BRADLEY'S RECORD SHOP

[jimmydunneclone]

Yes it was the first Punk shop to open in the North of England. It was owned by Michael Peters and Graham Bull.

Yes that's right.I worked for the late Graham Bull @1979.Top bloke.

[Guest walkleyalison]

i didn't grow up in Sheffield, but that bag takes me back I spent my formative years in Halifax and spent many an hour in the local Bradleys store. Pretty much all the concerts I went to until I moved away at 18 were coach trips from Bradleys. Happy memories

[Sheffield History]

[jdodie]

On 18/11/2014 at 20:56, History dude said:

There were only 250 record shops in the entire BMRB panel out of over 6,000 shops. In fact it was very easy to identify the chart shops for record reps. Reps just needed to go into the store and look around, especially the office area. They only needed to see that the shop had a BMRB diary. In many cases the store would have this close to the till. It was also a practice for the BMRB to pester shops for the diary as many shops were late sending them in. However the record companies would also phone up posing as BMRB people to get the shop to admit it had a diary!

Since the function of the paid for hype was to get it into the top 50 between 50 and 41 in most cases, you didn't need to sell a lot of copies. 60 copies for the week would ensure a place between 50 and 41. It follows that 100 to 150 copies in known chart shops would result in enough copies making it to the actually shops used by the BMRB that week. Since this could amount to as little as 10 purchases at the branch in Sheffield, even if the records were not included in the chart, it amounted to only a small loss for the record company.

 

I also thought at one time that Bradleys the shop and the record company were the same thing. However on another thread on this forum, it was shown that the two were entirely separate from each other and were not connected at all. Apart from the fact that the shop would sell the record company's product.

 

I also spoke to one person who claimed he worked for various shops. He told me it wasn't just the record companies that would fiddle the charts. For example if a record company had managed to convince many record stores to stock a record on the strength that the record would sell a lot and then didn't. The shops would then enter the numbers into the diary to say it had sold when it had in fact sold none. Of course once in the charts it sold a lot. Thus getting shut of unwanted stock. How widespread this practice was is of course not known. I did question the chap about it, pointing out that the other shops wouldn't show sales of it. But he said that the shops would have done the same. From what I know about business practices it would sound feasible, the old boy network, with shop mangers etc attending sales conferences and getting on the phone to each other, saying are you going to stock this record by Dog Face (made up name) that CBS are pushing? But I can't say if they would then tell each other to enter false sales in the BMRB.

 

What I can tell you that from 1969 onwards only the top twenty was genuine sales, but even then it wasn't an accurate reflection of the Country due to the fact Woolworths didn't take part till after 1976. If you remember that year the entire chart softened in tone as Glam Rock just died. Was it in part due to the more broader range of people who bought records from Woolworths.

Bradleys record was owned by a chap called John Bradley and Ron Neal (Neil). Ron Neal actually came from Rochdale and had a shop in Rochdale as well. I think John Bradley was from Worksop..... Fargate had a manager called Barry Smith and Pinstone was Alan Trower. 

 

[Leonr2z]

Wasn't there a place called Curtis Records at the top of the Moor next to what used to be Redgates then Lonsdale Universal? Whatever it was called I bought my first few chart singles there. Also just to be Pedantic don't recall Violet May's being on the Moor, though it was on the corner of Matilda Street and Earl Way (back of the Moor).

[mike-s]

There was another BRMB chart returns shop in Sheffield, Roadrunner records at Firth Park. Ray the owner, who I am still in contact with, ran a very busy shop on Bellhouse Rd. I worked for a record company in the early 80s and we were given bootfulls of 'freebies' to hand out to chart return shops. One such item was a single that was becoming 'hot', so i piled freebies of the record into Ray, who duly listed 3 or 4 into the chart returns book (no computers then) for every 1 he actually sold. The single hit the prized Christmas number one slot........'save your love for me', Renee & Renato. Sorry everybody!!!.

[History dude]

7 hours ago, mike-s said:

There was another BRMB chart returns shop in Sheffield, Roadrunner records at Firth Park. Ray the owner, who I am still in contact with, ran a very busy shop on Bellhouse Rd. I worked for a record company in the early 80s and we were given bootfulls of 'freebies' to hand out to chart return shops. One such item was a single that was becoming 'hot', so i piled freebies of the record into Ray, who duly listed 3 or 4 into the chart returns book (no computers then) for every 1 he actually sold. The single hit the prized Christmas number one slot........'save your love for me', Renee & Renato. Sorry everybody!!!.

I'm curious to know if Ray has any records (paper) of the sales of records his shop sold? It's always fascinated me to know how many records a shop of that size would actually sell to the public. For example did the shop sell 10, 20, 30, 40, 100 copies or more a week of a number one record? What were the typical weekly sales from a single shop of a chart record. Could you ask him if records by Sheffield acts would sell better than other hit records, in his shop please.

[mike-s]

On 13/04/2018 at 20:58, History dude said:

I'm curious to know if Ray has any records (paper) of the sales of records his shop sold? It's always fascinated me to know how many records a shop of that size would actually sell to the public. For example did the shop sell 10, 20, 30, 40, 100 copies or more a week of a number one record? What were the typical weekly sales from a single shop of a chart record. Could you ask him if records by Sheffield acts would sell better than other hit records, in his shop please.

The shop closed many years ago so no there is'nt any paperwork as such. As a rough guide, he would move around 30-50 copies a week of a popular No 1 single. In comparison I would have thought somewhere like Bradleys on Fargate would have sold around 200. Ray converted his shop to a video library, which was all the rage in the early/mid 80s, so i think the majority of the popular Sheffield bands would have been just emerging at around the same time. 

[jdodie]

On 20/11/2014 at 19:13, DaveH said:

On the same quite short street as it happens.

The two shops would have been only a few yards apart.

I remember branches of Bradleys at 103 West street, 59 Fargate, 01 Pinstone Street. Also the out of Sheffield branches at 2/4 South Mall, Doncaster, 22 Markes Street, Halifax, 19 Yorkshire Street, 69/71 Drake Street and 2 The Walk in Rochdale.....

[mike-s]

There was definitely a branch of Bradleys on Chapel walk, i used to supply them. There was also another 'chart return shop' at Firth park, Road Runner records. This shop was instrumental in hoisting 'Renee and Renato' to the Christmas No 1 slot with 'Save your love'. It was quite simple to manipulate the charts in those days with lots of 'freebies' in return for extra entries on to the chart lists. Happy days!

[Sam Xavier]

On 04/12/2014 at 01:13, History dude said:

Yes it was the first Punk shop to open in the North of England. It was owned by Michael Peters and Graham Bull.

Was called Assylum.  Used to go there a lot.  

[Sheffield History]