Gone in 60 seconds - Record Store Day comes...and goes

© Simon Poulter 2018

There is something clearly perverse about standing in a queue at seven in the morning for a shop that doesn’t open until 10am, purely to get your hands on some plastic that, probably exists in some other form or another. Actually, let me correct that statement: there is something clearly perverse about sitting on a pavement still stinking of unidentified Friday night detritus, queuing for a shop that doesn’t open for at another two hours at least.

But then buying and owning records is one of those pastimes that teases out the obsessive. Not quite as bad as standing at the end of a Clapham Junction platform all weekend, I grant you, and compared with buying comic books or football stickers, relatively tame. But the return of vinyl record ownership has, I’ll admit, reawoken a certain “fetishism”, to quote a particularly lively Twitter rant the other evening from Danny Baker - arguably Blackheath's leading record collection owner - on the subject of this year’s Record Store Day.

The main source of Baker’s ire was his belief that artists and their labels use RSD cynically to lure in punters to buy limited edition, available-for-one-day-only, copies of records which then get sold on for profit. “Record Store Day is a racket,” he opened with. “Just press up hundreds of copies for these stores you vampires. What's with this stupid treasure hunt? Its [sic] so much less about indy stores than creepy eBay limited editions. Fuck off Record Store Day.”

So, at least we know where he stands on the topic. But he went on: “Having a record only pressed up for Record Store Day is like owning one of those commemorative dinner plates offered in the back of Sunday supplements. ‘To honour Lady Diana, this once in a lifetime...’” And, inevitably, Baker was not done there: “Hey kids! Does Record Store Day raise your awareness of that little shop around the corner that you'd never seen before?  Or is it for a load of old boys to grab cynically limited, but basically worthless, stock for later profit on eBay?”.

© Simon Poulter 2018

On this last point, he may have something. Most of the individuals ahead and behind me in the queue at Greenwich's excellent Casbah Records this morning were men, well into middle age, and clearly the type who take RSD seriously. Whether they were indeed planning to make a fast buck on eBay, I couldn’t tell and wasn’t that bothered to ask.

Record Store Day may, ultimately, be a marketing gimmick, and even if Baker argues that most of those in the queues are discovering their local music emporium for the very first time, that is largely the point. Independent record shops - the intended beneficiaries of the entire exercise - will make more money on this one day than they do in the traditionally impoverished first three months of the year.

However, while the vinyl revival is going great guns (an £88 million business), with LPs continuing to sell relatively well in the face of other physical and digital formats, the humble record shop is still an endangered species, and for that reason alone, Record Store Day is a great way to show support, although consistent, year-round custom would be even better. So, Danny, call me a fetishist if you want, but I’m more than happy to join in the absurdity of dossing on the pavement for three hours in the hope of landing a Bowie album that inevitably will be on sale later in the year as a CD. Because it is about supporting my local record shop, one I actually visit throughout the year.

Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve spent many a happy Saturday afternoon browsing in record shops and, at the age of 50 - cliche as this might sound - I still do. I still enjoy the discovery of new music, just as I enjoy relistening to familiar music on new formats. Vinyl has given me an excuse to hear anew things I’d previously only heard on cassette, or on early-issue, poorly mastered CD. Record Store Day is part of that curation.

There are those - girlfriends and wives, mostly (emitting disdainful grunts as the front door slams at Stupid O'Clock) - who will think of us as suckers, victims of a gimmick designed to entrap the weak-willed desperate to own some obscure reissue purely because it's a) now on coloured vinyl and b) because it will give them an air of Nick Hornbyesque cultural superiority (may I hear quote John Cusack's Rob Gordon, proprietor of Championship Vinyl in the film adaption of High Fidelity: "I get by because of the people who make a special effort to shop here - mostly young men - who spend all their time looking for deleted Smiths singles and original, not rereleased - underlined - Frank Zappa albums. Fetish properties are not unlike porn. I'd feel guilty taking their money, if I wasn't... well... kinda one of them."). These are experiences you don’t get from Spotify.

