The Record Warehouse History

Logo Designed by Dick Frizzell

Record and Cassette Warehouse officially established by Michael Dow in October 1977 with the opening of the flagship store in Durham St. The grand opening promotion was the in store signing of local band Hello Sailor to a recording contract.

At the time it was the biggest store in NZ with a floor space of 7000 sq ft and over 50,000 records and cassettes in stock and it was the first record store in NZ to model itself on the Tower Records store in Los Angeles by featuring albums displayed "face" on and displayed in special racks floor to ceiling allowing customers to easily access and select albums

The RW created a strong brand by creative, innovative and aggressive marketing and were the first record retailer to heavily use radio station advertising and promotions often with the record companies to promote the store and specific artists and albums at the time. This effectively raised the bar enormously as far as Record and Cassette retailing in NZ was concerned and set the bench mark for future retail stores.

Back in the day trading hours was 7am to 9pm Monday to Friday !!! The only retail operation to open its doors so early certainly in Queen St as the concept was to capture the market for people who wanted to browse before and after work

The RW then began to open the doors on Saturday, which at that time was against the law in NZ. The only legal retailing allowed by the law at the time was for the ordinary local Dairy to sell selected items over the weekend.RW were fined every weekend by inspectors whose job it was to keep tabs on this illegal practice.

This prompted Michael Dow to crusade for legal Saturday Trading and with help of several other Queen St retailers he formed the Auckland Inner City Progressive Retailers Association. The slogan was "Iam a Saturday Shopper" and badges, T Shirts and other such merchandise were freely distributed to the public as they began to swarm into Queen St on a Saturday to shop in the stores that were openly defying the law at the time. The end result after several months of embarrassing the Government at the time was for the eventual introduction of legal weekend shopping !!!


ICONIC MOMENTS and INTERESTING FACTS

- A number of instore promotions by many artists visiting NZ at the time including;

Kate Bush
Billy Idol
The Police
Eurythmics
Elvis Costello and the Attractions
The Specials
Madness
The Knack

- The Breakfast In America instore promotion for band Supertramp new release. RW provided all day free American Breakfasts and the opportunity to pre buy the album ahead of the official release date by purchasing a voucher for the album at a special discounted price. The album went Gold in NZ before actual release through this event.

- The slogan.... "YOU NEVER NEED TO PAY RETAIL EVER AGAIN"

- The 2 for $20 promotion that featured a selection of 10 different albums every week ....[ then a discounted price at the time for full price albums]

- The RW preferential discount card giving members a 15% discount on everything in the store for LIFE !!!!

- RW also had a Mail Order Dept that aggressively marketed special deals not unlike Richard Branson who started Virgin Records in this manner.

- RW sold more singles than any other record store in NZ at the time.

Get a bit of Ferris

Got a spare US$2,300,000.00 ?

If so you can grab yourself a piece of cinematic history. Check it.

Old L&P ad...

Ask Andy

Dear Andy, "Why do they call Steam Rollers, Steam Rollers? They don't produce, get rid of or have anything to do with steam." Regards, Cam


Cam, you have been blinded by the bright lights of the future my man. Sometime it is necessary to look into the past for our answers, and although I don't have a Delorean I do have the knowledge you seek.

You see before we had all these petrol guzzling contraptions to roll things that we needed rolling, we had rolling machines that were run on, believe it or not, steam. These bad boys had what was called a "steam" engine.

Now many of you young bucks are probably baffled by the thought of a Steam Engine so here is a little info for you. Steam engines (heat engines using boiling water to produce mechanical motion) have a long history, going back at least 2000 years. Early devices were not practical power producers, but more advanced designs producing usable power have become a major source of mechanical power over the last 300 years, enabling the industrial revolution. Amazing?... Yes.

But why do we still call our modern Rollers "Steam Rollers"? We'll Cam, old habits are hard to break, and I should know took me up till high school to stop biting my nails, and don't get me started on pinching that's a habit that I just won't break... ever.

My favourite Steam Engine which in is fact diesel powered is none other than Roley the Steamroller from Bob the Builder.

As always make sure you and most of the people you know are keeping it real like a lemon peel.

New Wing CD up for grabs

We're giving away a copy of Wing's new CD today. Just buy a Wing tee and one lucky winner will have it included in with their order.

If you don't win and still want to check out some of Wing's sweet sounds checkout Wing's website for all the details.

