February 26, 2004
Shopping in Soho.
(Sipping Bacardi on chaise longue) In the spirit of meta-criticism I will no longer be reviewing records, only record stores. Following in this same vein we won't be talking genre, only distributors. We'll be discussing pressing-plants, audio software, and styli. It's blowing in the wind ladies!
Does Soho need any more record stores? There's a ridiculous amount at the moment. Walking south down Berwick Street there's Wotsit, Selectadisc, Reckless Dance, Reckless Rock, Soul Jazz, Koobla, Daddy Kool, Vinyl Junkies, the Music and Video Exchange and Sister Ray. On D'Arblay Street there's Uptown and Black Market. Walk South down Poland Street and you have Mr. Bongo and now ANOTHER store, Phonica.
I thought Deal Real (the Hip-Hop vendor) had shut down and tut-tutted to myself about the areas over-saturation with stores, ruminating (gleefully!) about the collapse of the dance music market and then found it had only moved round the corner to Carnaby Street! What's that all about?
Phonica is quite a handy shop, the typically "eclectic" round-up (ie no Garage or Gabba), and healthy selection of Kompakt/Perlon/Playhouse. In this manner it reminded me of Koobla. The store has a much better design finish than Koobla (upmarket like Soul Jazz innit) replete with coffee table littered with Tufluv's FACT magazine and retro furniture for the punters to "chill" out.
My friend tells me that Phonica was set up by the same team (Heidi and Simon) who were originally charged with setting up Koobla by a wealthy backer, before finding themselves swamped in his chosen staff. So they found themselves a backer of their own and set up their own store. More power...
Posted by Woebot at February 26, 2004 10:26 AMIn the spirit of meta-criticism I will no longer be reviewing records, only record stores. Following in this same vein we won't be talking genre, only distributors. We'll be discussing pressing-plants, audio software, and styli.
It's going to be crushingly dull.
Posted by: Matt Woebot. at February 26, 2004 03:45 PMDo it proper, Matt! Friendliness of staff, credit card facility, number of decks available to shoppers etc. ;-)
Posted by: at February 26, 2004 08:23 PMThat was my post, by the way.
Posted by: JoB at February 26, 2004 08:24 PMall sounds very nice but can i get an iced raspberry moccacino with my shiny new shrinkwrapped kompakt schaffellhaus 12"?
Posted by: jim at February 26, 2004 08:36 PMy'know, i think there are more record shops on berwick street than in the entire state of texas. i'm getting homesick....
Posted by: lord marmite of austin at February 27, 2004 03:19 AMsoul jazz records rules my world. it's like all the other records shops with the stuff i don't like edited out.
erm.
that's it.
trust me guys and gals,,...richard bailey the afore mentioned wealthy owner of koobla records is quite honestly the biggest tosser the world over......boardie the terminally scruffy nothern fella who works there is proper wicked but donīt go for a pint with him as he will either try and get off with your girlfriend or have a fight with the taxi driver on the way home.........!,,..
jeffīs (the new disco dwarf is real decent also)...as for the phonica team well i know them all personally and well...and can state that catagorically that koobla was set up but not run soley by simon rigg and heidi...and they now have a pretty good shop,,,hope that clears the air not that anyone really cares..especially me..!,...theyīre all a bit slow on the uptake and itīs never a good thing when record shop buyers have to wait for trendy recognition before they trust certain types of music.....itīs all in the ears friends not on the sales sheets..though they certainly help...