My “High Fidelity” Moment?
I actually worked in and eventually managed a record shop in 1976-81, at a time that I suppose could be termed “the Golden Age of Vinyl”. I tried to always offer ‘customer-centered care’, as I suppose it would be termed nowadays, whether the punters wanted Queen, Abba or Pere Ubu and Chrome, so I guess I’ve hence been perhaps over-sensitive when interacting with staff in these environments. (I’m sure that I was an equal pain as a hospital patient, having managed NHS inpatient wards for the best part of 15 years, in my ‘grown up career’.) So, in this current ‘Retromanic Age of Vinyl’, I’m always interested to see whether record shop staff revert to the type described so well in Nick Hornby’s classic study of up-himself masculinity, High Fidelity. Hornby’s obnoxious Holloway record shop assistant has since become a literary classic characterisation of absurd self-importance.
For example, I always enjoyed being a customer in Ladbrook Grove’s Honest Jon’s in the mid-80s, when I was starting to amass a jazz collection. The staff there (which I think included the journalist Nick Coleman, as well as the eponymous Jon) were usually unfailingly polite, engaged, proactive and helpful, guiding me towards the classics of such greats as Mingus, Monk and Coltrane. (Mole Jazz were slightly more intimidating, with their beards and bellies and being slightly older in age. Ray’s Jazz was something in between.)
In contrast, being patronised today in another north London record shop, by a early 40s, bald, scruffy and overweight record shop assistant can be a dispiriting experience at my age, and I had one such today, when enquiring in my local emporium about the forthcoming Burial LP. Without going into detail, I felt that I was intruding on the staff member’s time, and he merely said “”I’ve read about it” without bothering to raise his head from his computer screen, and immediately moving off to another task. Luckily, his colleague proved to be an example of a ‘good record shop employee’, helpfully providing me with release details (28th Jan) and whether they would stock the item. I know, I need to develop a thicker skin, but still, these minor narcissistic hurts can still be upsetting, eh?
Now, this is obviously a minor and very much a First World gripe, but it did make me wonder about attitudes of staff in retail environments such as record shops (especially those flouting their ‘vinyl’ status), independent bookshops and cinemas. Most staff are great, I have to state here, but you still get the sense from some of “I don’t have to work here, I’m just taking time off from my band/my book/my film”. “Good manners cost nothing”, as my mother was wont to say (exasperatingly), and it’s a shame that the current fascination with 70s retail culture can also bring along with it a return to 70s retail rudeness. There is also the feeling that vinyl obsession is just a new elitism. Two new vinyl-only shops that have opened up in our vicinity seem to be run by and for middle-aged blokes (of which I am one, sure). But it still seems weird to me that this outmoded (yet aesthetic) format has become so retroactively popular, and I remain confused as to what it signifies (and it does signify something). After all, I’m sure that most men of my age and sensibility will remember the sheer terror of approaching a shop assistant in a Virgin Records shop circa 1972 (with their sooo-cool bean bag listening zones), worried that my request would be met either with a sneering dismissal or a small acknowledgement of acceptability? I still remember my purchase of Uncle Meat, in early 1973, on import, being given ‘the nod’. Maybe all this agonising is just a ‘return of the repressed’?
