BARROWFULL / INTO THE MUSIC

 This is Derek Brook, accidental record shop manager.  From 1976 for seven years,  the doorway of Earthquake records was the threshold of a scene. Blissed-out West Coast psych imports rubbed against the first spitty shrapnel shards of punk.  Behind its counter - scrounged from a Rawlinson Street Chippy - Derek would sniff at your requests,  get you to an all dayer at  Knebworth to hear something better, and flog you his Vindicator fanzine to read on the coach. Derek gave me a morning and told me the story of the shop. Born out of a need to do something -anything-  for a year while waiting to do a Uni research project on footy hooliganism, Earthquake was different: it was open when everyone else was shut; it recognised  that you might want to actually hear records before you paid for them, and it understood that local scenes need a place to coalesce, a home-made place, built from the ground up  where a small town's 2 Captain Beefheart fans can...

 We were back at the Lock In today to record the written work produced by our writers group with our guest writer Geoff Cox over the last few weeks at Mind in Furness. The lads have all spent time polishing their work, adding and subtracting and  working towards a piece that both works on the page and a reading.  There is more work to come from Phil, who will be adding his own music to a recording made in his own studio at home. It was a great afternoon, the work has really progressed, the humour, honesty and clarity that has characterised  the sessions is all there in these pieces. You hear and feel the significance of records, tapes, music as company, nutrition, solace, social lubricant, and as territory to be explored.  The quality of the readings too is outstanding; it is a great thing to hear these stories delivered in these warm and characterful voices Robbie from the Lock In  manned the desk. It was the first time he'd heard any of the work and as we...