Ezy Rider Record Exchange: Drop the needle and play
The green door and McSorleys name say all you need to know about the building - mass produced signs saying 'here for the craic' and out-sized foam Guinness hats on St Patrick's Day.
But, that doesn't tell the story of what it used to be - or how important it was to a generation of music lovers.
Forrest Road in Edinburgh was one of my haunts as a teenager, with visits every Saturday with a few quid in my pocket and hours to kill.
The Ezy Rider Record Exchange - known to many as the Hippy Market - didn't just open my eyes, and ears, to a host of bands, it brought music alive.
Stepping inside the stone entrance at what was Oddfellows' Hall, was to disappear into a semi-lit world of vinyl, populated almost entirely by blokes, many sporting denim jackets with band names and logos embroidered with great care on the back. The patches and art work defined them.
The teenage me thought the market was huge. Stepping back inside it last year for a Free Fringe show, I was struck how small it actually was. Even allowing for renovations, it seemed to have shrunk.
But looking round still brought back memories of countless hours there.
I'd get the bus in from Wester Hailes, and spend the entire day mooching round the city's record shops, and those of us who grew up in the era of vinyl were spoiled for choice.
There was The Other Record Shop down more than halfway down the Royal Mile, the Record Shak up in Clerk Street, The Last Record Shop, GI Records, and Vinyl Villains down on Elm Row- just a few which spring to mind.
Those were the days when places such as Boots had a record department, while John Menzies had an entire floor dedicated to singles and albums. True, their stock was more mainstream, but they were also places to get a new stylus. Go into Boots today and ask for a new needle, and you get a very different reaction ...
Even Woolworths had a vinyl section, much of it built around brands such as K-Tel and Music For Pleasure, not to mention those awful Top Of The Pops compilation albums which featured folk who sounded like the original artists. I still reckon they only sold because they featured a cheesy slightly scantily clad girl pouting on the cover.
But before HMV and Virgin hit Princes Street, the Hippy Market reigned supreme.
Vinyl and jeans were sold side by side - rows of Wranglers hung up next to the changing booths which, from memory, had saloon bar style sawing doors - and the albums all sat within cellophane folders. My abiding memory is emerging with manky fingertips from thumbing through rack after rack.
It had a unique point of sale too.
You approached the counter with some trepidation, and handed the sleeves over to some dude who then handed you the album for inspection, whilst barely concealing their contempt for your selections.
You'd twist and turn it in to check for an scratches before a nod of the head concluded the deal. No-one ever got, or asked for, a receipt.
They'd also buy vinyl, but that too was a ritual. I still recall the walk of shame outside after they too one look at my bag of vinyl and gave a shrug which indicated my time at the counter was up. Clearly there was no re-sell market for Meat Loaf & Stoney - a truly awful pre-Bat Out Of Hell album which I have no recollection ever buying.
But I was a buyer rather then a seller, and weekends would see me immersed in the racks of heavy rock albums and 60s psychadelia
Reviews and interviews in Sounds and NME would spark some purchases, others via a night at mates' houses rifling through their own albums. Some were just pot shots in the dark - that's my only explanation for buying Iron Butterfly's In-Da-Gadda-Da-Vida album.
The Hippy Market introduced me to everyone from Zappa - a very fleeting relationship - to King Crimson, and allowed me to delve deep into the back catalogues of old rockers such ass Purple, Zeppelin, Quo, Tull, and so on.
And, no matter the purchase, there was always, and still is, something incredibly magical about getting home and pouring over an album - browsing the sleeve notes and lyrics, and even the thank yous for any nuggets of info as well as simply admiring the artwork.
Kinda sad the download and streaming generations will never share that thrill.
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