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| Photo: Ben Attenborough |
By the time I moved to
Cambridge it was an independent record shop free zone. We had a HMV and a Fopp, both of which survived when HMV entered administration in 2011; Zavvi until its demise on Christmas Eve 2009 (coincidentally the only day I ever bought anything in there, completely unaware that it was about to shut for good) and a branch of Head briefly operated in 2012/3. Visual evidence of past emporia still exists, such the Hot Numbers mural on Kingston Street (right), the name having more recently been brought back to life in the form of a thriving
coffee shop - and more - on parallel Gwydir Street.
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| Photo: found0bjects.blogspot.co.uk |
At the other end of the latter street can be found the seemingly abandoned store front for Roll On Blank Tapes (left), where a hand-written price list reveals that a C30 Ferric tape would have set you back 55p; an extra 10p would have got you an upgrade to Chrome. A MiniDisc sign in the window shows that the shop did try to diversify but it was too little too late.
Nearby Mill Road also saw the first permanent branch of independent chain
Andy's, its founder Andy Gray, having previously traded at Cambridge market. Gray currently runs BGO records, a reissue label named after Andy's sister store,
The Beat Goes On, which focused more on second-hand and rarities. King Street was also home to numerous record shops; as I understand,
Parrot was, to steal a phrase from
Graham Jones, the last shop standing on that particular street, closing in 2002.
And it's Mill Road where the
Relevant Record Cafe has taken up residence. As the name suggests its more than just a record shop, with a cafe on the ground floor and the all-important vinyl in the basement, Note: vinyl. There's not a CD to be seen, and if you don't have anything to play vinyl on panic not, as Relevant stock a range of turntables (only this morning I saw a couple walking along Mill Road, each carrying a freshly purchased Steepletone turntable). The vinyl is split roughly 50/50 between new and second-hand. The 'new' is a healthy split between recent releases and back catalogue. The second-hand section would have made my own quest to rebuild my collection far simpler, spying as I did things such as the
Quadrophenia soundtrack for a very reasonable £9. And not a tatty sleeve to be seen; all the second-hand LPs would by my reckoning be graded as VG at the very least; and unlike buying online you can see & feel exactly what you get.
They've included a small seating area in the basement - a nice panoramic shot can be found
here, courtesy of @ChrisRandWrites - which doubles-up as an in-store performance area (and for such occasions you can make use of the cafe's alcohol licence). And rather brilliantly Relevant is operating extended opening hours, meaning that after spending much of Black Friday scoffing at videos of people fighting over 40" TVs I was able to drop in at 7pm that evening to pick up the 'Morrissey Curates The Ramones' RSD release.
Welcome to the area Relevant - not least for encouraging me to write a blog post for the first time in over a year!
Relevant Record Cafe, 260 Mill Road, Cambridge
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