My wife was recently over near Haye On Wye for work, and took the opportunity to spend a day in the 30 odd book shops there (that’s her thing, and a counterbalance to my record collection) where she spent a good bit of money. Got me thinking, would it be a good thing if a small town had a cluster of record shops (new and used), with some specialising in specific genres? Imagine making a weekend out of the digging and browsing, plus attending themed events and festivals surrounding it.
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Would be a great weekend away if there was. And cheaper than going to Bleecker Street and surrounding areas.
Speaking as a non-Londoner, that’s just London, no? Have made several trips to London over the years with the sole intention of digging for records all weekend, and would say there’s plenty of record stores with a particular focus on specific genres/scenes.
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Most of São Paulo’s record shops are concentrated in a very small area, which makes it nice to go look for stuff. Not enough disposable income here for record store owners to be too picky with the Genre exclusions, though.
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Yeh but it’s all so spread out in London, Bristol would be good for it, small enough to walk round with enough records shops with quite clear styles and good amount of venues and bars in the centre
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Very true, realise now I overlooked the “small town” bit of the OP!
Perhaps i didn’t put down my thoughts clearly enough, but the thing about Haye On Wye is how small it is and that it’s in stunning countryside (makes it great for a weekend of walking and pub lunches as well). Population of less than 2,000, so all the book shops are very close together. You can drift between them, and have a coffee or beer to relax. Plenty of really good record shops in my part of East London, but they aren’t really clustered. Still involves either a long walk or jumping on a bus or train. That’s why i thought about how great it wpuld be if a version of Haye existed, but for recod shops.
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I guess the question is how did Haye On Wye come to be? Accidental or someone with a vision. I could have just asked Wikipedia.
I think it was the vision of one man - a guy called Richard Booth.
Should of been a dj with that name Dick (in the) booth 
Are your book reading demographic more likely to travel for countryside walks than your record shopping demographic