Record Store Day Shops - Day 34 - Crash Records - Leeds



Crash Records

35 The Headrow, Leeds, West Yorkshire LS1 6PU
0113 2436743
Monday-Saturday 9.30-6pm
Sunday 11am-4pm
Established 1985
Stock: Vinyl, CD, Pre-owned, Merchandise, In-stores, Tickets

Crash Records is owned by ex-Sony sales rep Ian De-Whytell. It opened originally in Woodhouse Lane before moving to a prime shopping location on The Headrow in Leeds city centre. Ian is an avid supporter of Leeds United. One of his first musical introductions was when his parents bought him “Back Home” by England’s 1970 World Cup squad. The record was constantly on the record player along with the B-side “Cinnamon Stick”. The first record Ian bought with his own money was “School’s Out” by Alice Cooper and, many years later when he became a sales rep for Sony, he was delighted to be introduced to Alice backstage at Birmingham NEC.


Ian obtained his first album, Ziggy Stardust by David Bowie, in a most unusual way. Leeds had a record shop called Scene And Heard, owned by Len Lyons, and each Saturday in the Yorkshire Evening Post they ran a competition called Len’s Ten. The paper would print the 10 best-selling singles in Len’s shop, and the reader was invited to guess what the following week’s Top 10 would be. Young Ian sent his entry on a postcard and correctly predicted nine out of 10. He was thrilled not only to see his name printed in the paper but to receive a record token to spend at Len’s where he obtained his beloved Ziggy Stardust album, which he still plays more than 40 years later. Len’s Ten became an obsession with young Ian and over the next two years he won the competition 15 times, rapidly expanding his record collection in the process.

After leaving school Ian worked at the Leeds Permanent Building Society. Although he enjoyed the work he found himself looking at the clock, longing for his lunch break which he invariably spent trawling around the record shops of Leeds, spending his wages on an ever-expanding record collection.

One of his favourite shops was Virgin, where he landed the job of assistant manager. He had some fabulous times at Virgin but nothing to top the drama of the day Motorhead turned up for a personal appearance in the shop.

Leeds city centre could be an intimidating place on Saturday afternoons in the 1980s. Gangs of punks, skinheads, mods and rockers would roam the city and often clash. On the day Motorhead showed up Leeds United were playing Manchester United, fans were drinking in the city pubs in advance of the game, and the atmosphere was like a tinderbox. Ian was beginning to think this was the worst timed personal appearance in the history of personal appearances. The event was held on the first floor and by the time Lemmy and the boys arrived, the queue was jam-packed up the stairs, out of the shop and halfway around the block. Lemmy was swigging from a bottle of Jack Daniels and Ian was sent outside to check on the crowd. The atmosphere was tense as the queue was moving so slowly, not helped by many fans copying their hero and swigging alcoholic drinks. The band was quite happy to take time talking to each fan, not realising they had another five hundred to see. Soon a heavy police presence surrounded the crowd and Ian was pulled aside by the commanding officer and told that unless he sorted the situation out, the police would arrest him. Ian did his best to placate the crowd and got Motorhead to speed up the signing to a pace that was sufficient for him to avoid being arrested.



Jumping ship in the 1980s, Ian took a job at Virgin’s rival HMV. He found the move to be quite a culture shock. HMV were far more professional and proactive than Virgin. Everything at HMV was target-based and there was pressure all the time to increase sales.

In the 1980s HMV expanded quickly. Ian was given a pay rise and sent to work as an assistant manager in Manchester in an even bigger store. The shop would buy vast quantities of newly-released singles and Ian and co-buyer Derek would often have heated debates on how many copies of a new release they should purchase. Ian was a big fan of Elvis Costello who, under the pseudonym The Imposter, released “Pills and Soap”, a single which was an attack on the changes in British society brought on by Thatcherism, brought out to coincide with the run-up to the 1983 UK general election.

Derek was cautious, but Ian was confident the record would shift vast quantities. As usual, Derek was right, and after the election, which Margaret Thatcher won easily, nobody was interested in buying the record, leaving the shop with a lot of stock. One lunchtime Elvis Costello himself came into the shop, and started browsing through the LP racks. Ian asked the singer if he would sign a few singles - not mentioning that this was as a last resort to get rid of them. Elvis obliged, and what was once an overstocked item sold out in the next few hours.

