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Posted: |
May 26, 2011 - 11:05 AM
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By: |
Thor
(Member)
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Yeah, cinemascope, so much better to be leafing through soundtracks you couldn't afford to have Derek take the piss out of you from behind the counter so all the shop could hear him!!
(Just kidding mate!)
Actually he was deliciously rude to people - in a sort of permanently-annoyed Basil Fawlty-type way but delivered in a camp voice. He was quite witty so it never bothered me. The visits were always entertaining - especially when he was slaughtering some other poor sod further up the record racks from me!!!!
He, he...sounds very HIGH FIDELITY.... 
A "charactor" & I suppose not enough of those. Anyone remember The Cinema Bookshop (just down the road from the British Museum), the owner there was always chomping on the most foul smelling cigar, the place really stank. I still have a few books I bought from there, & I'm sure I can still smell it if I give them a scratch & sniff. For a few years it was the only place I knew that sold Soundtrack magazine (but thinking about it, 58 Dean St. must have sold it as well).
I remember a similar guy in a used record store here in Oslo. He was tall, wellbuilt, dark eyebrows and always looking pissed and smelling foul. I went there a couple of times to sell of some CD's, and I was terrified everytime he looked through them. He was a little "gruff" and I generally didn't dare to question the prices he wanted to give me....even though it was way, way lower than what I had expected (and what I once had paid myself).
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Posted: |
May 26, 2011 - 4:14 PM
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By: |
Doug Raynes
(Member)
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A "charactor" & I suppose not enough of those. Anyone remember The Cinema Bookshop (just down the road from the British Museum), the owner there was always chomping on the most foul smelling cigar, the place really stank. I still have a few books I bought from there, & I'm sure I can still smell it if I give them a scratch & sniff. For a few years it was the only place I knew that sold Soundtrack magazine (but thinking about it, 58 Dean St. must have sold it as well).
I distributed Soundtrack magazine and it was stocked by 58 Dean Street Records, That's Entertainment, The Cinema Bookshop, Zwemmers Bookstore, HMV, Virgin Megastore and Tower Records. Derek at Dean Street could certainly be difficult to deal with - providing advertising copy on hastily written scraps of paper and complaining about other record shops advertising in the magazine. I wasn't entirely surprised that he died of a sudden massive heart attack in his '50s because he always seemed to be a typical Type A highly-stressed personality.
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Posted: |
May 27, 2011 - 4:45 AM
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By: |
Nils
(Member)
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For a few years it was the only place I knew that sold Soundtrack magazine (but thinking about it, 58 Dean St. must have sold it as well).
Ah - that triggers another memory (By the way, from reading others' descriptions of him here, I think it's safe to replace the phrase "the guy at the counter" in my first post with "Derek").
58 Dean Street was where I first found out about Soundtrack Magazine. I bought a copy when I was there, and asked if one could subscribe to it, to which he answered "No, no - you can ONLY buy it in stores like this!".
What WAS it with this guy?! He must have been a compulsive liar!
It seems people have good memories of him but, as I related in my first post, he apparently wasn't above swindling people, so I'm afraid he gets a thumbs-down from me.
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Nils, in most cases, people feel uncomfortable putting down people too much when they've passed over. There is plenty of "description" on here for you to realise that people have happy memories of shopping there and what they bought, not necessarily warm memories of Derek's behaviour, which was mixed, depending on his mood, the time of the month, the customers in the shop, if he liked them or not, etc etc. I think its fair to say that some had no problems but those that did got short shrift from an acid tongue.
No, Thor, he wasnt a nerd. He was rude and offensive, but not a nerd. He was sharp and witty, and was genuinely entertaining, and probably slightly manic, but not a nerd.
Lets talk about this smelly bloke in your shop in Norway.
Better still, lets you and me start a thread on him.
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Posted: |
May 27, 2011 - 6:20 AM
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By: |
Nils
(Member)
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Nils, in most cases, people feel uncomfortable putting down people too much when they've passed over.
Yes, I realize that, and normally that's my attitude also, but, like I mentioned, my encounter with him stayed with me for a while (and not in a good way), so when I saw this thread I had to vent a little.
I definitely did not find him "entertaining", only loud, condescending, and domineering, but that's probably because he, for some reason, quickly put me in his "don't like" category.
And by the way, don't you British people have a "Tell it like it was!" attitude when it comes to obituaries? 
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Nils, sorry mate, please be aware I wasnt saying dont tell us your experience, no, that's fine, speak like you found him. I was really kinda saying is that's probably why people on the thread so far had maybe held back a little from speaking plainly. Even James F - who worked with him - was fairly gentle in his appraisal. But no, you recount whatever you want. Sounds like you were swindled.
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I found Derek pleasant, knowlegeable and helpful. He had a note book with huge lists of LPs that he could get from overseas. He ordered me quite a bit of stuff.
However I do remember on one occason he asked his assistant something and the reply was "whaaaaaaaaaaat!"
This did not go down well with Derek and there was a huge row in front of customers.
Great shop though. A real treasure chest of film scores and a great experience
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