Random Laughs

I like this

I'm the kind of guy who likes to write lists and stuff. If you're like me you should check this site out: nowdothis.com

Simple.

Ask Andy

Dear Andy,

Is that scene in Spider-man 3 where Peter walks out of the clothing shop after becoming slightly emo and does that weird little dance one of the worst things in cinema history ever? Or, is the whole movie just perfectly cheesy?

Katherine


Thanks for the question Katherine,

I didn't have the pleasure of watching Spiderman 3 on the big screen, I couldn't bare to part with 15 of my hard earned dollars just to watch some emo boy pretending to be spiderman, I could have done that for free any night of the week on Queen street and probably got a lot more for my $15 dollars (no homo)

I did however watch it while I was on vacation in Vanuatu, it just so happened that it was the rainy season and although I love swimming in the rain you can only do so much of that.

Anyway I watched the movie and I have to admit I was a little confused; why did Peter Parker turn into Jared Leto, What was Sam Raimi doing... auditioning to direct the next 30 seconds to Mars video clip?

When Peter Parker went into the department store and came out in his Jared Leto suit and did his best John Travolta impersonation Saturday Night Fever style I didnt know what to do, I contemplated finding one of the burly resort gardeners who carry large Machetes and telling him I had done something aweful to his goat, then I though it would be easier to just gauge my eyes out with a tea spoon. As i got up to choose a tea spoon the scene ended and I slumped back onto the couch, with my senses regained.

I have been a Spider Man fan since my mum was still wiping my bum, but now I cant even think about Spidey with out images of that scene and that Jared Leto guy popping into my head (again no homo).

This is without a doubt one of the worst in scenes movie history Katherine, but the Sad thing is is that the scene where Peter Parker takes Gwen on a date to the Bar where Mary-Jane works and does his best Peter Parker in a Jared Leto suit Chicago/ Flash Dace impersonation is worse, much, much, worse.

Keep it real like a lemon peel.

Andy Shackleton
Head Oompa Loompa Trainer

Ask Andy.... questions please

This year we've been meaning to do a blog feature called "Ask Andy".

For those of you who don't know, Andy is guy who makes sure your orders get sent out and emails get replied to. Not only being a very industrious worker, Andy knows a thing or two about a thing or two. A memory like a sponge and a hunger for knowledge he is the man to ask when you have a question.

So if you would like Andy's wisdom send through your questions to andy@mrvintage.co.nz and we will feature the best ones on this blog (and hide your name if you want).

p.s We want funny questions. This aint the Womens Weekly agony aunt.

p.p.s Big thanks to everyone who voted in the Swine Flu poll.

Swine Flu Design

We’re thinking about doing a ‘Swine Flu’ t-shirt (below). But is it too bad taste? Do we print it or not? We want you to tell us. We reckon the design concept is pretty wicked, but we obviously realise it’s a pretty sensitive subject, so we want to ask you for some community input – we really appreciate all the feedback we get from twitter, the website, facebook, and our newsletters – and we really do take it all on board and consider your opinions on such matters. In this case, we’re leaving it entirely up to you... Vote here.

Here’s some stuff that we’ve been considering that you might like to consider also.

There’s a whole raft of Swine Flu/ Bacon jokes and images going around the Internet at the moment. Granted, some of them are pretty crappy and tasteless, but all the same there seems to be a general feeling that the recent ‘Swine Flu’ panic may be in part an over-hyped media creation. Even old Peter Williams from Breakfast cracked a funny about it this week. And Peter’s one of the most inoffensive people around, he’s such a charmer I think you’ll all agree.

As we’ve done with a lot of our other designs, we’d of course donate 10% of each t-shirt sale to a charity – and not to use it as an excuse or justification – it’s just to show that we’re not money-hungry dicks that aim to offend and cause a stir. We’re all lovely boys. Each of our Mothers have said that.

So the ball is in your court, the voting is open for 24 hours only (so send the link to all your friends and enemies) after which time we’ll close voting and make our decision depending on what you’ve told us. If the vast majority of you reckon it’s ok to release the design, we’ll go to print tomorrow, if not, it will all be forgotten and we’ll still have another sweet NZ Music inspired tee for you.

Again, we know it’s a sensitive subject, we know lives have been lost – and in no way do we want to seem insensitive or disrespectful to the families of the deceased or the general public. Which is why we want your help, we appreciate and value your opinions so much that we’re letting you decide if this t-shirt goes to print.