Record Store Day is a glorious celebration of the absurdity of record buying. The exclusive releases are hardly rare Picassos at Sotheby’s, but that’s not why they’re bought. In fact I'm not entirely sure why they’re bought but, speaking from trouser-emptying experience, there is a distinct, momentary pleasure about buying something unique, taking it home and - yes, here comes the 'tactile vinyl experience trope' - desleeving that new purchase to stick it on the turntable in order to find out what all the fuss was about.

© Simon Poulter 2018

If you do it right, you’ll walk into your local emporium armed with a carefully compiled list in the hope that at least some of it has been stocked (RSD is a tricky business for record shop proprietors, who have to take a punt on what will sell on the day out from the 500 artists releasing albums and singles as part of the programme). Inevitably that means some disappointment, but if you’re prepared to be in that queue early, and have organised your wishlist, you'll usually come away happy. And broke.

Like Christmas Dinner, it’s over in a matter minutes after a lengthy build up. And worth it. This year I walked out of Casbah Records with pretty much what was on my shopping list - including a reissue of Prince's 1999, Bowie's Welcome To The Blackout (Live London 1978), The Who's Kids Are Alright soundtrack and Steven Wilson's RSD exclusive 12" single How Big The Space. A tidy haul. Was any of it essential? No, but again, that wasn't the point. And if you don't understand that, you probably never will.

© Simon Poulter 2018

Murder most foul

Picture: BBC

If, like me, you watched the BBC's three-part documentary, Stephen: The Murder That Changed A Nation, we will have a shared frustration. Without trivialising the racist murder, 25 years ago, of teenager Stephen Lawrence, the series at times felt like one of those exalted police procedurals, like Line Of Duty, where you already know who committed the crime, but watch in edge-of-the-sofa agitation over consecutive nights as the perpetrators evade justice. Sometimes, justice prevails, sometimes it doesn't.

In the case of Lawrence, it largely hasn't. There has been some closure, as last night's final episode recounted, with the remarkable story of retired Detective Chief Inspector Clive Driscoll who, in perhaps an example of old-school coppering, took command of Operation Fishpool, the investigation into Stephen's murder. This lead to the engagement of a private forensics company to conduct new examinations of evidence from the fatal stabbing of the 18-year-old architecture student at an Eltham bus stop on 22 April, 1993. Blood traces on clothing fibres led to the conviction, in January 2012, of Gary Dobson and David Norris. To date, they remain the only suspects in the Lawrence case to be jailed.

What Stephen: The Murder That Changed A Nation so compellingly compiled was the multiple layers of the case and its actors. Movingly, we heard from Doreen - now Baroness - Lawrence, Stephen's mother who became the reluctant public face of, not only the campaign to bring her son's murderers to justice, but also to draw attention to perceptions of institutional racism within the Metropolitan Police. We also heard from Neville Lawrence, her estranged husband, who so visibly bore an unfair weight of guilt on his shoulders for "not being there" for his son, and has only found some peace by relocating to Jamaica.

Picture: BBC

And who couldn't be blamed for banging their head against the wall in frustration for Duwayne Brooks, Stephen's best friend, who was with him when the gang of white youths set upon the pair in Well Hall Road that night in 1993. Brooks has taken his own share of shaming, both from police who appeared to treat him more as a suspect than victim, and from an apparent rift between him and the Lawrence family. We saw how Brooks - who has since engaged in local politics in Lewisham and was awarded an OBE - identified two of the five main suspects in a police line-up three months after the murder, only to have his evidence dismissed as "unreliable". We also saw how Brooks was arrested at a protest outside the British National Party HQ in Welling shortly after the murder, part of a police surveillance operation into members of the Justice For Stephen Lawrence campaign.

It would have been very easy to simplify the subject of this series into three acts - the police as bad, the prime suspects as even worse, and the Lawrences as victims. But over the three episodes, Asif Kapadia, James Gay-Rees and James Rogan carefully, respectfully built up a powerful, tragic and, ultimately, disappointing picture of British social justice via the many layers of the case.

