Tour of london

[llmod1]

Went record shopping today in the big smoke and despite finding some cool records it was bloody hard work.

1st Stop was a store I'd never been to before, Alan's Records in East Finchley. Bit of a bloody trek for me! Didn't but anything here but it has potential, not sure if I can be bothered to traverse LOndon for it though!

Next went to Camden, nothing really happening here. I know there's more choice at the weekend but the stores were pretty dull. Managed to find a Young Generation LP for 50p (do they still want these in Japan? Hope so I've got loads&#33 and a spare copy of Supercharged by Paddy Kingsland.

After Camden went to Angel where the charities supplied another copy of Alan Moorehouse and his Bond Street Brigade, another copy of Larry Page Bridge Over Troubled Water, Rune Gustafsson plays Gilbert o'Sullivan bought in the hope that his version of Too Much Attention is funky, DC Larue's soundtrack The Tea Dance which includes an UBB track and finally a spare copy Adam Best's corking LP Wall of Sound.

Then went to Haggle where the mad owner wasn't there, he was replaced by a slightly less mad European Rockerbilly. Signs all over the shop saying UK JAZZ DEALERS NOT ALLOWED PASSED THIS POINT!!!!!!!!! !!!!! Apparently 6 Tubby Hayes sleeves were stolen minus the records which has led them to believe that a dealer must have taken them to mint up there own copies for sale!! Bought an origianl copy of Bill Dogget's Honky Tonk Popcorn for £40 which is a bit of a bargain i think.

From there went to Hanway Street off Oxford Street where I bought a Telstars LP titled The Eurovision Team for £4, two Brazillian issues of Black Jazz LP's for a fiver each and Nat Adderley's saying Somethin' for £4. Oh and saw the copy of Hook and Sling that Nick was talking about in a different thread for £45.

From there to Berwick St where nothing was bought, did see a store with multiple copies of the Shalimar 45 for £99 each which I thought was a bit steep!!

From there walked towards Bongos and decided to stop in at the Classical store just round the corner,surprised to find that Mole Jazz can now be found above them. Bought two Mongo Santamaria LP's for £5 each, All Strung Out and Working on a Groovy Thing. Final stop Bongos (RIP) where multiple copies of Terry Callier live were bought for a £1.

I eneded up with quite a decent haul but it really was hard work. Don't think I'll be doing that again for a while!!

[peretti]

I like Alan's Records a lot but weekends are a bit of a wash out up there as every dealer in North London seems to make the mid-week pilgrimage to East Finchley whilst the rest of us are working.

Great for disco 12s, lots of straight ahead jazz too. Recently picked up a near mint copies of Archie Shepp's 'Magic of Juju', Esther Phillips' 'Burnin', Tony Joe White 'Tony Joe' and Brooklyn Express 'Sixty Nine' 12" all for £30.

I'm currently boycotting Haggle after a small argument over a Congos record which he insist I buy because he'd spent time finding it although it wasn't even the one I'd asked for. He's mad as a mad thing. Still like Haggle though. Flashback down the road also turns up the occasional gem though better for King Crimson fans than music lovers...

[son of stan]

Alan's is only a very short bus ride for me. I've been there midweek and at weekends and always come away with something but never the sort of thing i went in there looking for. It takes so long to look through everything you sort oif feel obliged to buy summat. I still hold out hope though.

[sermad]

Haggle is great if you put the time in or just get *very* lucky. Its on my bus route home so I go in 2-3 times a week.

Yes the bald guy is mad as a very very mad thing. Good entertainment though!

[Soul-Fiend]

Dropped in there last Friday. They are taking the piss with those prices, I mean Affinity for £150? I saw many top shelf LP's I have at home for five times the price I paid. They do have an obviously huge stock and I'm sure if you have time on your hands, you might get a little lucky, but all I saw was over the top price tags, even for the very common bottom end bits. The shop down the road however yielded some very nice and heavy european joints, like SBB, Breakout, etc and a few decent US psych LP's, cheap too.

[green man]

I was in haggle last week for the first time actually and was really pleased to find a finnish jazz album (Juhaani Aaltonen I think) for £8, only to be dissapointed cos they couldn't find the actuall record!!!

[sermad]

shop down the road? you mean flashback? thats fuggin shite in there.

[Soul-Fiend]

Not for me it wasn't, far better luck than Haggle and the price was cheap. Haggle is just off the mark price wise, everybody knows that. Then again, nobody beats Intoxica for this and I'm in there everyday!

[sermad]

Yeah haggle is dear but the gems are aplenty. Was the affinity on uk vertigo anyway? cos if it is then thats not a million miles of the book price.

[Soul-Fiend]

I'm bloody well hoping that it was the UK press or they need shooting. The book price is of little significance anymore Serms, you should know this! And when trying for a reasonable starting point at marking a record's value, its even less of a significance. You can get a clean UK print of this on the bay for well under that price. You just gotta keep on top of it is all. And this goes for much of their stock as far as I could tell, all well over the recent market value. Sure dealers and shop owners always mark up the rare stuff, or even just the sought after when compared to web based markets, but still, there's marking up and then there's marking up.

And before this appears to be me knocking your fave haunt, I repeat what I said before, nobody does this beter than Intoxica, but that's where most of what I look for is found. And I aint letting any cats outta any bags here, cos everybody and his wife knows they have the shit, but you gotta have deep pockets to go in there and that's the way they've always been. Where else in London are you gonna walk into and see five of the top ten heaviest UK Jazz joints, all touching the 200 mark and know they are as rare as rocking horse poo?

[wayne]

Must put in a good word for Flashback, I always liked that shop - friendly, usually something decent (albeit more on the scarce than rare side, but got a fair few ABC/Dunhill type things, a good bit of exotica etc, all around the £3 - £8 mark, last time I was in during the Summer) and mostly very reasonable prices, especially with trades...Haggle was always a bit of an Aladdin's cave, but very pricey, and some serious condition issues for the money as well: a tenner for a thrashed - and by no stretch rare - Arthur Lyman LP is pretty poor going! Not that I've ever been in the market for £££ LPs anyway, unless I can kick them up at booters of a weekend...Guess it's horses for courses, eh?