Love the Velvet reference. Nice
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Two local stores for me in mid-Cheshire. My favourite is Convoy Records at the Lady Heyes craft centre not far from Frodsham. Not open every day but Rupert has a very good range of used and new vinyl (no CDs) he is also cash only which is unusual these days. I have found quite a few quirky disks there and have Rupert to thank for my collection of Carter USM LPs. The other location is the Electric Cafe in Winsford. The owner Jim loves vinyl and guitar music so you can expect to find some good platters there. Again new releases plus lots of previously loved stuff. He also participates in Record Store Day if that floats your boat.
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Happy memories, I spent so much time in there back in the day it was ridiculous, so I must have been rifling through those racks whilst you were working there Kevster. Sounds like you had a lot of fun.
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My favourite when I was about 16 was Virgin in Lower Corporation St Birmingham. It was one of the first three Virgin shops along with Oxford St London and Liverpool. I spent many happy hours and most of my Saturday job pay in there. They had old aircraft seats all with a pair of headphones and several turntables so you could listen to all sorts, I often did and discovered all sorts of great albums. Found a couple of pics on the Web. The manager Paul and IIRC his wife, and a pic of the shop window, with a painting of the cover picture from After Bathing at Baxters by Jefferson Airplane. Happy times.
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I spotted this thread and immediately thought of Clocktower Music!
I have been a customer for many years mostly as a visitor but now as a Bridport resident.
My first encounter with Roy (the owner) was when we went down to Bridport for a short visit following on from a Naim Forum BBQ and site tour in 2009. We parked up and walked through an alley to one of the main streets to find a stall selling records. Mrs seagull left me there while she went off to look at the rest of the Saturday market. She returned to tell me that there were record stalls everywhere, including in the Electric Palace (a small arts centre/venue) and the local charity shops also had displays of their vinyl goodies. We had arrived on Vinyl Saturday!
I got talking to one of the stall holders about the event. He turned out to be Roy, the owner of Clocktower Records. The whole event had been his idea.
I have since become very friendly with Roy, and his staff. They often let me browse through new collections before they have been sorted. They are passionate about what they do and are very knowledgeable.
They have recently opened a CD only shop next to the Electric Palace, which is always busy.
Clocktower Music is one of the reasons we moved to Bridport, though donāt tell Mrs S.
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Welcome along to the forum @anon87271507
You are very lucky living in Bridport! My wifeās cousin and family have just moved there and love the place. This cousin is also a vinyl fan and it was he who recommended Clocktower Records.
I visited Clocktower a total of three times when in the area, and on the final visit they were much quieter so we got to chat a little more in depth and it was then he mentioned that he does let some customers browse the collections just bought in as you mention, and invited me to do just that the next day. Alas, we were heading home then so could not take him up on the offer. We exchanged contact details and he said if Iām after anything in particular to drop him a line - incredibly helpful chap. Will definitely be heading back there when visiting family again.
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Iām trying to resist the urge to pop back to Clocktower and blow another wad ! Please stop these posts ! 
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Thank you @YetiZone, Iām actually an old lag here I just havenāt posted for many years.
Iām a recovered Naimaholic and have now retired and I am happy with my system. I have more time on my hands and concentrating more on my music collection.
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Kev, it sounds like thereās a film in there somewhereā¦
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When I was at school in the States, riding my bike into town and visiting Pitchfork Records was THE highlight of the week. Most of my allowance was spent there. I can still feel the giddy excitement when the Mobile Fidelity box set of the Beatles albums arrived and was placed in prime position with a fairly eye-watering price tag (a Beatles-mad friend eventually stumped up and bought it), and also when the first CD long boxes arrived and were propped up along one of the wall tracks where the display LPs would normally sit.
And when lived and worked in NY, J&R Music World was a regular haunt during lunch breaks and The Strand at weekends for old secondhand books and LPs.
Oh Iād completely forgotten the long box, an interesting attempt to add perceived value to what was a very small package of music after the demise of the LP! Tower Records New Orleans was a favourite as I had business in the city, Iād go late afternoon spend hours combing the racks and then realise night had fallen and I had to walk back to my hotel in the dark, it could be a dangerous place in the early eightiesā¦.but fun!
Yes, IIRC it was designed to help record stores whose storage and displays were all geared towards LP records, otherwise the CDs would have just disappeared from view.
J&R Music World in NY was amazing. The one time I popped in there they had behind the jazz counter at least 2 and possibly 3 complete CD sets of the Gitanes Jazz in Paris series (big tower of CDs). I would have needed to charter a transport to get that one back ! They also had the entire āFree Americaā series of CDs on special offer. Sighā¦
That explains a lot!
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I was in there yesterday and spotted it on the shelf.
They also had an immense collection of SHM-CD behind the counter.
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Wah Wah, Wakefield and Wall Of Sound in the basement of Crash in Leeds.
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@ChrisG @Richard.Dane - The long box when CD first came out was driven by retailers, particularly the American ones. But it wasnāt the likes of Tower or Sam Goody, it was Walmart and the supermarkets. The record companies were desperate for the new CD medium to take off and they needed the support of the US retail giants to succeed, and they acquiesced to every request.
First of all, they knew that the formatās small size and premium pricing would make it a magnet for shoplifters - they didnāt want a repeat of their experiences with the highly-nickable cassette. Hence the long box, which also (and secondly) solved the problem of the retailers having to throw out their old record racks should CDs ever take off. Which it did ā CD sales grew faster than anyone expected, and offered such huge margins to retailers, that they were happy to redesign their stores to accomodate the shiny new medium.
The long box never took off in the UK, because most retailers outside of the likes of Vigin Megastores used the masterbag system, which involved taking an empty sleeve or jewel case to the counter; no live product was put out. The exception was Tower. I used to remember the Receiving department at full pelt on Monday mornings, when new stock arrived. Booklets were taken out of jewel boxes, and put in the top half of a blisterpack, with the CD and jewelcase in the bottom. The whole lot was then sealed in the blisterpack, security tagged and sent upstairs for putting on the racks. It was expensive and time consuming and only lasted about a year.
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This is the reason why DVDs and blu-rays arenāt in CD boxes. The big video retailers didnāt want to throw out all those old VHS racksā¦
My first Blue Note CDs were in long boxes - remember them well !