HUDSONS RECORD AND TAPE SHOP OF CHESTERFIELD

This was i suppose my first ever record shop. I have memories of others: Record departments in Woolworths, Littlewoods, Top Shop in London even. But I am almost adament that this was my first one. The beginning of a sad obsession, the start of a beautiful distraction that would see me through the hardest of times and the reason that every time I move house the words 'logistical nightmare' are thrown around by whomever I discuss it with. In retrospect Hudson's was something of a life line and without it I might have ended up 'football' or tractor crazy spending all of my money on die-cast scale model's of early John Deere farm rigs. This place is at least partially to thank for me being here, right now and writing this...

I didn't buy my first record from here, that came from a weird pickwick-esque swivel stand on some indoor market, (Belle Stars - Sign of the Times 7inch) but pretty much everything I bought after that for a few years came from either Hudsons, Planet X or the market. (Planet X deserves an entire webpage and I will sooner or later at least do it the justice of including it here)

Hudsons in Chesterfield has been there forever. It rememebers the 60's. It probably remembers two world wars... fuck it, it probably remembers the civil war. For me it will forever be defined by the awesome and slightly see through yellow 13inch bags with the black Hudsons logo on them. In later years I used to play 'name that record' through the piss like hue that masked the album inside.

Even now years later I remember the staff that I used to annoy with my ridiculous requests, the once everyday records that filled the racks, some of which I would gladly fill my time machine with as and when it gets built. 5.99 an album, doubles 7.99, Japanese imports 14.99. There was the girl I always had a crush on who only seemed to work weekends, I used to try and impress her by bringing random hip US indie to the counter. Keith the owner, a deadpan local with a radio voice: I remember him giving Our Price Records a lengthy berating the week it opened a few doors down. His daughter worked there too, don't remember her name but I do recall her putting things aside for me, metal things, Motley Crue things.

This little shop saw me buy Now That's What I call Music 2 (The first one came from Martin's now John Menzies), It saw me through my metal years, my stint as a wanna be white rap-singer, my US indie years.

Today it's something of a compramise, one that the current climate has seen as necessary. Half of it is musical instruments the other half CDs and the tiniest of corners reserved for the stores former main stay. back in 1983 it was a shop of two halves, a shop of two doorways, one for the vinly boys and another for the more technologically advanced... the cassette lover. over time, the cassette side made way to cds, then dvds and now, now I have absolutely no idea as I couldn't bring myself to go in. I don't know if it was the explosion of memories waiting for me inside or that I feared being recognised and having to summarise the past twenty or so years, whatever it was that glued my feet to the cobblestone pavement it wasn't letting me inside that shop. The best I could do was take this picture as proof that I didn't dream the entire thing.