town. He and his friend tried a few before my Dad made one work in Huddersfield that he called Revolution Records. Being young at the time and not yet into music, I remember so much the art and the scents - from Iron Maiden posters to the smell of leather jackets, album art on LPs to smell or rolled cigarettes. Me and my brother would be on a floor above the shop, making stuff out of the boxes that record collections arrived in… and finding interesting ways to destroy records that weren’t in saleable condition.
As I got older, I started to appreciate what was going on there. There were regular customers, bands that would play at local venues coming by, and I started to figure out what music I was into. At the time, me and my friends were more into hanging out and playing computer games (ahhh my friends had Amigas and I had an Amstrad CPC464), so it wasn’t all that cool. Weekends were spent at the shop as my Mum worked there too, but over time I got to appreciate it for what it was.
There were times where my Dad would pick up not just collections that people sold but dabbled with instruments too. I remember one day getting home from school and seeing a drum kit set-up in the lounge! It was terrible, but random and fun. To make ends meet my Dad would head off to record fairs and so be gone for days. Getting older, there were times I’d go with him. Still young and barely getting it.
Sometimes with these things, it’s only a little later in life when you realise how cool this stuff was and how so much of it shaped you. As I became a teenager and travelled beyond our town, finding the record shops was my default. Going to college in another town meant I hung out in one and kind of got to know the people running it so they’d recommend stuff that came in that I’d like. My Dad’s friend, Nick, had a shop selling band tees, posters and alternative stuff, so a bunch of us would hang out there - a place for those into music and everything that went with it to feel like we belonged. I don’t know if Nick understood what he really provided for us all through his shop.
My Dad was keen to take us to gigs once we were old enough and interested enough. I’d love to say it was something cool that people would be in awe of, but it was cool to me at the time. I was 14 or 15 and had watched the original Roadhouse film and was impressed by the blues guitarist that was playing in the bar, so that’s who he took me and friend to see - the Jeff Healey Band. A young, blind blues guitarist. It was my first time at a show like that and I left with a tee, which started a lifelong habit. As the next few years went by, I went to many, many gigs but some of the best were the small shows for bands we’d never heard of, where we’d tagged along with a group, sometimes where a friend knew the band and we’d have beers with them. I’d started to get that sense of scale from the very small local shows, to the massive arena shows or festivals. These felt like my people and that there was something in sharing this experience - feeling the music vibrate your bones.
So when I think about community and music, it’s these references that I have. Spaces to be with or around other like minded people, to maybe share something you’ve found or be recommended something you’d not come across before, old or new, because people understood what you might be into.
I remember being a kid when we first made that move and recording songs from the Top 40 on the radio was something we’d do to be able to play them when we wanted, before we had much pocket money. Later on, we’d make mix tapes and doodle all over cassettes covers for ourselves, for friends, or maybe a potential significant person.
None of this undermines the value that digital platforms have brought us. It’s not one versus another. Streaming platforms have given us access to way more music than we could ever have imagined. They can put together radio-like playlists automatically for you, stay up to date with new releases and recommend new songs or artists based on what you’ve already listened to.
There’s strengths and weaknesses with both IRL and digital, so for me there’s been this elusive hybrid - how could someone try to bring both together so the strengths of both play well together?
Alongside all of this is the ebb and flow of formats; from the default consumption of vinyl to cassettes being the dominant force for a few years until the advent of CD, not to mention the formats that never cut through. So alongside streaming or buying downloads, there’s this bubbling up of the older formats, niche or otherwise. We no longer have the assumption that a new ‘better’ format will come along but that they each have their qualities and, audiophile or not, you’ll find your flavour(s).
These days in most places, music venues are struggling. Artists are struggling. When income reduced through the sale of recordings, there was a time it could be even partly made back on tours, but that’s not the case for most artists - those that aren’t massive. So at a time when it’s never been easier to create your own music and express yourself, the conventional routes either don’t work or are themselves struggling.
That’s a part of what we’re playing around with - those real, grassroots stores, venues, radio stations etc, and using the best of what digital platforms can bring to elevate them. If this was easy, it’d be a solved problem with nothing more to be done, but it’s not. In reality, all of these places are struggling - small venues getting people to come and check out bands cutting their teeth, record stores to get people to browse and buy in person over buying online, radio stations over streaming. Somewhere in all this is a potential for balance, and one that helps support and preserve these pillars of what makes music so much of what it is - tangible and real, enabled by the new digital stuff.
Would love to hear about your music stories, what your starts into discovering what grabbed you were!