Colourful characters from one of the UK's biggest music record fairs

(2 Feb 2015) Vinyl record technology dates back to the 19th Century and has long since been superseded by digital technology - but despite this, vinyl is becoming increasingly popular with record collectors.
At the UK's biggest record fair in London, collectors are will to spend large sums of cash for the rarest and most sought-after releases by their favourite bands.

They scratch easily, you can't play them in the car and the vinyl heyday has long since passed, but despite this, music fans across the world still chose to spin the black discs.
So what's everybody getting in a spin about?
The needle touches down and the analogue sound bursts into life on this tiny portable record player.
Here at the London Record Fair at Olympia, thousands of record sellers and collectors converge to do business.
One of those on the look out for a rare vinyl is Andy Biddle.... if his tattoos don't give away his favourite band then his nickname 'Pistols' might.
Punk Andy is obsessed with influential and controversial London band the Sex Pistols. He has spent his life inking his heroes onto his skin and buying their rare vinyl records.
Andy owns 500 Sex Pistols albums but is trying to curb his hobby because it is becoming increasingly more expensive as the vinyls become rarer and rarer.
Of course it wasn't always this way and he picked up the first records in collection for pocket money.
"The first (Sex) Pistols record I bought was My Way and I paid 64 pence (USD $1) for that down Rumblelows (a UK electical store) in 1978. Now I'm paying... the most expensive single I've bought is God Save the Queen, Turkish (special edition) and I've never seen another one of them. That cost me �650, (USD $1,000)" he says.
And when he's not buying Sex Pistols vinyl records he is getting them tattooed on his wrists - although he's fast running out of space for many more.
"Right that's the catalogue number for the A&M (record company) of God Save the Queen and that's the catalogue number for Anarchy in the UK," he says.
The Olympia fair is the largest record fair in the UK and is organised by Rob Lythall.
Organiser Lythall says this is his busiest time, and he'll even help manning the crowded stalls when necessary.
Olympia is one of the most important record fairs in the world and always attracts a strong collection of foreign buyers hoping to pick up a bargain in Britain.
Lythall explains: "This is the big show in the UK, it happens several times a year and we get people from literally all over the world - South America, obviously the USA, from Europe, Russia, Poland and all the old Eastern Bloc and obviously China and Japan. So the whole world descends on Olympia for these vinyl shows."
Gertee Kuipers is visiting from the Netherlands.
Kuipers is an Elvis Presley fan but he's managed to pick-up something unusual. A single by British television presenter Noel Edmonds... although Kuipers freely admits he's never heard of Edmonds before.
Having picked up the record for the price of a cup of tea means Kuipers can afford to take a chance, and he's hoping that when he gets back to the Netherlands and can research it properly then he will have discovered a rare gem.
"It's very nice to look out in the Netherlands what it is and if other people have it and "ooh, they don't have", "what is this?" That's very nice."
Another European visitor is Frenchman Roland Cangalot who has travelled all the way from Toulouse in the south of France to be at the record fair.
Cangalot is a Depeche Mode fan and finds it much easier to add to his collection in London - close to the 80s electronic artist's home town in Basildon, Essex.
The demographic at the show is very middle-aged and very male.
The Olympia Record Fair opened for one day only on January 31.


You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...
Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork