Do you remember the good old days before the Ghost Town?

[Cosmic Joe]

6 minutes ago, Mr. Alli said:

No there isn't.

There's thirteen records and Assai in Union St.

The only other record shops in Dundee are Assai in the Ferry and the greatest of them at this point ...

 

That's what I meant - a proper record shop. 

[CityDave94]

On one of my many random ground visiting trips years ago I had to make a quick exit from Edinburgh back up the road to Inverness before the weather took a turn for the worst. It might have been a Hearts game called off, so my back up plan was then the Raith v Alloa game which ffs I took in about 3 seconds of while passing the ground on the train such were the conditions causing that train delays as well. I mean it was really bad and after the train could go no further than Kirkcaldy I ended up in Glenrothes town center via bus waiting for about 30 minutes for the next bus to Perth, I took in my surroundings......

I feel I have to explain myself to end up in Glenrothes so there was my excuse.

Anyone familiar with Glenrothes remember when before it wasn't someone's 1960's/70's idea of an urban concrete utopia and it actually looked nice. I mean places like Cumbernauld and East Kilbride must have had their charms at some point in their existence? Unbelievable that some bam architect won council and peer praise, shit loads of awards and therefore more work bombing other town centers around Scotland

And if you want to have a pop at that polished turd in Inverness city center called Upper Bridge Street feel free.

Can anyone claim concrete jungles and concrete flat roofed lego buildings actually improved any town or city center?

[johnnydun]

Speaking of record shops in Aberdeen, an old mate of mine owned The DJ Box on The Green, he still DJ's at dance events and I noticed he was at the one in Dundee last year.

Fopp was also a decent record shop, sure it was on the Netherkirkgate?

[Deanburn Dave]

Bruce's in Falkirk was a great place to waste an hour looking at LP's. 

[coprolite]

I did enjoy spending ages in record shops and in Second hand book shops. Both are still widely available if a bit more niche and less widespread than before. 

Nostalgia for Woolworth's, debenhams someone even mentioned Burtons is just silly. Thet were all shit and would, in their day, have been seen as the big corporate b*****d putting local establishments out of business. 

The much lauded local butcher and baker were usually shit and worse than the big supermarkets that replaced them. There was a range of quality with the supermarkets landing right in the middle. Some above average ones were lost but the very best still remain. 

When i was a youngster a filter coffee was a sophisticated treat and maxwell house in styrofoam was the usual. Pizza land or a bad chinese was the hight of culinary adventure. My local high street (near end only) has four or five independent coffee bars, a nepalese, lebanese, vitnamese, 2 curry houses,  4 chinese, 3 pizza shops, not counting the italian restaurant, a greek taverna, an old style pub with live music, 2 more wine bar style pubs, a cocktail bar, a bookshop, a toyshop, a baker, an independent value retailer that sells random shite,a draper, 3 barbers, 2 nail bars and a live music venue. If i go the other way in 10 mins walk i have 2 german and two uk supermarkets, home bargains (x2) , b&m, poundland, tk max, shoe zone, several places to fix the car, a full range of drive thru (sic) fast food and chain coffee outlets. 

For browsing music, online is a different but much better experience than record shops. You can actually hear the music before buying and don't have to trek from say, aberdeen to Edinburgh's cockburn street to get a reasonable selection of dub, then take your chances on the two or three records you can afford. I don't think online replicates or improves old bookshops. 

I live in a largish growing city, and the city centre has bits that are boarded up and a shiny new shopping centre with expensive designer outlets. 

If people can save money on every day food and clothing and not buy it through ridiculously inefficient and expensive old fashioned supply chains they have money to spend elsewhere. That's partly how and why we are shifting to a service economy. 

Not all of the places that were good for old fashioned retail will be good for service provision. Plenty old market towns have reinvented themselves as cultural centres. Plenty haven't though. 

But not everywhere is in decline. There's some winners in among the losers. Change isn't necessarily bad. 

[alta-pete]

49 minutes ago, Boghead ranter said:

The one on the left is deffo a Cortina. The one on the right might be a Zephyr, or even a fancy Escort.

MkII Cortina and a Vauxhall Viva

[coprolite]

37 minutes ago, approximately dave said:

On one of my many random ground visiting trips years ago I had to make a quick exit from Edinburgh back up the road to Inverness before the weather took a turn for the worst. It might have been a Hearts game called off, so my back up plan was then the Raith v Alloa game which ffs I took in about 3 seconds of while passing the ground on the train such were the conditions causing that train delays as well. I mean it was really bad and after the train could go no further than Kirkcaldy I ended up in Glenrothes town center via bus waiting for about 30 minutes for the next bus to Perth, I took in my surroundings......

I feel I have to explain myself to end up in Glenrothes so there was my excuse.