Like a good drama, there were intriguing sub plots, which left the bitterest of tastes in the mouth: the Martin Bashir interviews with the chief suspects, who brazenly weaselled their way out of any responsibility, despite the sickening weight of evidence against them, such as the police surveillance video showing them talking about what they'd like to see happen to black people ("I'd go down to Catford and places like that with two submachine guns and I'm telling you I'd take one of them. Skin the black alive, mate. Torture him, set him alight."), with another seen practicing stabbing motions with a large knife.

These suspects - whose names, we learned, had been listed on a piece of paper left for police within hours of Stephen's murder - were and still are known in the Eltham area. Their Facebook timelines still receive complimentary messages from racists. The nation, though, formed its own opinions of the group when they arrived, strutting, goading, wearing sunglasses and looking like they were on a Friday night out, at the McPherson public inquiry in March 1988. The composure of their interviews with Bashir had been dropped. The image of Norris, in particular, snarling and bearing his teeth, will remain ingrained in the memory as a totem of the entire Lawrence murder. As will the Daily Mail's challenge to the gang, with editor Paul Dacre's infamous "MURDERERS" front page splash and its sub-deck challenge: "The Mail accuses these men of killing. If we are wrong, let them sue us." I'd hardly call myself a fan of the newspaper, or indeed Dacre, and even if his personal connection to the Lawrences was simply that he'd employed Neville as a decorator, the line he took, and the subsequent persistence in the story, deserves some credit. Inevitably, the attempt to tease the Eltham gang out didn't succeed, but an important addition was made to the tabloid front page hall of fame and, for once, a newspaper like the Mail campaigning for social justice.

Picture: BBC

As for the police, it would be hard to say - Clive Driscoll's remarkable dedication and endeavour not withstanding - that the Metropolitan Police came out of this documentary with it's historical reputation in good shape. Current commissioner, Cressida Dick, maintains that the Met has, today, a completely different culture to that which existed in 1993. One would hope so. The documentary's clips of interviews with detectives serving back then left little faith that the system was ever going to deliver justice for the Lawrence family. New interviews didn't add much, either, with retired Detective Superintendent Bill Mellish, who led the second investigation into Stephen's murder, focusing on Brooks, almost gleefully stating: "He knows he forever will be the man that ran away and left his mate. He knows that."

Attitudes might be one thing, but the role of corruption in the Lawrence case became another intriguing aspect of the documentary, adding another bitter ingredient to the overall shambles. Commenting on one specific allegation of a particular detective's alleged connections to David Norris' drug dealing father, Cressida Dick says that today she would shut down any corruption fast. The disturbing thing is, we're talking about police corruption in the mid-1990s, not the 1960s and 1970s, when London's crime gangs had detectives in their pockets, and when dodgy handshakes came in handy to get people out of parking tickets and much more serious offences. This was when the fictional Gene Hunt and Jack Reagan were very real, unreconstructed individuals who could politely be described as "cutting corners" in getting the job done. The idea that such practices actively hampered the Lawrence investigation in, what should still be regarded as recent history, is more than unpleasant.

In the end, Stephen: The Murder That Changed A Nation painted a picture of a police service which had both unconscious and conscious bias towards the black community, in which racism was almost a casual aspect of the Met culture. An archive clip of former Police Federation chief Len Curtis questioning whether "nigger" was an abusive term appeared to underline the suggestion, stated so strongly in the McPherson Inquiry outcome, that the capital's police service was riven by "institutional racism". Racism, it should never be forgotten, remains at the core of the Stephen Lawrence story. He was not only murdered by racists, but the subsequent investigation was either handled indifferently and incompetently, or with intentional reluctance and scepticism towards the victim's story, making that racist, too.

