That's The Internet. You are not The Internet.

If there was ever any doubt that the second-hand vinyl market is on the up then I've seen the final shreds of evidence in the last few months as two local charity shops have decided to dispense with their time-honoured £1 maximum price for all LPs and instead apply, to be polite, some rather ambitious pricing.

Now I understand that their raison d'etre is to raise the maximum funds from the items that come their way, and that's fine. I have no issue with that at all. I don't have a god-given right to walk into one with a crisp £5 note and expect to come out with a butchers cover edition of 'Yesterday & Today' and 'God Save The Queen' on A&M and still have change for a latte with an extra shot. It's a fine-line and these two shops have crossed over to the wrong side.

Conversations with staff in these two stores both led to the ever-so-predictable statement:

"We looked them up on the internet to price them up."

Again, fine. The internet is a marvellous source of information. But that information needs to be interpreted and used correctly. And, crucially, the internet has the capability to reach billions of people around the world. Applying a price from eBay (the price for that completed listing was in red for a very good reason), putting the sticker on first and then writing the price on in biro so that it will leave an indent, assuming the sticker doesn't tear off part of the sleeve in the first place, before putting the LP in the window to warp, sorry, to attract customers is not the same as the internet.

To be fair this is not a new phenomenon. I have fond memories of a charity shop by the bus station in Gloucester approximately 20 years which amongst the usual Semprini and Studio-2-Stereo LPs (all £1 each) had a copy of Midge Ure's ground-breaking 1985 LP 'The Gift'. For whatever reason it was a fiver. As this was pre-internet a member of staff must have decided that he still had a huge following. Either that or Joe Dolce volunteered there and was taunting Midge's fans one last time.

Back to the present day, and in the first shop the member of staff was keen to tell me about a couple of things they had behind the counter as they were definitely valuable. One was - whisper it - signed. Naturally I asked if I could see what it was, already excited by the fact that I was absolutely, definitely about to get my grubby mitts on a fully-signed, low-numbered copy of The White Album.

Instead I was handed a signed LP by Mike & Bernie Winters.

The conversation moved to the other likely reason for their belief that they could increase their prices for LPs - the new record shop down the road. "Do they take second-hand records do you know?". Yes they do I replied. "Great. Maybe I'll take this down there and see if they're interested".

I so wish I'd been there for that.

A couple of weeks later they (the charity shop, not the record shop) had the Mike & Bernie Winters LP out priced at £20. It is, of course, still there.

In shop number two the item that leapt out at me was a Japanese pressing of a Brenda Lee LP, complete with the OBI strip. It was £7.95. For a Brenda Lee LP. I admit, the packaging was quite lovely and if it had been 80p like the majority of what they had I may have been tempted. But what chance is there that someone will walk in and pay 10 times that? Actually, I have previous form here, when the same charity shop went down a similar path a few years ago. And to that end I remain confident that this is a mere blip. It'll take a little while for the penny to drop but normal service will be resumed within six months and I'll be sipping that double-shot latte while listening to Johnny Rotten remind me at 45rpm that there is no future.

Update, June 13th 2015. Mike & Bernie Winters are still up for grabs ....

The Cream of the crop

Manuel and the Music of the Mountains. Geoff Love and his Orchestra. So far so typical. Abba's Greatest Hits. Don't really need it, but go on then. Saturday Night Fever - maybe. Ah, it's only record one. Pop that back. The Seekers, Leo Sayer, Peters & Lee, Five Live Yardbirds,

Harry Secombe ... What? Hang on. Five Live Yardbirds? That was unexpected. Herb Alpert. More Leo Sayer. A Now! compilation, again with one LP missing. Back to business as usual. The Rolling Stones No.2. Fresh Cream. We're onto something here! Not wishing to sound greedy but sadly that was as good as it got. The Stones LP has a heavy scuff across most of side 2 (I could feel it through the cleaning cloth) and the laminate is coming off the sleeve but for a quid? Bargain. And thanks to Sylvia Carpos of St Leonards-on-Sea, who was a past owner of at least two of these.

A night in with alcohol & music

Despite many years of owning records I've never taken cleaning them too seriously. Sure, I'll remove surface dust and I do own a fairly basic brush for this but more often than not if I'm wearing a long-sleeve top then the chances are I'll just motion over the LP with my arm instead.