Anyone familiar with Glenrothes remember when before it wasn't someone's 1960's/70's idea of an urban concrete utopia and it actually looked nice. I mean places like Cumbernauld and East Kilbride must have had their charms at some point in their existence? Unbelievable that some bam architect won council and peer praise, shit loads of awards and therefore more work bombing other town centers around Scotland

And if you want to have a pop at that polished turd in Inverness city center called Upper Bridge Street feel free.

Can anyone claim concrete jungles and concrete flat roofed lego buildings actually improved any town or city center?

They're all new towns. There wasn't a Glenrothes before the concrete jungle. I think cumbernauld and EK (and Livingston) are the same but don't quote me on that. 

They were built for people decanted from unsanitary crowded slums in Edinburgh and Glasgow. 

[CityDave94]

7 minutes ago, coprolite said:

They're all new towns. There wasn't a Glenrothes before the concrete jungle. I think cumbernauld and EK (and Livingston) are the same but don't quote me on that. 

They were built for people decanted from unsanitary crowded slums in Edinburgh and Glasgow. 

Maybe they started of as villages long before development and the main focus hub shifted away from what was the town square or the Main or High Street to the new lego built shopping center, basically reinventing the place as a shitehole. Places like New Cumnock and Alness could have gone down that path but then we would have had to send in the RAF to bomb those places. Its interesting to note that those so called 'brave statement making' architects are now few and far between.

 

[Arch Stanton]

Paisley town centre suffers more than most, not only because Glasgow is on our outskirts but also having 2 massive shopping centres within a 10 minute drive. Shops which closed in the town centre and relocated to Braehead include the likes of Curry's, Waterstones, Game (before they went tits up), mobile shops like 3 and EE...even the McDonald's closed. It really is a shite state of affairs.

One record shop remains, the Record Market, when there used to be over half a dozen.

[HeWhoWalksBehindTheRows]

12 hours ago, approximately dave said:

I would easily spend an hour in this shop in Inverness.

In Inverness this shop below was the go to place for your punk and indie vinyl and or if you simply wanted to browse and listen to The Ramones or The Buzzcocks blasting out of the shop's speakers.

Pentangle was mint, but the staff were c***s, watching you like hawks, following you round the store lije you were going to steal something. 

I mean, don't get me wrong, we were going to steal shit and we did there on a regular basis, but I don't like to be pre judged.

Pandoras Box was another cracking shop for posters and random shite.

Edited December 26, 2022 by HeWhoWalksBehindTheRows

[Jacksgranda]

12 hours ago, TxRover said:

Sent me down a rabbit hole, finding the 1999 original of this picture:

https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4425470

…and that ended up with a 2014 new story on shops missing in Aberdeen…

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/378589/13-aberdeen-shopping-institutions-that-sadly-arent-there-anymore/

 

I remember most of them - especially the ones in b&w photos...

[Jacksgranda]

3 hours ago, tongue_tied_danny said:

There's a decent second hand bookshop in an old church in Inverness. 

Does a great trade in bibles by all accounts...

[tongue_tied_danny]

2 hours ago, coprolite said:

 

For browsing music, online is a different but much better experience than record shops. You can actually hear the music before buying and don't have to trek from say, aberdeen to Edinburgh's cockburn street to get a reasonable selection of dub, then take your chances on the two or three records you can afford. I don't think online replicates or improves old bookshops. 

 

I agree with this. I only ever buy music online now.

The record shops take the piss with prices. HMV, for example, currently has a Cleo Sol album on its shelves for £54.99. The same album can be downloaded from Bandcamp for £7. 

How many people can regularly afford 50 bar for an album?

[pozbaird]

12 minutes ago, tongue_tied_danny said:

I agree with this. I only ever buy music online now.

The record shops take the piss with prices. HMV, for example, currently has a Cleo Sol album on its shelves for £54.99. The same album can be downloaded from Bandcamp for £7. 

How many people can regularly afford 50 bar for an album?

I’m completely sold on the online music experience, although, if my long list of favourite bands still release CDs, I’ll buy the physical CD to add to the collection on a big shelving unit. Where my online experience has really came to the fore for me, is in discovering new or different artists. Back in the day, I’d find out about new bands by reading ‘Sounds’ or listening to Tommy Vance on the radio etc.

These days, as an example, I can go into the Amazon music app, type in the name of a band I really love, say Wolf Alice, Silversun Pickups or Stone Sour… and below will be a huge ‘if you like this artist you may like these’ section. I must have spent hour upon hour trying the suggestions, see if anyone I like, and hadn’t even heard of, pops up. Have discovered tons of great music that way. Recently, I typed in ‘Goldfrapp’ to the Amazon music app, and discovered a band I thought were excellent - The Midnight.

Edited December 26, 2022 by pozbaird

[BFTD]

4 hours ago, Alert Mongoose said:

In my uninformed opinion most of the demise can be traced to the disappearance of What Every Woman Wants outlets.