That two of the gang have been convicted for Stephen's murder will be only of limited comfort to the Lawrence family. Doreen Lawrence has said she wants to focus on her other son and grandchildren. She has given what she says is her last interview on the subject. The Met is maintaining an open case on the murder enquiry, something I suspect they will be obliged to do out of embarrassment as much as due process. I'm a big fan of what the police do. Under ever-shrinking resources, and increasing pressures from terrorism and, in London, knife crime in general, the thin blue line has grown thinner. They deserve our admiration and support. But the Stephen Lawrence murder, is a chapter in the Met's history that should not only never be forgotten, but continuously referred to. Racism is ugly to begin with, but when it yields the violent death of a bright, talented, likeable teenager - no matter what his skin colour - there should be no place for it to be investigated as a lesser priority. All lives count. All lives matter. Kudos to the BBC for, over the last three nights, reminding us of that fact.

Picture: BBC

Unplugging the social network

There is, already, an irony to the post you're about to read, in that it will be promoted on the very social media services it concerns. But that's purely because, like most people who use social media, I can't help but want attention. Which, let's face it, is mainly how social media came about to begin with.

It is also behind the news today that pub chain JD Wetherspoon is departing social media for good. Now, given the state of the world - not least of which, a third world war in the offing... - this is "probably" not big news. But, partly as a result of social media, news that Wetherspoons is calling "timegennelmenpurleaze!" on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, is...er...indeed news.

According to the chain's not-particularly publicity-shy chairman, Tim Martin, social media is a waste of time and even a drain on his pub managers' time. Well, that's one possible reason. Two others are that 1) Wetherspoons doesn't exactly have a massive following on any of its social accounts and 2) the chain has been mercilessly trolled for taking a pro-Brexit stance (in November last year it had 500,000 beer mats distributed throughout its 895 pubs in the UK with a three-point "Brexit Manifesto" calling on the leaders of the main political parties to get a move on with leaving the EU). Another suggestion is that this is all just a publicity stunt - which, given the fact I'm blogging about it, would mean 'mission accomplished'.

Either way, Martin has raised a valid question about the role of social media in the commercial world. "We are going against conventional wisdom that these platforms are a vital component of a successful business," he told the BBC, saying that society would be better off if people cut the amount of social media use, adding a clear dig at Facebook with a reference to the "misuse of personal data".

Somewhat less convincingly, Martin chose to bring up time consumption amongst employees as another reason to leave social platforms behind, saying that "90-to-95%" of his pubs' managers "felt using social media was not helping the business" due to its "addictive nature", adding: "We were also concerned that pub managers were being side-tracked from the real job of serving customers. I don't believe that closing these accounts will affect our business whatsoever."

While I'm sure some Wetherspoons customers might have reason to complain about inattentive bar staff, I very much doubt that they are too busy tweeting out special Friday night offers on jugs of sangria (for reasons of transparency, my local when I lived in Paris - The Bowler - once tweeted me personally because I hadn't been in for a few weeks. Now that is customer engagement!).

Time will tell, though, whether the Wetherspoons departure from social media will have any impact. Conventional wisdom does dictate that a digital presence is essential in the modern world, whether to drive sales, corporate reputation, customer loyalty or all three. Many marketeers believe that Facebook, Twitter and its ilk are simply free advertising platforms which can be augmented by so-called "paid promotion" (essentially, the nub of these networks' business models). The issue, however, is that whether you're an advertiser or simply someone desperate to see friends' cat videos, social media is still, by and large, whatever you want to make of it.

As I wrote, some many posts back, Twitter can be a little like the river of demonic ooze running beneath New York in Ghostbusters, if you dare to be sucked into the reactionary trollery and right wing nutjobs lurking barely below the surface. But it can also be a tremendous expression of democracy, or a wonderful outlet for distributing questionable humour, or the most efficient news feed this side of buying a Reuters subscription.

As for Facebook... Well, the almost-original social network (Friends Reunited, anyone?) clearly has its faults. I won't dwell on the Cambridge Analytica debacle, but there is something intrinsically creepy about suddenly seeing promoted posts for travel companies like Thomas Cook and First Choice on my timeline barely a day after I was looking at summer holidays on my iPad with these very companies. As innocent as it might look, the data harvesting practices of social media networks and their clients concerns me more than anything. They are sitting on a vast amount of information about me, my interests and buying habits which, surely, should be mine to know and for commercial organisations to find out when I choose to buy something from them, and not before.

