New exhibition at Riverside Museum celebrates Glasgow’s historic record stores

A new exhibition opened today in Glasgow Riverside Museum celebrating the city’s rich record store history.

‘Spinning Around – Glasgow’s Remarkable Record Shops’ is a celebration of the numerous music stores that thrived in the city from the 1980s to the mid-1990s.

The exhibition includes 134 objects from more than 60 Scottish bands and artists who were active between 1980 and 1995 are represented through records, cassettes, CDs, posters, t-shirts and other music memorabilia.

Featuring a variety of digital elements, visitors can try their hand at ‘crate-digging’ and browse an interactive record rack containing around 100 LP and 12-inch sleeves, or try to find all 130 Glasgow record shops, which are dotted around a hand-drawn, one-metre-square map created by acclaimed local illustrator, Adrian McMurchie.

Among the exhibition’s main attractions are: gold discs from The Bluebells and Simple Minds; a fan-made, record shop bags connected to some of Glasgow’s best-loved vinyl venues; rare club flyers, including the Volcano’s legendary ‘Partick Passport’; and a 1956 Lambretta LD 150 scooter bought by Alex Kapranos, lead singer of Franz Ferdinand, to toast his first record deal.
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