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macroban Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> The organic material used to play records was the

> thorn needle.

>

> They could be purchased at Follet's record store

> at the bottom of Lordship Lane.


I'm presuming this place no longer exists? Can you recommend the nearest decent store....i.e. not HMV/Virgin etc

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Sadly missed - bought loads of albums and CDs from Fopp over the years, in Edinburgh mainly, but more recently in London. Big mitskae was to take on Music Zone and the idea that they were here to drive out the independents in a patent nonsense given they were pretty much independent in spirit themselves and more aligned to challenging HMV and Virgin.


As for the suggestion they only ever stocked mainstream stuff, this is slightly off the mark as well. It depends how obscure you want to go, but they had good coverage across the genres and sensibly priced. Maybe their smaller stores held smaller stock levels (understandably) but the niche shops will always be different. Doesn't necessarily make them better and it's all a question of taste anyway. Beanos left me stone cold - overpriced for the most part (certainly for the stuff I was interested in). No surprise they went to the wall - I hear they're still going but with more independent traders using the space?


Fopp for me were a brilliant shop - sad to say, they shot themselves in the foot by aiming to high and the poster who mentioned they should've stuck to more off high street locations was bang on. What on earth they were doing in Tottenham Court Road, Camden, Edinburgh's Rose Street, et al, all high rent locations when the smart money would've kept them in clover a little further afield.

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Hi Sean, thanks for the welcome. A thankless task and no mistake I'm sure. Always felt their website could've been better too. Never really felt they took enough advantage of that one. Either way, history now. I'm now championing Avalanche in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Bit of a swine to get to if you're in London admittedly, but great shops! London-wise, it's a tough call - the Record Exchange would be high on the list but they always stick those damn price stickers on that are a swine to remove!!


Ah well, long live the record fairs....!

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https://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/topic/989-fopp/page/2/#findComment-26561
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  • 1 month later...

I see that HMV have bought the "Fopp" name and the six Fopp stores that were trading profitably. The other 76 Fopp stores must have been running at a loss.


The quarter ending 30 June HMV shop sales are reported as down 20%.


It seems unlikely that there will ever be a record store in East Dulwich to replace Follets.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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