But back to Charles Martin, who rounded out his decision to take Wetherspoons offline by declaring that people would be "mentally and physically better off" if they limited their social media use to just half an hour a day. Here he may have a point. We certainly know that social media has only added to the complications of modern teenage life, especially amongst girls who, on top of all they've always had to go through, now have to put up with social exclusion, fat shaming and even sexual abuse via the various 'must have' social media platforms they sign up to. Adults are not immune, either, with some living vicariously through Facebook and Instagram, while others suffering feelings of inadequacy as a result of pictures posted of their perfect friends living it up.

The question is, could you do without social media? Would your life feel more complete, rather than less, without it? Those older than the Millennial generation will, of course, have enjoyed life pre-digital. We talked to each other, face-to-face or by phone. If we wanted to show off where we'd been on holiday we handed round a packet of prints from Boots or suburban bores invited friends round for a slide show with fondue.

Now we can share the beach vista as we're sitting in it; we Facebook the meal we're about to eat (though, thankfully, not the final third of the digestion process...); and children will live their entire lives, from the moment they burst out of the womb, in Instagram pictures and stories. And we will lap it all up, so to speak. Because, thanks to the smartphone, we have social media at our fingertips constantly. Just look at a train station at rush hour - banks of stooping commuters, thumbing through their timelines.

And it is exactly this point why, I suspect, JD Wetherspoon will be in a very small minority. In the early days of 'websites', digital interaction was via the PC. Now, it's constant via mobile devices - even smart watches. We fill every unaccounted-for eyeball time with social media sites, on trains and buses, as we walk and as we fly. For some, it's their entire world. For others, it's their only means of self expression. And for others, it's simply a way of avoiding talking to others.

The Wetherspoon chairman's assurance that his company would "still be as vocal as ever" might hark back to the pre-digital age when other media platforms gave companies a voice to the outside world, but the reality - the unbearable truth, if you like - is that in 2018, social media is part of the daily fabric. Rather than leaving such services, corporations should be doing more to make social media a safer place to inhabit. The Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal and recent stories about the role social media plays in London's epidemic of drug/gang violence should serve as a warning to the vast majority of corporate concerns who do still believe in social media. If there really is a reason for corporates unplugging from social networks, it's that for all the good these platforms do in connecting friends or allowing those without a voice to have one, there is a dark side not worth associating with. That's the minority who take it too far. Yes, you Mr. President.

It ain't over 'til it's over. But it's over.

I'm OK. No, really. I'll get over it. I've been through worse.

Painful, as it was, to see Chelsea's 28-year home record against Tottenham come apart at the weekend, there was, perhaps, some inevitability to it. That doesn't soften the blow of Chelsea - yet again - giving up a lead, or the worst thing of all, allowing the odious Dele Alli to score twice, affording him the opportunity after his first of provocatively - and, in my view, illegally - celebrating in front of home fans in the Shed.

What had already been the traditionally ugly atmosphere for this fixture got steadily uglier after that moment, albeit one brilliantly captured by a pitchside photographer who caught a wonderful array of emotions - the Asian lady vituperously extending both middle fingers, the enraged individual several rows back being restrained (presumably with the words "leave it bruv, he ain't worth it") and the stoic feller at the very front, nonchalantly nursing a cup of coffee. BuzzFeed's Chris Applegate tweeted that it looked like "a giant Renaissance canvas. The more you look, the more characters and possible back stories you discover." and, indeed, there is some baroque artistry about the picture - like a Caravaggio or a Rembrandt, capturing the human condition in all its varied forms.

Notwithstanding Alli's moronic behaviour (and even the Spurs fans' disgraceful chant about Marcos Alonso - irrespective of the morality of the actual event it referred to), Tottenham deserved the win. That's as agonising a set of four words as I'll ever commit to a keyboard. But it's true. Something is rotten at Chelsea. To lose or draw the odd game to a last-minute opposition strike is annoying but happens. For Chelsea, it's been happening too much this season. Worse, still, there's been no Plan B to put things right, and the fault for that lands firmly on the shoulders of Antonio Conte.

