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My band, Red For Dissent
Agreed. I used to walk up there at lunchtime and would always look in the windows along Denmark Street. Having said that, I never particularly liked actually shopping there - it was overpriced, not particularly well stocked and many of the staff (especially at Rhodes) were total arseholes. I did like Roka's, before it was Rockers, it was a good place to buy pickups and pots and bits of hardware in the pre-internet days.
I hate the area now though, since they demolished the Astoria the whole place has felt like a big building site, the atmosphere of that end of Oxford Street, Charing Cross Road and all the backstreets has completely changed. Denmark Street itself feels like its on artificial life support and someone should just make the decision to switch it off.
Same thing has happened in New York
The shops seemed incredible - Aladdin's caves stuffed with beautiful eye candy in the form of guitars of all shapes and sizes.
I recall a lot of the staff being too cool for school and pretty intimidating. They'd generally pull a guitar off the wall, demonstrate their chops with a flurry of notes (it was the late 80's) and then hand the guitar to me to play (very averagely) in front of the rest of the punters.
I spent the whole day there trying out guitars if all shapes and sizes. I ended up with an Ibanez RG750, bought from Rose Morris for the price of my entire year's savings.
About 20 years later I worked around the corner from Denmark St and sometimes would pop down to browse the shops. It was already starting to lose the buzz it once had.
Today things are very different. The last four guitars I have bought online and tried out in the comfort of my own home. I've kept all of them.
I miss the perceived glamour and aesthetics of the Denmark St shops, but not much else.
Edited to say that I doubt whether I'll recall any of my online purchases with such fondness.
In my youth there were three music shops in Kilburn High Road: Unisound and two Blanks. Long gone and seems remarkable now.
As far as ‘vintage’ went, it was mostly stuffed with knackered old junk.
I had a set up from Graham Noden last year - who is now above Regent Sounds. I didn’t know (well, hadn’t remembered) that back in 1990 he was in the basement of Andy’s (and did a short notice set up my Precision Bass).
If Harry Potter movies ever featured a guitar shop it would've been Andy's and that place would never pass a health and safety test now, but it had a charm and Graham Noden did some great work for me when he was there.
Post 2000, I loved the gear carried in Sound Control and got many a decent deal in there from 'the non-arsehole', ex-Denmark St staff who started working there. It was a good place to hang out and try stuff at lunchtime.
Vintage and Rare, now No Tom's, was always interesting and Brian and the staff at Wunjo are always great, as are those at Regent Sounds and Macari's
The 12 Bar was good and I did a few gigs at The Alley Cat which felt like you'd gone back in time to a 60s club.
It's not what it was though, which is a shame, but I have fond memories of it up to a point.
in awe of it all. However from the next time I went some 7-8yrs later onward it seems to get
progressively worse each time to the extent that now I have near zero interest in going there.
Bought somethings in NoToms just before Xmas (used to be Vintage and Rare), they treated me pretty well. And gave me some money back after purchase (and offered to take it back) once I checked out the amp I bought and their description wasn't quite accurate. But I suppose they should have got it right in the first place!
Plus plenty of good luthiers there / nearby, eg Andy Gibson (now working in 66 sounds), Stairway to Kevin, Tim Marten (just by the tube) - I rate all 3 very highly.
When Chris Trigg ran Vintage and Rare he showed me the courtyard behind the shop where the sex pistols rehearsed and graffiti'd it - pretty cool. 'Nuff said about Chris and his behaviour.
I do hope it survives as I've been going there / been overcharged for 43 years and counting.
Ever seen this
http://www.rabswoodguitars.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/RabsWoodGuitars/
My Youtube page
I also miss Shades Records in St Anne's Court.
Also in St Anne's Court, a decade or so earlier, there was a science fiction/fantasy bookshop called Dark They Were and Golden Eyed - a precursor of Forbidden Planet. I used to get my dad to go there when he was in London, to get US import Robert E. Howard books for me.
There used to be so many great record shops in the West End. Hardly any now...