Here was an object lesson in the importance of getting records signed as a way to generate sales. When a young Mancunian band started receiving praise from the media, Ian contacted Rough Trade, the band’s label, to request some signed copies of the band’s forthcoming album. Rough Trade obliged and sent 50 autographed copies of the Smiths debut album. Ian now wishes he had bought a few for himself, as they are probably worth a fortune now. He did keep one copy, which is framed and takes pride of place above his fireplace.

Ian went on to manage his own store in Hull before securing a job as a sales rep at Sony. Ian is full of praise for the way that Sony looked after their staff. He recalls works outings to see Bruce Springsteen and getting the best seats in the house for Rolling Stones concerts, plus a football trip to Wembley to see England beat Holland 4-1. 


The highlight of the Sony years was when he attended the first Michael Jackson concert at Roundhay Park in Leeds. There was a special backstage area for Sony staff and guests, and before the start of the gig the legendary Epic PR man Jonathan Morrish wandered over to say that Michael was keen to have some children dancing with him on stage for the encore. So it was that towards the end of the show in front of 70,000 fans, Ian’s 12-year-old sister Rachel and half a dozen other volunteers were ushered through to the backstage area. Ian remembers Michael Jackson coming on stage for the encore holding his little sister’s hand. There wasn’t a prouder big brother in the world at that moment.
Sony often ran competitions among the sales team. One of these was that whoever exceeded their target by the highest percentage on the new Midnight Oil album Diesel and Dust would win a holiday in Australia. Ian was determined to win. To say that he exaggerated the sales potential of the album was an understatement and shop buyers in his area were given the firm impression that this album would be the Australian Sgt. Pepper. Ian won the competition by a mile, achieving sales 1,400% over budget. The second-best performance was from a rep who gained a 500% improvement. Ian was called into head office, expecting to receive his prize. Instead he received a serious telling off from his bosses who felt that to win by that margin he must have oversold the album (which he had) and that Sony were soon likely to be inundated with shops wishing to return unsold copies (which they were). Ian was gutted and felt that it was just an excuse to avoid the expense of sending him to Australia.



The Midnight Oil album sold below expectations, although it did produce the Top 10 single “Beds are Burning”. For the next two years Ian would visit his customers and hear the familiar cry “When am I going to get my returns note for this Midnight Oil album?” It did teach Ian a valuable lesson; not to oversell an album, as it certainly strained his relationship with a few of his customers. 
After 12 years at Sony, Ian took voluntary redundancy. He released a Leeds United greatest hits CD as a joint venture with his friend Kevin Smith - a resounding success which sold around 20,000 copies - before buying Crash Records from his old friend Steve Mulhaire.
Crash was an exciting new challenge. He had called on the shop every week when he was a Sony rep, so it was exciting to be able to implement his ideas to improve sales. He was lucky insofar as in 1987 Leeds had three great independent record shops all vying for trade: Way Ahead, Jumbo and Crash. Within a few weeks of Ian purchasing the shop, Way Ahead closed, leaving Crash and Jumbo to pick up the extra business. This included gig ticket sales, which have since proved to be vitally important to the ongoing success of the two remaining independent retailers in Leeds.  
He credits his long-serving manager Paul Hodgson for being a great buyer who instinctively knows what will sell in the shop, and the fact that over the last few years they have doubled the space given over to vinyl and are looking to allocate even more.
A few years ago, Crash had a basement sales area dedicated to dance music, and in the early years of his time at the shop this was probably the most profitable area of the business, but that started to decline and was gradually closed. In its heyday, it attracted many of the local DJs and several of the Leeds United team. The most frequent football-playing visitor to the shop was Rio Ferdinand. Rio used to park his Ferrari outside the front door, blissfully unconcerned about parking tickets, and head downstairs for his regular fix of music.
Leeds is a university city and the shop is popular with students. Ian has found that when they move away from home for the first time they like to check out the cool bars, and the cool shops, and thus tend to embrace independent rather than mainstream record shops. The gig tickets which the shop sells not only bring customers into the shop, but also give Crash a presence on all the advertising by the local music venues.
In 2015 Elliot Smaje, who owned the record shop Wall Of Sound in Huddersfield, moved his vast vinyl stock into the basement of Crash, giving vinyl fans another reason to visit this wonderful record shop.

This piece is taken from the book The Vinyl Revival and the Shops That Made it Happen

Over 220 independent record shops featured in The Vinyl Revival and the Shops That Made it Happen



Available at your local record shop or online at http://smarturl.it/vinylrevival

Look out for the film based on the book. The Vinyl Revival'  which is released on Record Store Day  April 13th. The film comes free with the album The Vinyl Revival. Only available in independent record shops on RSD



Check out the trailer


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