What do a 70s rock star, famous Scottish actor and a Netflix creative have in common? Their love for vinyl – which they discussed with Aberdeen Vinyl Records for the store’s new podcast.
Launching on Friday April 30, owner of Aberdeen Vinyl Records Bob Smith said he and his staff got in touch with creatives from the music and entertainment industries – a lot of whom have been to the shop personally.
He said: “We got in touch with a lot of people and basically, our pitch to them was: ‘You may not know who we are, you’re probably wondering why we’re bothering you, there’s no money in this for you, there’s no career prospect based on this whatsoever, there’s no reason to talk to us other than that we’re guys passionate about music and we love your records’.
And to Bob’s surprise, most of the people they contacted were interested in collaborating with the Union Street record store.
Bob teamed up with local collector and experienced podcaster Lee Sutherland to record 12 episodes, which will be released last Friday of every month.
The owner said he and the shop staff were inspired to work on the podcast during lockdown after realising how important having an online presence was during these challenging times.
He said: “We’ve been selling records online and that’s been going quite well, but we figured that there are a lot of people outwith Aberdeen that don’t know about us and also a lot of people in Aberdeen who still don’t know about us, so that was also one of the reasons why we decided to do this.
“The other reason was that we really have a passion for music and a passion for vinyl records – and we know we’re not alone in that because all of our customers feel the same.
“So we tried to interview like-minded people – some of whom were quite famous people, some of them weren’t, but they were all people in the music business.
“We interviewed a band from the 70s for the first episode, and we also spoke to a TV star from Scotland who is very very well known and is also our customer.
“Another person is a guy who works for Netflix – he’s responsible for running a whole department for Netflix and he has a few shows coming out next month and he’s also a customer.
“It’s so amazing all these people have been to the shop.”
The names of the creatives interviewed will remain a secret until the podcast is launched later in the week.
Bob said music fans will be able to listen to the podcast on “every streaming platform imaginable” – such as Spotify and iTunes.
In addition to the monthly podcast, Bob will also be doing a weekly one – telling funny stories which happened in the Aberdeen store.
He said: “We were based in Aberdeen Market and we had our ‘ghost of the shop’ and it seemed to have followed us to our new store.
“We have some very spooky stories to tell.
“For example, there was a time when somebody came to the shop and they asked if we had a record by The Guess Who. I said I was very sorry but I never heard of them.
“As they walked out the shop, a little old lady walked in the shop with an Asda bag full of records to sell us and the first one on top of the pile was The Guess Who.
“There was another guy who wanted to buy a record that I thought we already sold.
“He asked whether I could check so I was going to message the customer to see if he wanted to keep it and as I opened up the message, the guy was typing me a message at that very moment – he did want to keep the record.”
Bob is looking forward to sharing a lot more funny stories on his new Aberdeen Vinyl Records podcast. The store owner will share the link to the podcast on the shop’s social media later this week.
Aberdeen Vinyl Records reopened on Monday April 26 and has more than 5,000 LPs and 15,000 singles on offer. The store sells records by Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Abba, David Bowie, Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and many more artists.