NZ Music Month - Our View

As you may or may not know, we’re doing a ‘Mr Vintage Music Month Series’ in celebration of NZ Music Month. We’ve got a few surprises in there, and I even got to talk to ‘Wing’ today on the phone! She’s a lovely lady with a great grasp of the English language. For those of you that don’t know who I’m talking about, check her out. http://www.wingmusic.co.nz/

All this NZ Music talk got me thinking though, we’ve all got pretty differing music tastes here at Mr Vintage (although Joe and I both delight in celebrating John Mayer’s entire catalogue). So I thought I’d share a little bit about our takes on NZ Music. This may be of no interest to you whatsoever, but you don’t write the blog. I do. So let’s take this one person at a time.

Wing - 'Too much Heaven'. Her best work yet.

Rob – Robs taste in Music is often the subject of ridicule at work. Before you feel sympathy though, he’s a self confessed “not much of a music guy, and more in to digital sounds” guy. His first comment about NZ Music was, “Well, they don’t play much of it at the clubs do they”? Name-drop much? While at Gilmours, he worked with Ty (of Smashproof fame). He attended Papatoetoe High with David Dallas, and he once saw Jordan Luck from ‘The Exponents’ face down drunk in a gutter. But then again, who in Auckland City hasn’t? His favourite album is ‘Once Bitten, Twice Shy’ from the Exponents, and he also has a lot of time for Supergroove, OMC, Recloose, Peter Urlich, and Ladyhawke.

Andy – I’m not really sure I can do Andy justice in less than a page but I’ll give it my best shot. Andy is an enigma. At times I feel like Andy and I are on the same page musically, but mostly I don’t. His first thoughts when I asked him to talk to me about NZ Music. “Shit mate, Real shit”. He did find time however to praise a few NZ artists however. He recalls fondly the time we got to meet the lovely Kirsten from Golden Horse backstage at some lavish Juice TV party, he counts Minuit among the 86 artists currently residing on his iPhone, he’s seen both Scribe and The Feelers live (under duress), and has watched an entire Johnny Love video. Only once though, the remote were broke.

Me (Jay) – I’m probably the most well-balanced music lover here at Mr Vintage. lol. I’m just getting in to using lol, and I like it. Used correctly it’s crack-up bro. Joe and the others will have a laugh that I’m an ‘Indie Kid’, calling me Indie-ray and the like (racist), but that’s rubbish and I think they know that. I like quite a few NZ bands. Here goes; The Mint Chicks, Neil Finn, Motocade, The Veils, Shihad, Goldenhorse, Phoenix Foundation, SJD, Cut off your hands, Midnight Youth, GNN, Kingston, Weta, Evermore, Streetwise Scarlett, and Liam Finn. Often I think I’m too nice to really dislike a band, but then I heard the Feelers and Autozam. The guys give me crap about Evermore, but I love a feel-good tune to lift the spirits (no homo).

Joe – Joe’s brown, and his music tastes tells you this. It’s ok, I’m also a chocolate assassin and I’m allowed to say such things. BP4L (Black Panthers 4 Life!). Nah, just kidding, Joe’s taste is reasonably varied but he does love his gangsta rap. Joe attends a lot of gigs, and his favourite NZ artists are; Brooke Fraser, Gin Wigmore, Janine Foster, David Dallas, Che Fu, Nesian Mystik, Needles & Bees, and Salmonella Bud. Told you he had brown in him. But seriously, Joe has a deep passion for music and I guess you could say he’s one of those “likes anything that’s un-signed” kind of guys. He also loves Kiwi FM. Swears by it. I think an apt description of Joe would be ‘The human Auckland City gig-guide’.

Mel – As the youngest of the Mr Vintage team at 21, I thought Mel would be in to bands like Blindspott and Rubicon. Not so however. Mel greeted the question of “What do you think of NZ Music” very enthusiastically. She doesn’t download Kiwi music at all, frequents gigs rather often, and has a crush on Nathan King from Zed. Must have been after she heard “Glorafilia”. She’s friends with the younger sister of one of the members from Midnight Youth, likes to chill out to Kora, Tiki Tane, Katchafire, Fly my pretties, and Shapeshifter, while also Ladi 6 is her favourite live act in NZ. Her latest CD purchase was the new work from Savage, and she listens to Concord Dawn when she is going to sleep. Trance much?