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Vinyl Countdown
£1.10
‘You hold in your hand a miracle. A book about a passion, and the hipsters, oddballs and old heads who share it, written by one of their number, albeit a ludicrously erudite one’ – Danny Kelly
A revival of interest in vinyl music has taken place in recent years – but for many of those from the ‘baby boomer’ generation, it never went away.
Graham Sharpe’s vinyl love affair began in the 1960s and since then he has amassed over 3000 LPs and spent countless hours visiting record shops worldwide along with record fairs, car boot sales, online and real life auctions.Vinyl Countdownfollows his journey to over a hundred shops across the globe – from New York to New Zealand, Walsall to Warsaw, Oslo to Ozstralia, (old) Jersey to New Jersey – and describes the many characters he has encountered and the adventures he accrued along the way.
Vinyl Countdown seeks to reawaken the often dormant desire which first promoted the gathering of records, and to confirm the belief of those who still indulge in it, that they happily belong to, and should celebrate the undervalued, misunderstood significant group of music-obsessed vinylholics, who always want – need – to buy… just one more record.
A mesmerising blend of memoir, travel, music and social history, Vinyl Countdown will appeal to anyone who vividly recalls the first LP they bought and any music fan who derives pleasure from the capacity that records have for transporting you back in time.
‘Graham Sharpe’s journey around the second-hand record shops of the UK is full of laugh out loud anecdotes and wonderful observations. A great read not just for vinyl fans, but for anybody who has ever visited a record shop’ – Graham Jones, author of Last Shop Standing (Whatever Happened to Record Shops), Strange Requests and Comic Tales From Record Shopsand The Vinyl Revival and the Shops That Made it Happen
A revival of interest in vinyl music has taken place in recent years – but for many of those from the ‘baby boomer’ generation, it never went away.
Graham Sharpe’s vinyl love affair began in the 1960s and since then he has amassed over 3000 LPs and spent countless hours visiting record shops worldwide along with record fairs, car boot sales, online and real life auctions.Vinyl Countdownfollows his journey to over a hundred shops across the globe – from New York to New Zealand, Walsall to Warsaw, Oslo to Ozstralia, (old) Jersey to New Jersey – and describes the many characters he has encountered and the adventures he accrued along the way.
Vinyl Countdown seeks to reawaken the often dormant desire which first promoted the gathering of records, and to confirm the belief of those who still indulge in it, that they happily belong to, and should celebrate the undervalued, misunderstood significant group of music-obsessed vinylholics, who always want – need – to buy… just one more record.
A mesmerising blend of memoir, travel, music and social history, Vinyl Countdown will appeal to anyone who vividly recalls the first LP they bought and any music fan who derives pleasure from the capacity that records have for transporting you back in time.
‘Graham Sharpe’s journey around the second-hand record shops of the UK is full of laugh out loud anecdotes and wonderful observations. A great read not just for vinyl fans, but for anybody who has ever visited a record shop’ – Graham Jones, author of Last Shop Standing (Whatever Happened to Record Shops), Strange Requests and Comic Tales From Record Shopsand The Vinyl Revival and the Shops That Made it Happen
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Additional information
| Publisher | Oldcastle Books, Illustrated edition (21 Nov. 2019) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| File size | 10010 KB |
| Text-to-Speech | Enabled |
| Screen Reader | Supported |
| Enhanced typesetting | Enabled |
| X-Ray | Not Enabled |
| Word Wise | Enabled |
| Sticky notes | On Kindle Scribe |
| Print length | 353 pages |
by Eduardo
A great account of a passion for record collecting
by Sir Jestalot
An enjoyable book and full of nostalgia-piqueing anecdotes, but (for me at least) spoiled somewhat by having no Contents page (other than, on my Kindle version, a rudimentary contents list showing only chapter numbers), and no Index, which as far as I’m concerned is needed by *any* book and would have been so useful. OK, maybe this book deserves to be read from cover to cover, but the lack of Contents and Index makes it impossible to browse. Maybe the printed version is different, but the Kindle version is certainly lacking in this respect.
by R. Walsh
I have been collecting records for 30 years and am interested in collectible records but also interested in new bands and new releases. This chap’s been collecting for longer and doesn’t seem to have moved on from his preferred period, which is sweet but I got a little bored of the reminiscing and there are quite a few tangents that I found myself skim reading and skipping past.
I also (mainly) hoped there’d be more detail about the “100s” of stores he visited and the stories behind the people who run them. He writes more about the items he buys and the prices of these purchases. I am not left feeling inspired to go and visit any of the shops he does include. Having been in the game so long and so fortunate to have had the time and money to visit all these stores and fairs, I think there’s a missed opportunity here for him to use these experiences for more insights into the people who make this possible, the owners and sellers, and their shops (this is temptingly proffered with his references to one proprietor, his mate Julian, who runs Second Scene).
Some engaging parts but just not the book I thought it was going to be and can’t deny the rave reviews so it certainly appeals to many readers, just not this one, sorry.
by Gav Doujaparov
I thought I was a record collector but there’s clearly a whole other level of nerdy collecting that I wasn’t really aware of. This book is all about the value of really obscure records that almost no one has heard of. I ploughed through to the end but it really wasn’t for me.
After reading this book I’ve actually sold all of my records and my turntable and am just listening to my CDs; they are so much more convenient than vinyl and, to me, actually sound better. I guess this is a self help book then as it actually helped me clear out my records and put some money back in my bank account.
by DHamilton
Irresistible and so evocative. A book for all us who not only grew up in the vinyl age, but are also now rebuying and recollecting some of what we ridiculously gave away half a century ago. With a lovely and judicious use of anecdote, observation, memoir and social and cultural history, Graham Sharpe documents his passion for vinyl. Page by page, he makes your own passion for it relevant and recognisable. Vinyl Countdown reminds you why music matters, why we care so much about it and how just a solitary few cords can hurry you back into your past. Most of all, the book is about how music shapes and enriches your life and the eccentric obsession – a gentle madness – of collecting it on disc.
by Amazon Customer
Pleasant and interesting reading for us vinyl addicts. Thankfully not totally absorbed by the price of the records. The author seems like a genuine music fanatic not just an investor.
by LondonToon
Loved this book from beginning to end, a thoroughly enjoyable read. Records, their value, record shops, their clientele, musicians, almost everything related to vinyl gets a mention and all interspersed with some clever but gentle humour.
If you like buying vinyl then treat yourself to this book.
by Papalamour
Dave Angel eco warrior from the fast show manifests himself in reality as a retired ‘Bon viveur’ of the betting industry and vinyl collector world. Dave aka Graham has delivered his lengthy memoir of buying 60s & 70s psych rock and blues albums in second hand vinyl shops across the SE of England. It is a dull, mind numbing collection of minutiae, old man peeves and rambling half-baked opinions on the importance of plastic sleeves & proper compliance with record grading descriptions. I am shocked, relieved and concerned that I made it to the end.
I would be robbing someone else – who from reading the reviews, liking the title and description might think that they are getting a good holiday/commute read – if I didn’t put this back up for sale on Amazon, it’s definitely character forming! Damn it, I forgot to get a sentence in here which was posing a question without punctuating it with a question mark, or did I.