1979–2019 Celebrating 40 years of Canterbury Rock, record shop
We all know that towns & cities across the UK are in trouble. We see the empty store units. Is it catch 22? Rents are too high, the interesting individual small shop cannot afford to open, a dull chain does open in its place, replicating the same tired, devoid of any new ideas shopping experience and so we reach for the laptop to buy online. Canterbury’s landlords, often the Church of England, really do the city a disservice in this regard.
I’ve been shopping for 2nd hand vinyl at Jim Hamshire’s Canterbury Rock on Whitstable Road on the outskirts of the city for almost 4 years. He’s a warm, very approachable fella, knowledgeable about music (as you’d expect) and 2/3rds of the small shop is records, the other, 2nd hand hi-fi, he sells for someone else. There’s a shabby look to the place, the counter, books and stock behind it an aladdin’s cave of interesting menagerie. Such a lot of items that are not on sale, what’s the story here exactly?
Jim is old school. Nowadays, anyone with an internet connection can be a record dealer thanks to Discogs telling you what a record is worth very quickly. Jim has no computer, no email, no internet connection, he uses his own knowledge and the big catalogue Record Collector to decide prices.
In mid-December 2017 I bought £80 worth of classic dance 12s from Jim, disco, funk & rap from the 1970s and though not his cup of tea, he sold me the records for exactly the right price.
He’s not expensive at all. I’ve had many a bargain LP from the shop. My best would be from the £1.50 section. I’ve got a perfectly playable Curtis Mayfield ‘Superfly’ soundtrack album from there that will survive me after my demise. Reason is, Jim’s not going to bother trying to sell anything that has surface marks on it for top £s, it will end up in the bargain bins and for me, many really are bargains.
Is it a wonder how Jim has survived for 40 years? Yes, absolutely. What about the time when vinyl lost its value? “There were tough times yes, but we always got through it” is as much as I found out.
Jim opened his 1st shop in the now fashionable seaside town of Whitstable, Rock Bottom Records, named after an album he loves by Robert Wyatt (who was part of the influential progressive rock ‘Canterbury scene’ band Soft Machine). The shop was sold many years ago, however still exists, adding to Jim’s legacy.
He moved to Canterbury in 1979 thinking there would be more students interested in buying records as he’s on the road leading up to the uni, however, he’s always been a bit by-passed as ‘there are too many fucking buses’ he joked.
In the late 70s, Jim used to travel a lot to London to get the latest punk records from labels such as Rough Trade, Stiff (his favourite, “the attitude, the music, affinity, I’ve still got the t-shirt!”), Illegal and Vinyl Solution.
He’d often have a record stall at the defunked Odeon venue (now The Marlowe theatre is on the site) that saw Pink Floyd, The Ramones and Talking Heads all play there. Setting up his stall early once, Jim opened the doors to the venue to see The Ramones standing there in full rock n roll mode, doing their sound check. Clearly, that image has been unforgettable for Jim. That same gig their US manager bought a load of UK punk 7"s saying “these are for Johnny, Dee Dee and the boys”.
Up at Kent University, Rat Scabies drummer of The Damned saw a Vibrators 7" on the table, smashed it, “fucking wankers” for being fake punk. Jim said “ you owe me a £1” “Write to Stiff records” for it was the reply. And then after the gig, all the band including Scabies came to the table and signed the broken record. “Worth a bit more than a quid now” Scabies smiled.
Once in Dreamland, Margate Jim found himself backstage at a T-Rex gig. Marc Bolan was being mobbed for autographs and other offers, meanwhle Jim noticed drummer and sidekick Mickey Finn was practically alone “and felt sorry for him.” He chatted to Mickey about motorbikes. At some point Mickey said, “hang on, you know fuck all about motorbikes, why are you here!?”, Jim sheepishly explained he wanted Marc Bolan’s autograph for his girlfriend and Mickey kindly obliged.
On 16th June 1967 (a halycon year for music- Beatles’ Sgt Pepper was released, Hendrix makes it in London, The Doors, Pink Floyd & Velvet Underground all have debut LPs etc, the list of achievements vast) and Procol Harum found themselves at Number 1 with Whiter Shade of Pale. Jim & a mate had tickets to see them at Tavistock town hall, but surely the band would now cancel. They drove there to see if the band were still playing. A transit van pulls up and asks the 2 boys to help as roadies, £5 each. “Pay us first I said, thinking I was hard”. The band did and then the boys dropped lead singer Gary Brooker’s piano on the stairs and were “very worried when Gary did the soundcheck” but the piano was fine.
The late 60s and 1970s, obviously a golden era for music, “Early west coast, Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Buffalo Springfield, Love’s Forever Changes and then of course punk. Neat, Neat, Neat is still the greatest punk record.”
Cheers Jim and here’s to the next 40 years of independent record shops across the UK.
