Great Record Shops - Resident in Brighton
Resident Music
27-28
Kensington Gardens, Brighton, East Sussex BN1 4AL
012736
06312
resident-music.com;
info@resident-music.com; @residentmusic
Monday-Saturday:
9am-6.30pm
Sunday
10am-6pm
Established
2004
Stock:
Vinyl, CD, Tickets, In-stores
Owned
by Derry Watkins and Natasha Youngs, Resident Music is one of the world’s best
record shops. It was winner of England’s Favourite Independent Record Shop in a
poll organised for Record Store Day. It’s a far cry from the day before they
opened, when Natasha, perched halfway up a ladder painting the shop, heard a
man shouting at her “This is the last
thing Brighton needs, another record shop. I guarantee you will be closed in six
months.”
Derry,
who was born in Horsham, West Sussex, has spent his life working in music. And
up until the birth of his son, he was also an avid gig goer, seeing up to four
bands a week. The first gig he attended was Motorhead, who made a huge
impression on him - and his ears, which were ringing for days. The gigs he
attended afterwards all seemed incredibly quiet. He has never forgotten the UK
Subs gig he attended as a teenager in Crawley. In those days, it was not
unusual for fights to break out at venues, but this gig was different. After a
fracas started, the band jumped into the crowd to join in. The fight turned
into a mass brawl and as he looked around, Derry seemed to be the only person
in the room not fighting.
Derry
only ever wanted to work in a record shop, and his first job was at Our Price
in London’s Tottenham Court Road. The Our Price chain was later bought out by
WH Smith, so Derry took the opportunity to move to the Virgin Megastore. The
laid-back atmosphere at Virgin was a bit of a shock compared to the corporate
Our Price. His job title was Roots Buyer and his training consisted of the
manager showing him the Roots section and saying “Here you go, fill it up.”
Derry made an instant impression, increasing sales rapidly as he brought in the
professional stock control methods he had used at Our Price. His efforts did
not go unnoticed, and he was soon promoted to work in the Virgin Head Office as
a Chart Manager, responsible for key releases. It was through his work here
that he rubbed shoulders with the aristocracy of rock, leaving him with lots of
great memories, including talking to Robert Plant about football for hours in a
hotel bar in Istanbul (they had a common bond as they both supported
underachieving teams, Wolves for Robert and Leyton Orient for Derry). Earlier
in the day he had witnessed Jimmy Page bartering over the price of a fake Rolex
on the street outside (apparently it was a great bargain, although I am sure
Jimmy had enough loose change to buy an original).
The
most memorable in-store event at Virgin was Oasis playing a midnight gig to
launch their second album (What’s the
Story) Morning Glory, at which Noel goaded Liam into walking out so that he
(Noel) could play the solo show he had wanted to do in the first place.
Although he enjoyed working for Virgin, Derry felt they were losing direction.
He found it frustrating that music no longer seemed important to the company,
which was concentrating its efforts on other aspects of the business such as
airlines and phones. Following a restructuring of the company, Derry worked on
the V-phone project which turned Virgin record shops into mobile phone stores.
While working on this project he met Natasha, who had worked her way up the
company. The duo shared a vision of opening their own, great record shop as
opposed to changing other people’s into phone shops. Soon they were an item and
Derry moved to Brighton to live with her.
Accepting
the offer of voluntary redundancies from Virgin, Derry and Natasha took off to
tour the world for six months. Evenings were spent in exotic locations sharing
bottles of wine as they planned to open their record shop.
Resident
Music opened in 2004. Initially the shop only sold CDs but they quickly
responded to customer requests for releases on vinyl, putting in a vinyl rack
which now accounts for a major percentage of the shop’s turnover. There is a
low counter, so the staff don't appear intimidating. This is a great feature.
So many record shops of the past had high counters that separated the staff
from the customers. I recall shops that looked like a coconut shy where you
could only see the heads of the staff above the counter, which certainly
created a barrier.
Resident
have incorporated many appealing design elements. The shop is neat, clean and
browser friendly. The racks are full but not overcrowded, with reviews added to
the covers of all new releases. The shop has also worked hard to capture the
attention of the student population. Each year they give away fresher’s packs
consisting of posters, samplers, badges and a welcome letter providing useful
information about the city. Resident embraces social networking and makes
regular use of Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, including a daily Album of the
Day feature. The shop sells tickets for more than 250 local events, a great way
of getting people into the store. Resident also has a weekly mailout to more
than 15,000 customers. The Resident team are happy to offer musical guidance to
anybody looking to discover new music. They even guarantee cheery smiles.
The
XX, Laura Marling and Mumford & Sons have all played in-stores at Resident
Music to help promote their debut albums. The most memorable day was when
Jarvis Cocker, a champion of independent record shops, worked behind the
counter at the time his Further
Complications album was released. He
was supposed to stay for an hour but had such a great time that he stayed for
more than four hours, serving and chatting to more than 200 customers.
I
have a lot of admiration for what Derry, Natasha and the team at Resident Music
have achieved. They opened the shop at a time when more than 100 independent
record shops a year where closing. The golden days of music retailing were
over, the free stock had stopped arriving and record companies had switched
their promotional support to supermarkets and online retailers. People thought
they were mad to open a new shop at such a time. But Derry and Natasha have
proved that if your model is correct, if you are prepared to work hard, if you
are innovative, if you support local music and the community and if you offer
great customer service, then you can succeed.
Resident
Music’s achievements have been recognised by the music industry. The shop has
won the title Best Independent Record Shop in the UK three times (2011, 2014 and
2015). It was also voted Best Indie Shop In The Country both times that Record
Store Day organisers ran a public poll. In the lead-up to RSD in 2016, BBC 6
Music’s Lauren Laverne broadcast live from the shop and included a DJ set by
local musician and record shop supporter Norman Cook.
Derry
and Natasha can be proud of their achievement, proving all the doubters wrong
and thoroughly deserving the awards the shop has received.
This piece is taken from the book The Vinyl Revival and the Shops That Made it Happen
The
books of Graham Jones are available in record shops or online. The latest book
The Vinyl Revival and the Shops That Made it Happen' has been turned in to a
film. It is released on 13 April on DVD and is available in record shops.
Distributed by Proper Music.
www.thevinylrevivalfilm.com
@Revival_Vinyl
For
film screenings and talks contact Graham at graham@lastshopstanding.co.uk
Over 100 record shop
articles on this blog - Check them out
The story of this record
shop can be heard in The Vinyl Revival Record Shop Podcast. Sign up here. Each
week features comic tales from the crazy world of record retailing.
https://soundcloud.com/recordshoppodcast
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