Fact #155151
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Dave Gregory (guitarist, XTC) : There was a music shop on Commercial Road in Swindon, Wiltshire, where I lived, Jeff Kempster's music shop.
That's where we used to go but we couldn't afford to buy LPs. They were 50 shillings, which was a month's paper round money. You had to be very choosy about what you bought. You had to know it would be good all the way through, not just an LP with one hit track on it.
It was mainly singles, which were 6/8d when I started buying them. I remember going down in 1968 … I went to the Common Weald school in Swindon and we'd bunk off in the lunch hour and go to Kempster's, have a look to see if Jeff had any new guitars in.
I remember early in 1968 I'd saved up my 6/8d, or it might even have been 7/3d by then, because I'd read in the NME that The Move had a new single out called Fire Brigade. It was delayed for a while. I went down to Jeff's and asked for it but it hadn't come in yet. It was agonising. I'd go down there every bloody lunchtime to see if it had arrived. I don't think I'd even heard it. I'd just read about it. It was worth the wait though, because it was a great record.
Me and my friends used to pool our records. We'd meet up at a party and borrow each others' records for a couple of weeks. Half the time they never came back.
In the early days Kempster's sold records and record players downstairs and musical instruments and amplifiers upstairs. Nowadays they sell mostly students' instruments. They still do electric guitars and amps but the record department has gone.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, January 2008)
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That's where we used to go but we couldn't afford to buy LPs. They were 50 shillings, which was a month's paper round money. You had to be very choosy about what you bought. You had to know it would be good all the way through, not just an LP with one hit track on it.
It was mainly singles, which were 6/8d when I started buying them. I remember going down in 1968 … I went to the Common Weald school in Swindon and we'd bunk off in the lunch hour and go to Kempster's, have a look to see if Jeff had any new guitars in.
I remember early in 1968 I'd saved up my 6/8d, or it might even have been 7/3d by then, because I'd read in the NME that The Move had a new single out called Fire Brigade. It was delayed for a while. I went down to Jeff's and asked for it but it hadn't come in yet. It was agonising. I'd go down there every bloody lunchtime to see if it had arrived. I don't think I'd even heard it. I'd just read about it. It was worth the wait though, because it was a great record.
Me and my friends used to pool our records. We'd meet up at a party and borrow each others' records for a couple of weeks. Half the time they never came back.
In the early days Kempster's sold records and record players downstairs and musical instruments and amplifiers upstairs. Nowadays they sell mostly students' instruments. They still do electric guitars and amps but the record department has gone.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, January 2008)