Simons Records Yateley

Simon’s Records 1984 - 1994

Having parents who were big music fans definitely inspired and fuelled my love for music. I grew up to the sounds of Motown, 60’s soul, and Philadelphia and can’t remember never having the sound of music filling the house as we were kids. My first record buying experiences were mainly at the local record shop which was called Simon’s Records (after the owner) in a small village called Yateley. Here I would spend what little pocket money I had and any extra I earned from my paper round on the latest hot vinyl.
Simon’s was the typical independent record store that was almost obligatory on the high street of any town center and stocked a wide range of albums, cassettes, 12” and 7” singles. They had also stocked imported 12” releases and was a mecca for any DJ for miles around.

At the weekend I would head down to Simon’s with my mate Stephen Forbes who also shared my love for music and in particular 2-tone, and Ska music. As my school years came to a close the early 80’s spawned the electronic bands that have influenced many of today’s dance music artists such as Depeche Mode, Yazoo, Kraftwerk, Human League, OMD etc and my music taste changed once again. I can remember buying (and still own) a rare US import of the Yazoo track ‘Situation’ which was mixed by Francois Kevorkian who at the time was someone I had never heard of.

I left School at the first opportunity with not much more than an art ‘O-level’ and a desire to work with music in some way though at the time I had no idea how I would fulfill my dream. A few months later I accepted a job at Simon’s Records on as part of the government sponsored ‘Youth Training Scheme’ which meant I was working at the store four days a week and spending one day at college where I studied retail. To say I loved my job would be a huge understatement, I was working with music and getting paid to listen to music every day – what could possibly be a better I thought as a naive 16 year old.

As the years progressed and staff came and went I eventually became the manager of Uptown and later a director when the owner Simon decided that he wanted to sell the business to spend more time in Spain and indulge in his love for brewing beer!
By now the store had also branched heavily into video rental as the video boom took hold and the vinyl racks also became noticeably slimmer as CD’s became the must have format in the mid to late eighties. As rave culture spread across the nation in the summer of 89 I like many others became swept up by the new sound and of course the record racks were soon filled with a fresh new sound that started in the clubs of Chicago and later became more commonly know as House Music.

As more customers and local DJ’s started asking for more upfront releases I started searching out the latest tracks and would make a weekly pilgrimage to Greyhound Records in Battersea (South London) which was one of the biggest distributors of dance vinyl in the UK. Greyhound was a large company and every Friday would receive a huge shipment of US 12” singles plus boxes upon boxes of UK releases, white labels and promos many from small independent labels. It was a bit of a scrum getting to the vinyl, grabbing a deck to listen to the tracks and then grabbing as many copies of the hottest tracks you possibly could before piling them into the car and heading back down the M3 to the store. As news spread that Simon’s was the place to go to get the best house and dance vinyl I started to get the DJ bug again and decided to invest in a pair of Technics 1210’s having previously owned a rather cheap pair of mono 'twin decks' called a FAL50 (which I later sold to a mobile DJ.) It was a natural progression for me to start playing the tracks I was so busy sourcing and selling and so I started doing a few local gigs and eventually run my own nights. Meanwhile despite doing great business with vinyl 12” dance music the rest of the business was not so healthy, the early 90’s bought with it a recession that meant CD’s and records became for many a luxury item that most households simply couldn't afford. The video industry also went through some major changes as Sky and satellite channels started to eat into the home video market and heavyweights like Blockbuster started to push the small independent stores out of the high streets. Sadly Simon’s like many other businesses at the time became another statistic and the store closed it’s doors in 1994.













Simons Yateley - summer of 89 (I'm in the middle!)