Avalanche @ Cafe Voltaire Wednesday 21st May – to crate dig or not to crate dig ?

The most interesting development in this “vinyl revival” from my perspective has been how people look through records and to some extent why they look through records. Yes we have new vinyl but you don’t need Avalanche for that.  Every man and his dog has jumped on that bandwagon. Visitors want to come and buy “Tigermilk” from Avalanche and regulars want to support the shop and that is very much appreciated but what has exploded is the number of people browsing vinyl and in very specific ways.

When we got in the big collection of 3,000 LPs I discovered something very odd at least to me. I’d apologise that they weren’t sorted into any sort of order and people didn’t care. In fact given there was a big section at the back of the shop with everything priced and categorised by genre they preferred to stick with the never ending boxes at the front.  

Now people are definitely split into two camps. There are those that simply like digging though all the records never knowing what is next very much the way the kids love looking through the posters and there is a new phenomena in which couples or maybe friends look through the vinyl and give each other a running commentary on what they were doing with their lives at the point in time they bought/listened to the record they have just found. I’ve seen people do this for an hour. I’ve seen mums and dads reliving their youth with their kids. 

My own inclination of course is to get everything priced up and in their correct sections but then within reason I’ve always believed in giving people what they want. So for now it will be the boxes and then maybe more organised boxes and then we’ll see ! Certainly within the month i hope to have things knocked into shape I’m just not sure yet what that shape will be.