Jeff writes: Nottingham was where I grew up and the first record shop I ever noticed was Selectadisc on Arkwright Street close to the train station. It would have been the early ’70s (I’d have been 8 or 9) and I’d pass it on the way to the football with my dad. I remember thinking it was something exotic and that the record covers in the window looked a lot different to the K-Tel and Top of the Pops records that I’d see in Boots. A spell was cast and a few years later I’d regularly be up and down the stairs of the shop on Bridlesmith Gate buying soul and punk records and forever writing in trying to get a job there. So it was sad to hear the news that the owner Brian Selby had died this week.
The shops in Nottingham closed back in 2009, a moment that was marked in a piece on Caught by the River by a guy who had been lucky enough to get a job there, Steve McLay, from which this paragraph is testament to what a special place your local record shop can be:
As when my Gran died, it’ll take me years to walk past Selectadisc, like it did with her house, without having my heart strings snapped at, like the bass from a Washington hardcore band resonating from the shop’s doors. Here was a place that provided some of the most enchanting, passionate, comical and heart-warming moments that post-war Nottingham has hosted. A two-way theatre where the cast and punters would interchange depending on what side of the counter they were stood and who was taking the spotlight. Having worked there, it was also the place that helped shape my life; my career as a journalist, the sounds on my stereo and some of the greatest friends I have.
Remember Brian Selby. Support your local record shop.