Dead Shops Three (After cLOUDDEAD)

Joining in the litany of shop deaths, Dragon Discs, the secondhand CD emporium just down the road from me, closed down a couple of weeks ago. For two days the owner - a pot-bellied, bearded and often sullen chap who could be hearteningly avuncular when he felt like it - was giving away vinyl and CDs free (I did actually manage to score some semi-decent freebies, including a copy of the 'Blue Monday' 12" (without die-cut cover, unfortunately), and vinyl copies of Bartok's Music For Strings, Percussion And Celeste, Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 and Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, in addition to a Transglobal Underground remix album (not so impressive)).

Dragon Discs was also where I bought my first Public Enemy albums, Roxy Music's self-titled debut, my Galaxie 500 albums, and My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts, and its prog-postered walls will be sorely missed. Bournemouth's already lacking an independent record store (the nearest is Square Records in Wimborne, at least 15 miles away), and now only has two secondhand CD and vinyl stores (charity shops excepted, for obvious reasons). I'm almost beginning to be glad I'm moving away soon, except for the fact that Warwick and Coventry have fewer record stores than Bournemouth...