My first paid job was at a branch of What Everyone Wants when they were running on fumes and just trying to rake in a bit more cash before folding. Every time that chain comes up, there are always some eye-opening stories from former employees.

29 minutes ago, tongue_tied_danny said:

I agree with this. I only ever buy music online now.

The record shops take the piss with prices. HMV, for example, currently has a Cleo Sol album on its shelves for £54.99. The same album can be downloaded from Bandcamp for £7. 

How many people can regularly afford 50 bar for an album?

TBF, retailers were regularly charging £18 for some new CDs in the mid-Nineties, which is about £33 in todays money. How mental does that seem in retrospect?

As physical media's a proper niche industry now, it's not much of a surprise that bricks and mortar retailers have to charge so much to make it worth their while, but it still blows my mind to see new pressings of albums selling for £25-£50 in HMV that they couldn't give away for 99p thirty years ago.

[Hillonearth]

2 hours ago, coprolite said:

They're all new towns. There wasn't a Glenrothes before the concrete jungle. I think cumbernauld and EK (and Livingston) are the same but don't quote me on that. 

They were built for people decanted from unsanitary crowded slums in Edinburgh and Glasgow. 

Both EK and Cumbernauld (as well as Irvine, which everybody forgets was also a new town) were built onto existing villages...Cumbernauld village is maybe half an hour's walk from the centre right on the north edges of the town, whereas EK village is more central, sort of east of the rail station and north of the shopping centre.

It's a weird setup in EK village though...it's like they've tried to preserve the original features but haven't got it quite right. It just feels a bit artificial and sterile - not unlike when you go through the England exhibit at Epcot and everything feels just that wee bit off.

[TxRover]

5 hours ago, approximately dave said:

Inglis Street before being pedestrianised. A few points here you can see on the right the Carlton Bar which also served as a music venue upstairs. Trying to remember if after it closed in the late 80's if it was turned into Hatchard's Bookshop. There was also an Intersport which had two floors and was excellent for football tops. Both names also gone now.

Someone had the bright idea of demolishing that unique building on the end which was painted sky blue with white on the window frames and replacing it with a boring modern block with zero personallity. Much of Inverness city center lost its character during the 70's and 80's due to replacing buildings that could have easily just had some work done on them being replaced with concrete block carbuncles. Recently there's been a trend to keep these old stone buildings as seen in Castle Street, there is some hope, but probably too little to late.

The well known and infamous to some 'Boots Corner' High Street / Inglis Street during by the looks of it from the cars the late 70's. Boots before they moved into the Eastgate shopping center used to have a fairly large space on the 1st floor for records. You could by former chart 7'' singles for 49p which I did when I had my first record player, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Sparks, Skids, The Stranglers, The Beat and The Jam plus a few others all in one purchase were the first records I ever bought.

There was at that time another chemist in town who sold records, Christies who were on Queensgate just besides the entrance to the Victoria Market. The basement was used for this purpose and there was a more independent feel about the place than Boots with a preference in taste by those who worked there into playing the metal bands and the classic rock bands of the time rather than chart music. We had Woolworths on the High Street as well which sold mainly chart music and was relevant name back then and a John Menzies which opened around the time that the first Star Wars film came out, John Menzies now WH Smiths.

Imagine chemist shops selling records, but it was a thing.

In the picture are those two cars both Ford Cortinas but different 'marks'?

The Boots picture is credited to Ken MacKenzie/Highland Council, dated 1976/1977. As @Boghead ranter says, the car on the left is a Cortina Mk II, on the right the call of a Zephyr looks pretty decent. I doubt an Escort because that looks to be dual headlamps.

[sophia]

4 hours ago, Boghead ranter said:

The one on the left is deffo a Cortina. The one on the right might be a Zephyr, or even a fancy Escort.

The one in front is certainly a mk2 Cortina.

My extensive research over the last few minutes leads me to believe that the one behind is a mk3 

 

 

 

 

[alta-pete]

Fuxake. It’s a Vauxhall fucking Viva!!

 

[CityDave94]

26 minutes ago, TxRover said:

The Boots picture is credited to Ken MacKenzie/Highland Council, dated 1976/1977. As @Boghead ranter says, the car on the left is a Cortina Mk II, on the right the call of a Zephyr looks pretty decent. I doubt an Escort because that looks to be dual headlamps.

Its not an Escort, my father had a Mk1 and they were sleeker and smaller than the Cortina and the grill and headlamps are different from the car shown. I don't think its a Zephyr either as its not chunky enough and I don't remember seeing many Zephs around Inverness at all, so possibly more likely a MK III Cortina it has dual headlamps which was a a thing on those cars.

 

Nah on second thoughts the cortina had 4 doors

Edited December 26, 2022 by approximately dave