But a few charity shop purchases, ones that were too good to pass up despite the previous owner looking like they've tried the 1980s 'eat your dinner off a CD' challenge across other formats, have made it necessary for me to look at alternatives. Plus it's getting warmer and I'll be reverting to wearing t-shirts soon.

I considered dropping a few LPs into Sister Ray, who clean records at 50p per side, but I rarely venture into central London. I looked into machines such as the Disco-Antistat Record Cleaner; reviews were generally favourable but even the positive ones made reference to using home-made fluid rather than the one supplied, the active ingredient being isopropyl.

Further research suggested the machine may have not been necessary. As such I obtained a supply of isopropyl from Maplins (£14.99 for 1 litre) - it can be bought for less online - a small bottle of deionsed water (Robert Dyas, 99p for 500ml - many sites mention distilled water) and a pack of microfibre cloths, also from Robert Dyas at £3.49 for 4 (again, lint free cloths are mentioned elsewhere).

On opening the isopropyl it was clear that this was not the sort of alcohol that would make a drinkable cocktail. I poured a small amount into a bowl and diluted with the deionised water. I wasn't overly scientific about this but the common consensus is the mix should be around 20% isopropyl to 80% water. Ready to go, I pulled out the chosen test LP - 'Hi-Fidelity' by REO Speedwagon (yeah, I know, but come on, it's got 'Take It On The Run' on it). This was pretty mouldy on one side, which I had previously tried to rectify with a splash of tap water. It cleared most of the mould but was still noisy when played; this was most likely due to mineral deposits from the tap water, hence the need to use the distilled or deionised variety. A few wipes with the isopropyl solution and the remaining mould was quickly gone; the LP developed a definite shine. I dried off the excess solution with a second cloth and left it to dry. On playing it the worst of the background noise had gone.

Encouraged by this I decided to jump straight in with the filthiest LP I knew I had; Fleetwood Mac's self-titled debut. The previous owner - Tony Moore according to the annotation on the sleeve - clearly did not wear long-sleeved shirts (or if he did, he never washed them). It was precisely the sort of LP that record companies would have pointed at 30 years ago and said 'This is why CDs are a good idea'. I had tried to play it once and one side in particular was unlistenable. I made the mistake of not photographing the LP in its pre-cleaned state, though I can offer (right) a picture of what came off its grubbiest side. Now it's fair to say that an LP with that much dirt on it won't suddenly reveal itself to be in mint condition; indeed, the dirt was obscuring significant wear. But crucially it does now play pretty well and doesn't skip.

I ended up tackling half-a-dozen LPs with excellent results. For an outlay of less than £20 I reckon I have sufficient materials to clean upwards of 50 albums before I'll need any more deionised water; I may never need to buy isopropyl ever again. Some rubber gloves wouldn't go amiss though, particularly when cleaning a large batch.

Relevant Record Cafe - Cambridge

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.

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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Andrew Matheson - Monterey Shoes

Andrew Matheson
Monterey Shoes
Ariola ARL 5025
£1
Filed between The Matadors (self-titled) and Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 'Greatest Hits'






Released while fellow former Hollywood Brat Casino Steel's band The Boys were still a going concern (but still a year before the Hollywood Brats LP, recorded in 1973, had been granted a UK release), Matheson's solo LP is far less punk although it wouldn't sound too out-of-place if spun alongside 'new wavers' such as Joe Jackson and Graham Parker.

The Corpse Grinders - The Legend of the Corpse Grinders

The Corpse Grinders
The Legend of the Corpse Grinders
New Rose
99p + £2 p&p
Filed between and Alice Cooper 'Killer' and The Corpse Grinders 'Valley Of Fear'



Given the band's links back to the New York Dolls I'm surprised that I went this long without ever hearing The Corpse Grinders (and just to make sure, I bought their 1982 LP 'Valley Of Fear' at the same time).

The most immediate thought: was Rick Rivets mimicking Johnny Thunders' guitar style or was it his style first from when he was an original Doll? There's nothing in this LP to elevate the Corpse Grinders to anything other than a footnote but it's decent enough Dolls-esque trash.

Lords of the New Church - self-titled

Lords of the New Church
Self-titled
Illegal Records ILP009
£1.04 + £2 p&p
Filed between Lords of the New Church - self-titled and Lords of the New Church 'Method To My Madness'



Oops. Ah yes, forgot I already had this one. I got a little carried away placing bids on various LPs one seller had listed; was outbid on most but this was one of two LPs that eventually came my way. But at least it has a different cover to my other copy.