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ROLL THE END CREDITS "Thank you" ...To all our customers who supported us over the years and the crews who put in the effort. @ Vinyl Villains... Ricky
McCardle, Robert Firth, Lee, Alexandra Simson, Paul Kirk, Marc
Marnie (Stagefright Photography), Mark Mellie (later of with
Professor Plastic) ,Joe McEwan, Carol Melrose, Ken Morton, Marten
Claridge (Fiction Writer)... then later External help... Thanks to original accountant Neil Richie. Also, Jenifer Ewing, Pat Clipstone and Margaret Hay. But even before all that... @ Ingliston Market and later ,owner of Reptile Records and now Crispycat Recordings, David 'Sombre Reptile' Reilly .. @Record Shack - Shackeil (Sorry
if spelling is wrong) thanks for letting me help you to get Record
Shack set up and off the ground. It helped. (Shop now owned by
David Gass) My former business partner
at Vinyl Villains and now sole owner of Vinyl Villains Andrew
Watters. Thanks for being part of the future and the past. It
won't be forgotten. You have all played your part in the huge success of Hog's Head Music and before that, Vinyl Villains. A very special thank you to Lisa Clipstone Edwards, who had the VV idea in the beginning. But.......  Steve Mackie ('Gilded Cage' Falkirk) the former Manager of Edinburgh's original Punk music store 'Hot Licks' Records Cockburn St Edinburgh 1975-78 approx) ... You are responsible for all of this.....you gave me my first job in a record store, Hot Licks...I think I owe you a pint now!"E  ards
1999)Thank you all!! Hog's Head now moves forward. In April 2010 Tim Keppie (formerly of Kill City Records Stockbridge and Sound Control, takes over and I retire... long live the Hog's Head ! John Edwards
HOG'S HEAD AND VINYL VILLAINS BECAME SEPARATE FIRMS IN MAY 1996 __________________          |
ABOUT HOG'S HEAD MUSIC
Above- Hog's Head in the late 90's Hog's Head Music is a major
on-line and high street licenced used CD and DVD dealer based
in Edinburgh. You can sell your unwanted items to us. The idea
being that if you go to one of the on-line sellers to make a
purchase or a high street store and then you decide that you
no longer want the item that you bought from them, you can then
sell it on to us. This site is mainly a UK customer site. The
average buy back price is based upon the new price of the item
in the UK and it's used condition. This usually works out around
£2 - 4.00 for an 'as new' condition, full price disc. Less
for dicount / cheap items. We only buy goods in good condition. At Hog's Head we deal in Rock, Metal, Indie, Alternative, Traditional and Folk, AOR, and MOR. We also have Jazz, Blues,Reggae, Urban, Rap and Soul. There is a large soundtrack section also.We buy individual items or collections. Payment is in UK pounds although we will be dealing in Euro's eventually.
Hog's Head is a business and exists mainly to make money for it's owners. So that they can drink huge amounts of ale and belch loudly at everyone! Cheers!! Having said that, the owners and the assistants are all true music fans. They believe that a good store should provide the best service achievable and pay the fairest prices for anything that they are offered by the customer. Quality is a priority. We try only to buy and re-sell discs that are in the best of condition. Hog's Head History
Above : Police "Vinyl Villians" Bootleg. Vinyl Villains was named after this Police bootleg record which belonged to John. The spelling of Villains on the sleeve is actually wrong! Andrew, who had no previous interest in the music business had just left university, was planning to open a used book store. Andy and John, were introduced to each other at a family wedding reception. John who was tinkering with starting his own music business, suggested that the two should discuss the idea of a quality second hand record shop. Edinburgh has had many second hand record shops over the years, 'Grey Friars Market' in Forrest Road and 'HeadQuarters' in Lothian Street, next to the University being two of the earliest in the 70s. Cockburn Street Market had a stall also. Later, there was 'Deja vu' in Tollcross and 'Easy Rider' (formerly Greyfriars Market). Then in the 80's 'Record Shak' and 'Backbeat' opened up. Backbeat was owned by John Bruce who played guitar for Blues 'N' Trouble and who blues legend B B King proclaimed as being the greatest white blues band on the planet. (We won't dispute that).
 In the early days of second hand record shops, the idea was to pile it high and sell them quick. You would often find 10 of the same title rammed into over crowded boxes. This made browsing, for the music fan, a tedious and lengthy experience. In the dead of winter your hands would become numb while trawling in the larger emporiums. No thought seemed to be given to cleaning or grading the condition and prices. The money paid to the customer for their precious belonging was a very small amount. John and Andrew decided that it was time the trade was brought up to date and improved. The policy was and at Hog's Head still is, that every customer must be offered the fairest price possible. The stock must be prepared for re-sale to the highest quality by close inspection and cleaning.
Above : Left. 1984. The first VV frontage. Centre, Sorting the days vinyl and tape purchases for processing. Above Right : The day's stock intake gets processed for resale in Vinyl Villains. At the peak of the vinyl collecting wave, around 1985 - 90, (When these pictures were taken) the shop was so busy, that there were often three people working flat out cleaning, restoring, valuing, pricing, and pre-sale filing. The staff typically comprised of : Two counter assistants, three back shop stock processors and a valuer.
