Oh, Monseur le Fopp, you are really spoiling us...

TCR has got confusing new categories, the main one being "alt/modern". Everything earlier than c.1995 comes under "classic rock/singer songwriter".

... which isn't strictly accurate as there's plenty of stuff from pre-1995 in the alt/modern section and there's a fair bit of stuff from post-1995 in classic rock/singer songwriter section, e.g. Can are in the alt/modern section while Faust are in classic rock, even more confusingly Frank Zappa is alt/modern and Petra Haden is classic rock!

Also pricing policy is a bit all over the (record) shop - I noticed the same CD on sale (in different sections but sometimes even in the same section) for £3, £5 and £7! And not just once either! So shop around. So I bought:

Lou Reed - Take No Prisoners £5
The Doors - Strange Days £3
Todd Rundgren - The Healing £1(!)
Lee Perry & Friends - Chapter 3: Live As One £1 (!!)

Chuffed with the last one as it's got a lot of tracks I've been looking for on it.

Of course, shitloads of other stuff I coulda bought and I think prices will tumble even further as the record industry lurches inexorably towards disaster and extinction *rubs hands with glee*

nice.

gotta be said, that hmv really has had to follow fopp lots; it's not the thing it used to be.

I will go tomorrow morning.

Hmm, bit of a way for a Soho-ite like me, but, if EDF stick a pickaxe through our cables again (only jokin', EDF), it's not like I'll be pushed for time.

Although there is quite a good one somewhere in the Soho area actually. I forget exactly where but it it on the junction of two roads at acute angles to each other and thus kinda juts out at you from the front. I bought Earth's first record there for a rip-off tenner...

Most of the tracks also appear on the 8CD re-issue of the wonderful Atlantic 1947-73(?) box set that came out c. 1987/88. Fopp are selling each of these for £3 each. Vols 7 & 8 are particularly fine: The Spinners "Mighty Love", Beginning Of The End "Funky Nassau", Persuaders "Thin Line Between Love & Hate", Roberta Flack, Donny Hathaway, and the absolutely STONKING "Compared To What" by Les McCann & Eddie Harris.

Witness the demise of all these over priced rip off mechants in the past decade: Andy's Records, Sam Goody, Tower Records, MVC, Our Price.

Replaced by specialist online shops such as boomkat, e-tailers such as Amazon, supermarkets selling new/chart Cds at discounted prices, plus Jersey/Guersney VAT loop hole etailers, and the growth of discount chains such Fopp and Music Zone.

parp!

I shall Report Back later. I may be some time.

Here it is:

http://www.fopp.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=2530

I used to have this anyway, but decided it was a bit too thorough, compared to the near-perfection* and boundless misery of the first Singles album. But I didn't get the first Singles album to replace it. It is, you may remember, a chance to hear "Your Navy Requests".

Postage is 1.50 if your order is less than 25 pounds.

I don't think I ever want to go to Fopp again after looking through that lot.

* I don't like "Top of the World".

-- RJG (RJ...), July 29th, 2006.

REALLY? You don't say!

**Cymbal Crash**

This is a sign from God.

It's massive!

Things of note:

They had new The WHO 12" by the window, in direct sunlight. They were warm to the touch. I expect them to have melted by the end of the week. Anything on the aisle ends by the window is in direct afternoon sunlight. They hadn't thought of that.

The Gram parsons Complete Reprise Sessions box set is £10 more expensive on TCR than on Shaftesbury Avenue. Worth the ten minute walk, I'd say.

They have some lovely lovely stuff from Ace going cheapish, such as the Deep Soul Treasures series, and some funk compilations. This is stuff that I used to pay 2775 pesetas for in Spain, which felt like an awful lot of money. Then they went up to 3200 pesetas and I could no longer afford them. I think they are still my favourite CDs, and I recommend them to anyone who hasn't got them.

They have the Westbound Funkadelic reissues for a fiver each. I would like them.

It looks like they have some nice things on vinyl.

You can walk right through the shop and come out the other side. I like that in a shop.

They have bucked the trend by giving greater prominence to CDs than DVDs near the entrance. Perhaps it is because of the sunlight problem, although I doubt it.

There is not much room in the aisles.

It is not as far up TCR as I thought. It could justifiably be considered to be on my way home.

It is much better than their horrible website.

If I were them, I would have a "board guy" outside Virgin, to speed up the inevitable decline of said Megastore.

I wonder if the Glasgow FOPP has them for £5. Hopefully someone can report back on that next time they're in.

I bought a copy of Nuggets for my friend. It was £10 in the £5 section but £5 elsewhere which was a little odd.

I have mixed feelings about the new TCR FOPP. One on hand, I love how its giving the big two fingers to said sad Megastore, a sort of "Look, this is how its done, losers!", yet I kind of miss how four or five years ago, that solitary store @ Cambridge Circus was the best kept secret in town.

Maybe I'm worried that once it does see off Virgin and the increasingly pathetic HMV, it'll abandon "stack 'em high and sell 'em cheap" and adopt the "stack 'em high and sell 'em expensive" policy of those stores.