With the exception of Rafa Benitez (whom we didn't want) or André Villas-Boas (whose appointment we just didn't get), Chelsea fans have been remarkably loyal to the club's myriad managers over the decades I've been following the club, and regardless of the condition the team has found itself in. Even in that poisonous final few months of the Second Age of Mourinho, when a "palpable discord" was tearing the team asunder, the rallying call of "José Mourinho!" (to the tune of Verdi's La Donna è Mobile) still resonated - weakly, it has to be said - around Stamford Bridge. On Sunday, there was a vaguely similar flimsiness to the sporadic choruses of "Antonio...! Antonio...!".

And, yet, Conte knows his time is up. We know his time is up and, I suspect, so does the club. So why hasn't the notoriously capricious Roman Abramovich fired him already? Whether he goes now or during the final year of his contract, it will still cost the Russian a reported £9 million, so that isn't necessarily a factor. A summer break might also be cleaner, allowing the replacement (be it the widely expected Luis Enrique or - today's rumour - Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri) a chance to rebuild. But that does leave Chelsea open to the risk of not qualifying for next season's Champions League, the one thing Abramovich appears to hold dearest to his ambitions. Then again he may just not be bothered: perhaps the diplomatic spiral the West is currently caught in with Russia is weighing more heavily on the oligarch than we might expect.

Abramovich may just, uncharacteristically, be wearing a beatific smile. The worst has been done and Chelsea can't, now, repeat their 2015-16 near-denouement. That said, they currently lie in fifth place, 28 points behind league leaders Manchester City. The task, for the remaining few games of the season, is to secure European football for next season, even if that means the Europa League, as well as hang on to FA Cup contention. It's all thin gruel, though. Not even another parachute appearance from Guus Hiddink would make much difference. It's hard to translate Conte's constant niggling about squad depth and player acquisitions onto how his players go about their business, but certainly Mourinho's demeanour had an effect, and Conte's must, too. But, perhaps, the biggest cause-and-effect is Conte's tactics. On Sunday he didn't make any substitutions until long after they would have any effect. It was almost as if he didn't care any more: throw on Giroud on 80 minutes (for the woeful Moses), the little-played Emerson on 83 for Alonso, and the genuinely exciting youth product Callum Hudson-Odoi for just the final four minutes of the tie, to no effect.

The kindest words that can be said about Chelsea, at least since Christmas, if not before, is that they look out of sorts. Games that should have been easily won have been too easily lost. Defensive mistakes - which happen - have happened too regularly. There will be excuses; Morata, for example, is still only in his first season at the club, and is adjusting from being a second-stringer - but given that Chelsea are still one of the most expensively assembled teams in the Premier League, even if that expense has included the likes of Bakayoko, Berkley and indeed Morata - they should still be competing as keenly in the top four as any of those now above them. Then there's the constant riddle-wrapped-in-an-enigma that is Eden Hazard, never happiest than when playing in from the left, and yet frequently played as a false 9, even when centre forward options have been available. Hazard's petulant departure after being subbed against Manchester United last month spoke volumes about his working relationship with Conte, and Conte's demeanour in general.

The general belief is that his heart just hasn't been in it this season, that he was prepared to walk last summer, and only agreed his contract revision reluctantly. Even Chelsea legend Gianluca Vialli has confirmed to Sky Italia that his compatriot "can't wait to leave Chelsea", even if he remains verbally committed to seeing out the remaining 12 months of his contract.

They say that 90% of all communication is non-verbal, and Conte's body language has been telling volumes. Coupled with his continual abrasion of the Chelsea club leadership over transfers (or the lack of), it would be safe to say that it would be in both parties' best interest if they parted company. Perhaps, just not yet: with Chelsea still needing to redress an eight-point gap to fourth place with just seven games to play, you'd hope that the Italian has enough personal pride left to see the job out.