Friday, April 18, 2008

Letters From The Front...


So here I am in Hamburg...


Spent the day checking out the record scene, and I've had a pretty productive day.

Many of the shops I had on my list are now closed, but the remaining stores well made up for it so far. The first shops I visited were Zardoz, Slam and Rekord in Schulterblatt. I picked up 4-5 singles there, but following a short taxi ride I landed at Plattenrille which you can find at the end of an alley at 29 Grindelhof. The shop itself is pretty big with an OK collection of singles and a huge amount of LPs, but after talking to Paul who's been running the shop for donkey years, I was invited into the backroom which is in fact more like a warehouse! There must have been over 50.000 singles there, all meticulously alphabetisized. The only shop I know where Cardinal Point have their own section for chrissake!


Needless to say, after a good 4 hours going through the boxes, I found 50 singles of note, which come to think of it is the same number I usually find at the Utrecht fair in 2 days!


Here are some of the finds of the trip so far, most in pic sleeves:


Muff: Sexy Sexy Lady -Ger Pic sleeve

Missing Link -Friday On My Mind

Alvin's Heart Beats -Chilly Willy -nice German Pic Sleeve

Teenager -Baby Hold On (related to Dutch band Bloom)

Walkers -I do The Show For You (The Danish ones, not the Dutch)

Geoff Appleby -Make Me Take Me -UK Demo

Extra copies of both Buzz singles (Geoff Appleby/ "Mutt" Lange)

Revolver -But How I Love It (a spare of this fine single)

Burnt Out Stars -In Vain

Nicky Bulldog -Bulldog (Dog Power Song) -heard a snippet of this -sounds pretty wild, most likely an Italian job...

Radiator -Isn't It Strange -UK Demo

Sting -Blazing Inferno -A second single by the band who recorded the Bubbleglam classic Thief Of Baghdad

Paul Ryder And Time Machine -Are You Ready (Great German Pic sleeve)

Funny Dog -One, Two, Three (fun bubblegum tune)

Capital City Rockets -Little Bit Of Fun/ Breakfast in Bed (Jaimie Lyons from The Music Explosion!)

K.K Black -California Sun (produced by Robert Johnson, the guy looks very familiar to me, who is he?

Teddy Lane -Do The Rock 'N' Roll

The Sorrows -C'Mon Everybody. This looks like the same Sorrows. Not sure if Whitcher/ Lomas are involved, but it's produced by Eddie Seago and John Rossall and it's from 1977!!!!

Rats -Turtle Dove -lovely bright yellow German pic sleeve with band photo

Phoenix -Black Is Black (looks like their second single, also produced by Adrian Baker)

Barry Ryan -Do That -UK Dawn

Shepstone and Dibbens -Shady Lady -god they look dodgy on the cover of this German single...

Brandy Balloon -Tambourine -Sonet -also Shepstone and Dibbens

SkinFlick-Do You Want To Touch Me -UK Demo -god knows, this might be a horrinble disco version...

Disco Kid -Roller Coaster -Ger RAK

Heart -Lovemaker -Great full colour German Pic sleeve for this Dutch Glam cruncher

And much more, plus a couple of Elton Motello singles and a bundle of spares...


Paul is a very cool guy who knows his stuff inside out. They don't list their stock on the website, but I left quite a few singles, so if you need 10 Elton Motello singles or that elusive Cardinal Point track, you know where to go. They do mail order.


Click on title to go to Plattenrille's website






2 comments:

JamesTrash said...

KK Black is Kelvin Blacklock, he released a single under that name on EMI. Kelvin was also one of many people who passed through pre-punk band London SS as well as being vocalist with The White Cats (Rat Scabies band circa '78).

Any sign of a Jet Staxx "French Girls" on Bellaphon in amongst those 50,000 singles?

Robin Wills said...

Ahhh... I thought he looked familiar, I saw the White Cats back in '78 or something. I also have his EMI single...You know there were so many singles, it must have been more than 50.000, there were also 50's,shlagge etc...Send them an email and say that Purepop sent you, he may well have it