500,000 records & counting - a North Manchester music treasure trove...

 Today we spent a couple of hours in a basement in Newton Heath, North Manchester, looking through literally 1000's & 1000's of vinyls, picture discs, cassettes and 8 tracks. The collection belongs to George Davenport and is all his Pandemonium Record Shop stock.

There's a bewildering amount of music and despite being checked by collectors over the years, more vinyl than you could look through (let alone listen to) in a day, week or even month. The place isn't open to the public but you can make an appointment to browse, although not necessarily buy. Unfortunately for both George and the amazing music archive that's stored there he is facing eviction and the stock will be destroyed, lost for ever. George is at a loss as what to do and the landlord seems to be set at getting him to leave, with no other option. The building is old and badly kept meaning there's alot of water damage to the stock already (we saw 100's of 1930s jazz shellac 12's in a terrible state...)

Some friends at production company Tunafish Media [ based just down Oldham Road @ The Sharp Project ] are in the process of making a  documentary about vinyl obsessives, with George featuring amongst others, which they hope will draw attention to the cause and hopefully find a solution to what will potentially be, a massive loss of an amazing music archive...any ideas? Get in touch if you'd like to know more or could help George with a storage solution.

Here's a few photos we took today, not best quality...

 

 

 Some of the water damage below - getting worse by the day...

We hope a solution is found soon - if not, it'll be a sad end to collection obsessively gathered over many years...

UPDATE: I've added a few more images below. Got video to upload too. No sign of any aA stock in there mind...

Further reading: In 2005 the Manchester Evening News interviewed George when his dispute with the landlords began - read it here. Recordshopcity.co.uk have a feature on Pandemonium Records here & they've now featured this article here

Discussion on DJ History too. 

Update 25/01/12: There's a Pandemonium Records website that's been put together by Alistair @ Moscow Radio.

Update 27/01/12: Manchester Evening News ran a feature today about er, the feature above.