Above : Right. Mark Miele (Who. went on to open Professor Plastic's Vinyl Frontier) & Robert Firth. If you have ever wondered why nearly all of Edinburgh's record shop browsers looked the same during the nineties, then look no further. Robert built em' all using the original Vinyl Villains designs! Both Mark and Robert were members of Vinyl Villains original staff. Robert went on to start his own joiner firm in the late 90's. "On our first day of being open we had hardly any stock, around 1000LP's. Ten minutes after the door had been unlocked, the shop filled up with loads of people. It was really quite scary. We thought that we would sell out of everything that we had. People were coming up to the counter and buying piles of what we later found out to be rare records. They told us that we were selling things at much too low a price! We actually had no idea of the value of what we were dealing in at that time. I've no doubt that there will be quite a few people who sold stuff to us in the early days and who were paid crap prices. We never intentionally underpaid anybody. We had to learn really fast. If there is anyone out there who felt ripped off, may I take this opportunity to apologise. It is a day that none of us will ever forget". (John Edwards) So it was then that Vinyl Villains was born. At first the two hired a small stall at Edinburgh's Ingleston Sunday Market selling bootleg concert tapes which paid for our food and rent. Within six months a major main street site had been secured. John using his own record collection, some 1000 albums and Andrew, his total savings of £1000. some additional help from the Enterprise Allowance Scheme (£40 per week). The site was at 5 Elm Row Edinburgh and is still used by Vinyl Villains and now owned and run by Andrew Watters. John, detecting that the new CD technology was advancing rapidly, decided to move on and in the early 90's decided to open a Compact Disc shop,then initially named called 'Compact'. Compact / Hog's Head
At first the store was dealing in used records, tapes, videos and CD's. Later though, as the market began to rapidly move toward CD's, the decision was taken, that within a year, the shop should become Scotland's first CD only, second hand shop. The shop now also deals in DVD.
Later, John Dow, (later of
internet cafe and web site designers Dow-Carter and now living
in Auzzie, joined forces, with the intention of opening an Internet
Cafe called 'Universal Access'. The cafe never saw the light
of day due to unforeseen delays caused by Edinburgh District
Councils' planning department. (It took them over three months
to approve the use of six computers in the premises of a disused
shop). The planned internet access site was relocated and incorporated into Hog's Head's premises at 62 South Clerk Street. The venture was abandoned after a year due to the lack of local interest and the fact that most of the students living in the south side of the city had free internet access at their university. This was all before the computer was as common as the DVD player in the home and were all running on Windows 95! The only e-mail available was Compuserve. The shop was re-named Hog's Head Music and John was later joined by Tim Keppie who worked with Sound Control, before opening the ill fated 'Kill City' Indie music emporium, in the Stockbridge area. Sadly, due to a mixture of difficulties, mainly location and lack of support from the local population (Stockbridge), the shop was forced to close down. In 2002 Tim, who had been working on the staff at Hog's Head for a few years, became a junior partner and laterly a full partner. The shop continued to thrive through the 90's, During the late 90's the shop began selling t-shirt's to an increasingly merchandise hungry teenage population. The shirt bonanza lasted almost 5 years before burning out early 2005. Today, While many others have faltered (Virgin, Zavi, Fopp, Borders..Tower) Hog's Head Music is still a thriving and successful local enterprise. The shop specialises in used CD's and DVD's.
hogsheadmusic@yahoo.co.uk For information and comments about this site please contact Hog's Head Music - 62 South Clerk Street Edinburgh EH8 9PS Scotland UK   |
Hog's Head Music is located in
the city of Edinburgh. We have been in business since 1995 at
this location and at Vinyl Villains, 1985 before that. At present
there is no on-line data base of items for sale. We simply process
too much stock to keep up. If you are looking for anything in
particular, please send us an e-mail or
phone and ask!
The trail of Hog's Head reaches back
to around 1982, when unemployed Edinburgh slacker, John Edwards,
teamed up with another slacker, Andrew Watters. John had previously
worked with numerous other music outlets dating back to 1974
-5. He was the singles buyer for the legendary 'Hot Licks' punk
store in Edinburgh's punk hang out, Cockburn Street. John was
also a singles buyer and temporary manager for 'The Other Record
Shop' in Edinburgh's Royal Mile around 1978 and assistant manager
at their Stirling arcade unit in the early 80's with David Gass
(Record Shak). He also assisted at the birth of Record Shak,
Edinburgh's longest surviving second hand record store.
Hog's
Head' began life as 'Compact' in January1993 (As in Compact Disc..Nah!
), but later changed to Hog's Head in 1996 when John and Andrew
decided to split their business in two. This, to give both partners
the total freedom of being independent, allowing them to develop
their own style of enterprise. An image that John had always
loved, the hog head on the cover of seventies progressive rock
band, Blodwyn Pig's 'Ahead Rings Out' album, on Island / Chrysalis
Records ("I hope Mick (Abrahams) and Chris (Blackwell) won't
mind") inspired the change of name. The image is shown on
this site although it is no longer used by the firm.
The
day to day running of the shop was originally shared between
John and assistant Alys Black. (Who went on to study to become
an SPCA officer, we think) (Alys if you read this get in touch
and say hi).