Running a London record shop in the 90's: Interview with Jay from Elite Records, Victoria

[pearsall]

For those of you who remember the vinyl days, you might enjoy this interview I've just done with Jay Burgess (aka Equinox) about his days running Elite Records in Victoria, which back in the late 90's/early 00's was one of my favorite record stores in London for hardcore and general rave goonery. OK, sure, it's not really normal RDB fare, but if you are/were a vinyl junkie, it will bring back lots of nice memories, and if you only got into dance music in the digital era, then it's a bit of history for you to ponder.

 

If you're interested, check it out here.

 

What was the weirdest thing to ever happen in the shop?

 

One of the best was when a guy came running in one day, says, "Alright guys how’s things? Can I grab one of your plastic bags? Gotta shoot, see ya later!"

 

We were going through some orders on the phone so we didn't really take much notice of him coming in as it was so quick, however a couple of minutes later the shop had police outside and people were like "He went in there". The place was searched and we were confused thinking really no one's been in ... anyway, he’d only gone and robbed the bank!

[haste]

Great interview, really enjoyed that.

 

I've actually never heard of Elite before, I guess it's not really the kind of stuff that I used to buy so that makes sense. Sounds like a very similar story to many of the other shops that were around town. Good memories!

[pearsall]

hey Haste, glad you enjoyed it!

[Relm]

Brilliant interview! Never went to Elite records but that interview was amazing in the way that while reading it i could go back and think about all the memories i had visiting record shops on the weekly ie Chemistry records sutton / Wax city croydon / Slammin vinyl kingston / Mr Bongo Oxford street / Section 5 kngs road. With all the mp3 generation now this artform is lost. Nothing will ever beat going to your local independent record store along with countless other people listening to the dj spin brand new whites/tp's and watching fiends behind the counter raise there hands all wanting a copy. If you

was a regular you'd get first dibs if not it was pot luck. Those days will never be come back and it is such a shame. Thank you pearsall and i hope this

will be the first of many inteviews with record shop owners. (Sorry to bang on bit pissed when i wrote this

[haste]

Agree that a regular series of interviews would be wicked!

[pearsall]

thanks guys! I've been thinking of doing interviews with different guys involved in the scene back in the 90's - promoters, dj's, label owners, etc - dance music really meant a lot to so many of us so I think it's nice to try and capture some of the memories for posterity. what do you think?

[haste]

Sounds great!