Original Rockers - Richard King

 ORIGINAL ROCKERS - RICHARD KING

First things first: Original Rockers by Richard King is a joy to read. If you're a Bristolian and worth your salt then you will know of Revolver Records and you will know of its standing and importance in the secret history of Bristol. You will know this. If you're not of Bristol and unaware of Revolver Records but if you've ever entered a record shop and compulsively returned again (and again) then you will know the importance of such shops in the fabric of life. You will know this.

Revolver Records was situated at the top of Park Street, in Bristol, and during the mid-1990s Richard King worked there. When starting he probably didn't fully realise what it would entail, not least of all what it would entail working with Roger, the proprietor, a brisk and very boisterous person who when not behind the counter of the shop could often be seen speeding around Bristol on his bicycle.

Roger was energised, enthused and happy-go-lucky, possessed of an encyclopedic knowledge of music but with an apparent lack of awareness of when he was being intimidating if not outright rude. He could probably in many ways be compared to another legendary record shop manger, Pete Stennett, of Small Wonder Records, based in Leytonstone, London, whose attitude toward some of his customers could at times also be somewhat 'challenging'.

King gives examples of Roger's customer service skills by citing times when he would advise a customer the record they were after would more likely to be found in a skip than in Revolver. Or when he would berate a customer's taste in music and lack of music knowledge to all within earshot, causing that customer to leave under a cloud of humiliation and for them to never return again. 

Students from the near-by university in Clifton were always sitting ducks for this. When King tries it himself, however, and criticises a customer's taste in music  he immediately discovers it's not quite as easy as it looks. Rather than a student, the customer King criticises is a biker who runs a local tattoo parlour, who in response quietly tells King he'll take his head off with an axe. Turning to Roger for some help, with what could easily be like a scene from Withnail And I, Roger simply says "Don't look at me. You're on your own."

On other occasions, Roger would talk a customer out of completing the purchase of the record they wanted and tell them to spend their money on something different. Other times he would just tell a customer flat out that he can't sell them the record they'd brought to the counter because it was a complete rip-off of another record. If a customer entered the shop holding a bag containing records purchased from a rival record shop, Roger would either ask the customer to leave or place them on a final warning not to bring such bags in again. Such antics, of course, are the stuff of legend and the kind of things that gave Revolver its character. 

Alongside these tales of belittled undergraduates and murderous bikers, King regales us with ruminations on various Jamaican dub meisters, Captain Beefheart, Can, Virginia Astley, Sun Ra, The Pop Group, Richard Long, David Crosby, John Peel, and even Rod Stewart. All irrelevant stuff to some people but to others the stuff of life where God is in the details.

I only knew Roger from talking to him in the shop. I used to know his partner better but only because she would go to the same pub as me. I never saw Roger socially at all, not in pubs or at gigs, only ever on his bike as he sped by. He knew I had a penchant for punk rock but I'd sometimes throw him off his stride by purchasing albums such as Arriving And Caught Up by Anna Palm, or the Snare 12" EP by D&V. Records that he wasn't overly familiar with. 

I remember buying Bongwater's album The Power Of Pussy once and Roger looking at it as though for the first time. I asked him if he'd listened to it and he said no he hadn't, so I said it's the kind of record that if it was to be played in the shop would almost certainly cause customers to enquire about it and almost certainly lead to a sell. I knew, however, that it was something he'd never do, it being another hint at his lack of business acumen.

Revolver it seemed, to Roger, was a labour of love and a way of life rather than a way to turn a profit. This, however, was what made Roger such a special record shop manager and what made Revolver Records such a special record shop.

Original Rockers makes special mention of Revolver being an important outlet for Reggae and Dub, where local black DJs and sound-system operators would go to pick up the latest imports as delivered on a weekly basis by a van delivery service driver by the name of Adrian Sherwood, in his pre-On-U sound system/record label days.

Among those who would visit the shop on these delivery days was a local schoolboy called Mark Stewart, who would go on to form the hugely influential band The Pop Group. A few years later through working at Revolver, a staff member called Grant Marshall had first dibs on newly-delivered imports and played them in his night time role of DJ at the nearby Dug Out Club. Grant Marshall would later be known as Daddy G and be a founding member of The Wild Bunch who would, of course, go on to become Massive Attack.

The importance of the role of Revolver in the genesis of Bristol's cultural impact upon the world cannot be overstated and so too Revolver's role in forging a Bristolian-centered self-confidence that made London no longer the centre of relevance. 

Original Rockers is a joy to read.

John Serpico