Give us the background...Why did you decide to open a record shop?

I am Gary, the store manager here at Assai Records Dundee. I think the reason I came to work here is probably similar to the reason the business owner Keith Ingram started the company – I’m an obsessive music fan! Since my teens I’ve collected records, CDs, cassettes, music magazines, DVDs and anything else that made me feel part of the big, exciting world of pop!
I’ve played in bands for the most of the last 15 years or so, with my first Assai experience being the in-store show my band played when launching an album. It was the only record store in the area that would stock and promote local artists.

Tell us a little bit about your store? What's the vibe?

We like to keep an open and welcoming vibe here, trying to get as far away as we can from the old-fashioned dusty record shop atmosphere of the past, which could feel quite snobby and exclusive. The vinyl shopper today is so different now to even five years ago, a high percentage of our customers these days are under 21, with most of those being female. The atmosphere is super chilled and inclusive, you are just as likely to hear Charli XCX and Tyler The Creator as you are The Beatles or Pavement.

Can you remember the first record you sold in the shop? And the last?

The last record I sold was The Last Dinner Party, which doesn’t look like it’s ever going to slow down! It’s been non-stop since its release, it feels like every second customer goes away with that in their bag. The first I believe was “Bananas” by Malcolm Middleton, which was the big new release in the shop the weekend I started working here. We had Malcolm playing in our shop that weekend to support the release.

Do you remember the first record shop you went to? And you do you remember the first record you bought?

Like so many people from Dundee - across multiple generations - it would have been the now sadly missed Grouchos I first went into. I used to annoy all my mates by insisting we had to spend HOURS in there, raking through every box, pulling out every format. I still remember vividly going to the counter right after I’d gotten my first record player and buying The Smiths “Hatful of Hollow” and Gary Numan’s “The Pleasure Principle”.
Both still have pride of place in my collection today!

What is your favourite record shop (apart from your own!) and why?

It’s a little bit out the way, but I love BEAT in Copenhagen! I’ve been to the city a few times in recent years and always go straight there. It’s got such an exciting mix of records, from mainstream indie and pop to all manner of global obscurities, and has a phenomenal little café attached to it! Cool city, cool shop!

What’s your most memorable record store experience?

Pretty early in my career with Assai Records we had Idlewild visit the shop for a record signing. I have been a MEGA FAN of theirs for years, so to find myself standing behind the counter with the band was surreal. In my head I was playing it cool, but from the photos I saw afterwards it would appear the massive grin on my face gave me away. We’ve had a lot of massive artists at the shop since, and it’s always a bit of a thrill, but that first brush with my musical icons will always stay with me.

What's the best gig you've ever been to?

I’m not sure it qualifies as a “gig” officially, due to it being a festival set, but the Pixies show at T in The Park 2004 is still to this day my live music highlight. I was obsessed with them. And never thought I’d get the chance to see them live. So that show right at the start of their “comeback” was spectacular. The energy in the crowd was electric!

What's your all-time favourite book?

I was someone who went through most of my school life without ever reading a book by choice, then in my teens I got the indie music bug and got heavy into books and literature purely through association to the artists I liked. Acts like Joy Division, The Smiths, Manic Street Preachers and The Cure had music littered with book references, so being a part of their world meant reading all the books! My favourite book is probably The Stranger by Albert Camus – discovered via The Cure!

What's your all-time favourite film?

A think the answer to that is the same for myself and a few of the staff in the shop – Quentin Tarantino’s True Romance. Just the coolest film ever! With a crackin’ soundtrack!

What would make up your desert island discs?

Interpol – Untitled
Nirvana – Serve The Servants
Kae Tempest – Europe is Lost
Radiohead – Motion Picture Soundtrack
BBC World Cup 98 opening titles
All Saints – Never Ever
The Rakes – Work, Work, Work (Pub, Club, Sleep)
White Stripes – Hotel Yorba

Who would form your all-time Festival line-up? (past & present)

If I’m allowed to choose the living and the those no longer with us it would be….
Nirvana, The Smiths, The Beatles, Joy Division, Kate Bush, Donna Summer, Radiohead, Death Grips, Rage Against The Machine, Marvin Gaye, Madonna, Interpol, OMD, Placebo…..I feel like I could go on and on forever!

What's your all-time favourite record? Give us the background...Why did you decide to open your record shop?

That should be an illegal question to ask someone in a record shop, it’ll make any music geeks brain melt. So many options! So many stipulations!

Brushing aside all the voices telling me what I “should” pick, I think I’d go for Interpol – Turn on The Bright Lights. Purely because it was the perfect record at the perfect time. Like some many of my generation The Stokes saved me from a youth of musical mediocracy, I loved them and all the bands emerging at that time, but something didn’t quite click on a deeper level until I heard that Interpol record. It has all the elements that made music exciting back then, but was also indebted to 80s goth and post punk records as well. It was a gateway to all the music from the past I then got obsessed by, and which are probably considered more worthy, but “Turn on The Bright Lights” has such a special place in my heart. The first record you fell in love with just can’t be beaten!

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