Decca Records - a small exhibition

Let's talk music. Actually, this post is prompted by a small exhibition I came across by accident. The choir I sing with rehearse in a couple of places and yesterday I got the venue wrong because I didn't check in my diary. As I approached the stairs in The Rose Theatre (Kingston upon Thames) I was stopped in my tracks by the LP's lining the metal banisters and the names of famous groups on the stairs. This was good. Very good. Very me! I'd walked into an exhibition about Decca, the big record label of the past. As I reached the floor where the choir usually rehearses it dawned on me I was in the wrong place. It was then I checked my diary, but I was reluctant to leave. I wanted time to take in this very nostalgic blast from my past. I decided I had time to get to where I should really be, and anyway if I was a few minutes late I'd just miss the warm up.

So I enjoyed a wander round reminiscing over records and the different coloured labels. Then I saw the photo of the Decca building I remembered from my childhood. Opposite it used to be a cinema where I remember going once with my mum and dad and brother, but because the dark inside caused my mum to have a headache we never went again! There also used to be a Police Box on the corner - ah the Tardis!

I've mentioned before that I still have all my vinyl records. I shall now be checking all the Decca ones to see if any have the label of my home town!

When I worked at Oxfam I attended a one day course on classifying records (their value/condition etc) in order to sell them (music was then my department at Oxfam). I also bought two books, one for popular music and one for classical to help identify and value records at the shop. I used it to see if I had any rarities in my collection. No real out and out works but some quite valuable copies, though anything is only worth what another is willing to pay for it. Not that I am selling anything!

Walking around the exhibition brought all this back. Ah! the good old days. I believe vinyl is making comeback but I don't think it will ever reach the heights it did in my day. In some ways vinyl is the record industry's equivalent to real books. You can smell them, feel them, look at those wonderful grooves and listen to the clicks, that noisy space between laying the stylus down and the song starting, and then there are the scratches, the jumps and sometimes even the warp! - everything that makes them a sensual and intimate experience. And don't forget the record sleeves, gatefold LP's and the artistry of the covers, and sometimes a lyric sheet (coveted by me!). And I've not even started on all the different record labels. I need a lie down just thinking about them all!