There’ something poignant about Record Store Day coming round on 17 April with two of Birmingham’s independent record shops about to call it a day. With Tempest and Swordfish on the way out the only ones left vaguely near the city centre (that I know of) are Hard To Find Records and The Diskery. Oh, there’s a few things in the CiB shop too.
HTFR and Polar Bear are the Birmingham record shops taking part in Record Store Day.
I can’t mourn Swordfish and Tempest too much as it’s a while since I’ve bought anything from either of them (although over the years I’ve spent a large amount of money I didn’t have in both of them). Still sad though.
While we’re talking about closed down music-related places, the Academy has (presumably) done quite well by being relocated to Bristol Street while last year the planned works on Martineau Galleries were put on hold. The Oasis shopping centre has had a 5 year stay of execution. It’s hard to imagine who might step in and make use of the Academy over the next few years.
If anyone’s got any smart ideas then the letting agent is Alder Grimes and Gooderham and they’re on 020 7836 7826.
Absolutely gutted about Swordfish.
I’ll miss that smell.
Always found the rock and pop section in Swordfish to be pretty poor, but they used to be pretty well stocked on John Zorn albums, which was good.
I stopped shopping in Tempest a few years ago meself, mainly because I never found their prices to be that competitive and their range seemed to diminish over the years – probably a sign of what was to come, I guess…
Hang on, are you telling me the old Academy is just sitting there empty doing nothing? Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Well, probably not as I’m not sure exactly what I’m thinking other than BIG FUCKING SPACE IN THE MIDDLE OF TOWN!
Oh no.
Yeah ‘BIG FUCKING SPACE IN THE MIDDLE OF TOWN’ that has STILL got the same carpet from when it was the Hummingbird and probably hasn’t been cleaned since then. I think ‘shop’ might be a bit difficult with that space. As for gallery or workshop…
Really hate this. Not so bothered about Swordfish, those guys have never been to cool with me but Tempest, definitely a lot of respect for those guys and it really sucks to see the industry as it was die. A lot of history right there, a lot of good vibes. I seriously miss the vinyl days! Brum lost a bunch of good music stores before, now this is basically it.. Grrr