Sterns - RIP

Following yesterdays wonderful experiences in a record shop in Totnes, it was with great sadness that I read in the new issue of Songlines [issue 65 Jan-Feb 2010] of the demise of Sterns, the wonderful record store I originally discovered in the back-streets off Tottenham Court Road and has latterly resided around the corner from Warren Street Tube Station.


Fortunately, the website still remains and is a fantastic source of African - and other world/roots - music. So I will have to continue browse on-line rather than in-store.

But this led me to think of other stores that I miss...

Collets on Charing Cross Road - where I managed to get a copy of the self-same Melodiya LP on Tuvan throat singing that inspired Richard Feynman in his unrealised attempt to reach Kyzyl, the capital of Tuva.

The shop around the back of Green Park Tube Station where I bought several 7" singles of birdong.

The original Virgin record shop [definitely not Megastore] in Plymouth where I bought my copy of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells the Monday lunchtime after a live-in-the-studio performance was shown on BBc the previous Saturday evening. [Wiki article states that this was 01 December 1973, indeed a Saturday!]

Robinson's Records in Manchester, which was a useful source for my early American Sound Effects records.