Psychotron Records Shop opens its doors

Pete’s dream of a Psychotron Records Shop becomes reality

When Pete was a teenager saving his pocket money and early wages to buy vinyl from all the local shops, especially Reddingtons Rare Records in Birmingham  it was just a pipe dream that one day he would have a shop of his own. This weekend we opened the physical doors to Psychotron Records, supporting the online business and Pete’s vinyl dream of a Psychotron Records Shop becomes reality.

Shops seem so expensive and we thought it would never be possible but one weekend we were in Sutton market and noticed many empty units. After speaking to the manager she showed us a closed unit which we could visualise as a great record shop.

We thought long and hard, chatted about it whilst in the sun in Cyprus and then took the plunge and signed on the dotted line.

Julie, the manager at the Market Village, Sutton Coldfield recommended a builder to sound proof the unit so we couldn’t hear the piped radio and can instead play wonderful tunes from amongst our varied stock.

 

 

 

So how do you take one empty unit and turn it into something that has been a dream in the back of your mind for a couple of decades? It seemed that purple paint, and duplicating the “office” of Psychotron Records might just be the answer…

The conversion work has taken a couple of weeks and here are some photos of work in progress.

 

 

The decorating included ‘Linda’s Wall’ where we pasted old and tatty posters to one wall – when this happened it looked more like the dream shop Pete had always visualised. Slowly and with lots of early starts and late finishes the Psychotron Records Shop started to be what it needed to be – a proper record shop.

Pete has been busy sorting through Psychotron stock to find the right mix of records for the new shop. We want it to cover as many genres and budgets as possible but with the focus being on collectible vinyl.

There are boxes of rock, prog, jazz, blues, funk, folk and reggae. Pete has made up some “under £10 boxes” of each as well as the collectible and rare pieces. This way we hope to encourage young collectors into the habit (hobby!).

We have also managed to squeeze in a small selection of our posters onto the walls to tempt customers to decorate their walls with something to look at whilst listening to their new tunes.

We have a record deck in store and will no doubt be playing some choice tracks, demoing any sales stock and probably giving everyone a chance to hear Slapran and The Electric Crayon Set off our own Psychotron Records Label too.

 

We are looking forward to seeing you all down there. Dan Reddington will be cutting the ribbon for an official launch on 4th June.

Unit 11, Market Village, South Parade, Sutton Coldfield.

We are open Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 11ish to 4ish and all day on Saturday.

 

Sutton isn’t far from Birmingham centre and easily accessible by train or bus … so what are you waiting for?

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