Eight years on from our first entry on these pages, we’re still here!
Phil is a proper ‘veteran’ of the music industry – 38 years which has included HMV (twice), Entertainment UK (Woolworths and the Supermarkets), APT/Vital/PIAS, Warner Music (Rhino), BMG, Bonded (Iron Mountain) and freelance for Demon, Universal, Sony….
Kevin’s CV was somewhat different – a full career in social housing – until the radical shift into Music Retail. But music had always been a passion – collecting vinyl and CDs, and regular gig and festival going.
Longtime friends through children and family connections, and regular drinking partners; dreams led to conversations, conversations led to plans, and then to the reality of opening Eel Pie Records on election day 8/6/17.
We are hugely fortunate to have a store with a historical location within a stone’s throw of the legendary Eel Pie Island. We took a conscious decision from day one to stock both new and second-hand vinyl. In 2017 our ‘core’ customers were definitely ‘mature’ music fans, but over the years we have seen a steady shift towards younger customers. We don’t consider ourselves a ‘specialist’ music retailer – having a broad appeal to discerning music fans of all ages, genres and eras is what we aim for.  Twickenham isn’t a retail hub, so we have to work extremely hard to attract people to our shop.
As huge fans of new music, we focus our ‘championing’ activity around that, as the classics sell themselves. We have a monthly social night where we play our selections of new music and chat to customers about them at leisure. This has proved to be very popular, fully attended, and usually results in people buying albums by artists they’d not previously heard.
It was really important to us from the very start to try and become an integral part of our local community, so we engage with venues, community events, the local young people’s Battle Of The Bands and so much more.
We are extremely lucky to have two loyal and hardworking staff: Lucy and Leila, who have been with us for years – young talented people, with different perspectives, great knowledge, and innovative ideas. We are truly a ‘team’.
Our biggest achievement outside of shop, has been the establishment of the hugely successful High Tide Festival, which began as an offer from us to fill a gap in the local community summer activities in 2019, and has developed into a massive event: a free music festival covering the whole of Twickenham with c.100 acts performing across 15+ stages/venues. It has been an enormous undertaking, and a unqualified success, attracting 5k- 10k attendances (dependant on the weather)!