Record Store Day 2023 Is Upon Us
We caught up with Jon Tolley (manager of Banquet Records) ahead of their biggest day of the year.
It’s hard to stop myself from spilling into Kingston lore as I write this article. Drawing out a map of a standard night out for the freshly legal, from the infamous spoons into the infamous Pryzm, followed by the choice of chicken shops situated across the road. Stores seem to take character here, stories from the ones that have a certain history to the new newer establishments that keep propping up with each visit. But some places stay and new stories live on within them that add to a personal history, acting like cornerstones within this KT borough. Something that holds certain president within the town centre sits in between a newly refurbished three floor Primark and a construction site for a new block of premium flats, lies Banquet Records.
Deriving from a sequence of stores based in South West London boroughs, the group would eventually sell for £1 and into the hands of Jon Tolley alongside Mike and Jane, of the now sole Kingston store.
“We were already putting on gigs, as a sort of local music fan and doing DJ nights and club nights. We did it. Instead of us doing that in our own time, we did it as part of what Banquet does. And that's when it became the kind of model, or started being the model, which it has later turned into but just on a very big scale,”
Today, Banquet Records is a helm of the local community as well as an highly praised independent record store. Attracting big names from global music into this store is a surreal feeling for locals, but holds as a demonstration to a sheer passion for music and wanting to bring it to people.
The store displays an example of a sustainable, healthy model that benefits multiple parties in negotiations that bring music to people for prices as low as £12. Accessibility is something key here. With inflation taking a toll on the nation’s pockets, making sure that audiences are able to see big artists amongst a national cost of living crisis brings forward the opportunity to permit everyone the chance to see the big names.
“It can be physical disabilities and all of these things to try and allow people to get to music,”
A recent event featuring Gorillaz doing a live Q&A with an sign language interpreter proving to the ethos of bringing music to all as a dedicated promise.
From Beabadoobee performing at a church to Dry Cleaning performing on the centre of a disco dance floor remnant of something from the eighties, the store uses the local community to full use. Using these already existing places is an answer to venues being shut down throughout the country at the hands of the pandemic. These out of situ venues offer something different to the experience of queuing up your nearest O2 Academy. You couldn’t fool me to believing that the likes of Interpol were dwindling around Kingston before performing its infamous Pryzm but the impressive collection of polaroid photos decorating the front desk of the store boasts a rich history of musicians making the trek to the store in order to perform. In connecting with what’s local and willing, it proves to be a welcomed transaction on both ends.
“ It’s anywhere that will have us. And I find that’s the thing about nightclubs and churches. It’s good, getting some sort of good PR or community involvement or what have you. Then these spaces are quite up for having people perform art, you know? It's a relationship which works for both groups”
“When they see that we're only trying to make a little bit, just because we want to put on these events, most people are quite up for it,”
The boxes upon boxes taking over their back office and garden is proof of the success of Record Store Day. The recent boom in vinyl is a large factor for this scale of operation warranted for one day in the year. Its birth in the year of 2007 was created in the hopes of celebrating the culture that often inhabits independent record stores. Now, musicians can find themselves giving into this event, often with the offering of a repressed issue made specially for the day.
“When this started, I was a bit snobby about it all saying like, Why do we need a record all day? We're a record shop every day. Right? And we don't really need it. But when it started getting a bit of a momentum after like sort of two or three years we saw there was cues around the block. Trying to queue up to buy records, how can you not welcome that?”
The biggest day in terms of finances coming into the store also comes with a type of chaos. Albeit welcomed, fitting into the culture on independent record stores. The stories that come from this one day alone surely worthy of a book.
“We had this big-trying-to-buy-music day, but also two concerts.
With this rock band and Tinie Tempah. There’s also the first night we had people queuing overnight,”
Lining up in the early hours for the sake of getting that one record in your head is a testament to the importance of music in our lives, for it now to become tradition for people to do this on a yearly basis. This is why independent record stores exist. The store definitely drum up the excitement for the day via their social media channels, giving a sneak peek into behind the scenes of what goes into such an important day in the year for the store and the customers. Glimpses into records that promise to be well sorted after and the building stock that will unearth as rare finds and treasured parts of future vinyl collections.
What makes a store like Banquet Records store is simple. Having a team of people who enjoy music offering a service that encourages this sentiment amongst customers and entices the likes of musicians from all genres and sizes, keeps the store running.
I've been working here for 25 years, that's over half my life. It's my job and it's my social life and all that. obviously I've got things I do outside of this, but it's very much my identity. I never go to work thinking, oh God, I've got to go to work. It's always interesting but when it's your own business, even if you had a business like selling stationary or something, you would be interested in your business even if it wasn't the actual product. It just helps that I'm interested in the product.
This model sustained by the store offers something replicable for other indies across the country . The successes of Banquet Records can attest to the reward in pushing for audiences to see live music. The open communication offered from the team means that any sense of dissatisfaction can be reproached and dealt with. Take the recent event with Gorillaz which ended earlier than anticipated. Not satisfied with the standard of service offered to their customers, a £10 voucher was offered to those affected by the impromptu ending.
With post-pandemic concert culture taking a shift for the strange, combatting these issues haven’t been at the central point of venues who aren’t adapting to this new environment. What Banquet Records had to offer an alternative to recent gig etiquette was consequential action for queuing up too early, seen in the distribution of bands amongst the attending fans for Louis Tomlinson meaning that those who ignored the warnings would be admitted last into the venue. Risking your health to be at the barricade is behaviour to be discouraged by venues across the country.
So how do we make it sustainable with the record labels? How do we talk to them and be like, this is what we want for the future. Go ahead with the venues, with the customers. You need to build relationships if you can. It's like a market solution to a social problem
The social issue is we want places to go and to meet people and to have fun events. Which isn't provided, but how do we provide these events? What we do is business at the end of the day. That's the thing. And so it feels sustainable.
And you know, when my kid is old enough to go to gigs, I want her to be choosing which of the gigs this week to go to in Kingston.
Any talk about the store not surviving the times seems nonsensical. The queues and general buzz around the store and its multitude of events prove that the desire for connection and music is a demand worthy of fulfilling.