I bought a record in Smiths as late as 1989. It was Copperhead Road by Steve Earle.

And I was still buying CDs in there in 1997.

They used to have a surprisingly good computer game department.

:invader:  :pacman:

1974 35MM SLIDE - 1973 DATSUN 1171cc 120Y NJO170M by Jonathan, on Flickr

Fangirl Three wrote:

I bought a record in Smiths as late as 1989. It was Copperhead Road by Steve Earle.

At least you didn't buy a Smiths record from a bloke called Steve in the Copperhead Road branch of Our Price in Earl's Court.

In 1899.

The Fangirl Diaries, Wed Jan 4 1989 wrote:

Woke up after noon again. After lunch and Neighbours (poor conformist Jane, still, she'll work it out some day) walked into town to spend my £10 record token. While looking in Smiths (driven there by desperation) I ran into X and we arranged to meet up.

From the previous entries it seems likely that I'd seen the video of Copperhead Road on the Chart Show for 1988, in the Hot Shots section, on Jan 2 and that spurred me into buying the album. I also bought Another Music In A Different Kitchen and the only decent new song on that was Fast Cars. Gosh, I've just remembered walking back to the car with those two LPs in a plastic bag, under the big railway bridge in New Street, and somehow knowing that both of them would disappoint me.

It was a crucial turning point for me, that Christmas holiday 1988-89, it was where Keen Sixth Form Fangirl, who'd been fighting a desperate rearguard action since September, finally gave up and regenerated into More Easy Thrills Now Fangirl. I remember listening to The Ordinary Boys, on Viva Hate which I'd bought in the Asda sale on Dec 28 a few days earlier, and thinking 'Yes, **** them and their rattling cars, could it be that I'm going be a great poet and thinker'.

Copperhead road was quite the rage in second hand record shops in the early 90s.

Don't see it so much these days.

I don't think I've actually ever heard a full Buzzcocks album.

No, tell a lie I had a copy of Love bites that I taped off a CD I borrowed from a library.


Never did get anything on ESP.

Hackney Marsh Festival, 1975...

Dad? Is that you?

1957. A night's walk with the Knocker-Upper.

'Ah, but if I break down, there's me brûther.'

Is that music the original music? It doesn't sound like 1957 at all.

I assume it is.

For me, it has a slight coffee bar kind of feel to it.