A-Z of Record Shop Bags: 1940s to 1990s

Description

Chosen as one of the Best Architecture and Design books Summer 2022 by the Financial Times. Why British record store carrier bags are graphic design icons: While they've never carried the kudos of sleeve designs and music posters, record shop bags offer a fascinating insight into 20th century British music culture, high-streets and more. - Creative Review Jonny Trunk's extensive collection of record shop bags weaves together a less conventional history of British music, celebrating the shops where musicians and fans bought and sold their first LPs. This book is a love letter to these forgotten spaces, accompanied by a juicy selection of anecdotes and little known facts about the record shops and their bags. Readers, gear up for a "brilliant ride down the old British high streets and low streets too." - It's Nice That Jonny Trunk and FUEL present A-Z of Record Shop Bags - a publication celebrating the humble record store bag. This exhaustive collection of the record shop bag provides a unique perspective of record shopping in the UK over the last century, bringing together over 500 incredible bags (some possibly the only surviving examples) to document the fascinating story of British high street record shopping. Bags from famous chains such as NEMS, Our Price and Virgin (the amazingly rare Roger Dean bags), sit alongside designs from local shops run by eccentric enthusiasts. Packed with stories such as the first Jewish ska retailer, the record sellers who started the premier league, famous staff (David Bowie, Dusty Springfield, Morrissey, etc.) and equally infamous owners, these anecdotes of mythical vinyl entrepreneurs will entertain and delight. With vinyl record sales at their highest ever for decades (outselling CDs in the US), this publication acts as an amazing insight into the history, culture and visual language of record collecting. Following Own Label, Wrappers Delight and Auto Erotica - A-Z of Record Shop Bags: 1940s to 1990s is the next book in the series by Jonny Trunk and FUEL, examining overlooked aspects of our collective past.

AUTHOR: Nostalgia enthusiast Jonny Trunk founded his record label Trunk Records in 1995, which specialises in releasing lost and archived recordings. He compiled and wrote The Music Library, a book that documented the hidden world of library music, and Own Label, a book about Sainsbury's packaging from 1962-1977. He has worked with Oliver Postgate, Derek Griffiths, Tony Hart and other celebrated artists of the 1960s and 1970s. Jonny also writes for a number of magazines and broadcasts every week on Resonance FM, London's art broadcasting station. FOREWORD: Jon Savage is an English writer, broadcaster and music journalist, best known for his history of the Sex Pistols and punk music, England's Dreaming, published in 1991. EDITORS: Damon Murray and Stephen Sorrell - FUEL - have been publishing books since 2004, with their hugely successful and influential Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia series. They have worked with Jonny Trunk on a number of publications, including The Music Library, Own Label, Wrappers Delight and Auto Erotica.

Weirdly nostalgic, these seemingly throwaway things access Proustian memories (at least for certain generations) of Saturday mornings browsing in the record shop bins.--Edwin Heathcote "Financial Times" A-Z Record Shop Bags doesn't make any grand pseudo-theoretical claims about hauntology or lost culture but it doesn't need to; it constructs its world entirely through practice. Consequently, as well as being a lot of fun, it is a much more useful document of pop culture than other works which take themselves more seriously.--Tessa Norton "The Wire" Jonny Trunk's extensive collection of record shop bags weaves together a less conventional history of British music, celebrating the shops where musicians and fans bought and sold their first LPs...His new book is a love letter to these forgotten spaces, accompanied by a juicy selection of anecdotes and little known facts about the record shops and their bags.--Elfie Thomas "It's Nice That" Trunk has unwrapped the creativity of a forgotten industry. Often candy-striped pink or grey, these bags, that protected precious LP records, were often repurposed from sweet shops. Others are stamped with bubbly 70s fonts or punchy graphics. Each individually recalls a forgotten independent business and in turn the changing face of our shops and society.-- "GreyScape"