
well. it’s been quite a week. i’m a bit battered and quite tired from today’s exerts but i really wanted to write something about this last week if only for me when i do the end of year review, if i forget or if i retire.
The week started with the release of the Scholars album - that’s on our label and is a big deal for us, especially Jane. it’s sold pretty well, and sounds awesome. The release show at the barfly in Camden was by all accounts awesome. Im gutted not to have been there, sounds like it mighta been one of their best received gigs, but partly from that gig they picked up a well decent agent who’s taken them on, and im sure they’ll get to play bigger and better gigs. I didn’t get to the gig cos i was feeling a little bit sniffly / Lemsip-y and wanted to be well for the following night. The following night being the Music Week Awards.
Music Week is like a kinda industry insiders weekly journal. There’s a lot of interesting facts and figures, and chat with people behind the people that are the music biz. It’s pretty high brow, very ‘industry’. We were nominated for “best independent retailer”, as we were last year. But this year we were very strongly encouraged to attend the ceremony, so we thought, might as well. See how the other half live!
You probably know, but since Dave House left us in a day to day capacity, there’s three people that ‘run’ Banquet now… me, Mike and Jane. Jane said she wanted to go to the ceremony but, even tho we were gonna find the money somehow, couldnt allow us to justify the expense of the ticket (they were £300 each!) She said we should spend the money on fixing the sink. A sink held together by gaffa tape since Piers “broken it whilst cleaning it”. Such an unbelievable story… as if he was ever cleaning that sink. But anyway, point is, in this “award” its funny cos we still aren’t making any real money. We’re just busier. I wish we were making more, i wish we could pay all our staff what they’re worth.
With the strong encouragement to go to the awards, we thought we might have been in with a good chance. Maybe the 8 and a half years, and personally, 12 or so years, of working here had come good, that people saw what we were trying to do; selling CDs and records. putting on instores, gigs, clubs, and helping customers. But i can’t help but think it was our accepting HMV vouchers thing, which got us on people’s radar a lot more.
Either way we were on our way. It’s quite nice to just hang with Mike anyway. We rarely get to do that, always running around in the shop and very rarely getting a chance to talk about stuff and the world. I bought some kinda smart-ish clothes and my look came across half like the front cover of Thee Gaslight Anthem ‘59 Sound 7” and some kinda overgrown schoolboy at home time.

We thought it prudent to prepare some words in case we did win. The speech we had in mind was to represent a few things we thoght important. The ceremony was as swanky as we were lead to believe it would be. Loads of the music industry’s key players, or representatives of, on the main area of the rather pricey looking Brewery. We were plonked on a table with “best venue” nominees. On that table was Matty from White Heat, who works at The Lexington. That was nice cos i havent chatted to him in probably years. I don’t really go to White Heat now, I’m older, have less friends and less time than i used to, but White Heat was certainly influential in the creation of New Slang, so it always has a place in my heart.
The awards got going and i stuck my vid-cam on the gorilla grip tripod thingy. It’s a weird thing this awards ceremony, and any in general. I find it difficult to get on with opinion stated as fact. The best album, the best venue etc. Like The Lexington isnt trying to be the 02. So to say one is “better” than the other is, well, odd. And similarly to be described as “best independent retailer” is strange. The point i wanted to make on the night, and now is this:
With the recent HMV troubles, and with Record Store Day just a week away, we passionately believe that the sustainability of our record shop, lies in the strength and diversity of all record shops across the UK. And as such, we don’t view ourself as ‘best’, instead we view ourself as one of many. So we’d like to dedicate this award to each and every bricks and mortar independent record shop across the country, all actively contributing to their local music communities.
Here’s a vid of the speech!

I know that sounds rehearsed (it was) and maybe even wanky / cheesy, but i think it’s important. Banquet doesnt exist unless a good number of other decent indies exist. Hell, we even want HMVs to exist - as explained here. We want to be the best we can, but we’re not in competition with all the other bricks and mortar (ie. real) record shops accross the country. We want, and need, others to do their thing well. So we have strength in numbers, so we can argue for better deals for us, and so collectively we can look after music fans better. This is especially obvious with Record Store Day just a week away.
Having said that, the exposure we’ve got and will get from this award is awesome. And will hopefully enable us to get more good things going on in Banquet and in Kingston. I literally spent over 2 hours replying to tweets and congrats texts / mails on Friday morning. And it was nice to meet some people in person i’d only ever emailed before.

But the flyer kinda shows the importance of everything we’ve been saying. We’re stoked people voted for us, and we’re stoked people who weren’t yet exposed to us are now… We hope we’ll get some more stuff happening which might not have happened otherwise, but LOOK AT ALL THE STUFF THAT’S GOING ON THIS WEEK ANYWAY.
Loads of great new records and CDs out next week. We’ve got FOUR instores, there’s a couple of awesome exclusive-to-Banquet pre-orders and of, course, Saturday is Record Store Day!

The week finished with some of us playing in a 5-a-side footie match. Ollie’s our captain and his weird inverted Y formation thing saw us become like some special Sub Pop vinyl Losers Edition as we came runners up in the losers’ pool of the tournament. I think this was my last day off for many weeks now.

There’s plans for me to be on Xfm on Monday night with the hero that is John Kennedy. And don’t forget we do these weekly podcasts on the Banquet soundcloud.
Cheers for reading. Im gonna watch Match Of The Day and cry a little cos my hands hurt.