The Record Basement Reading

DJDeeeNBee

Member
Joined
Aug 28, 2007
I have a few questions about it as i was too young to be interested when it was open

what happened to it?
why did it close?
what year did it close?
where actually was it?

I have an idea where it was because on the station road there is a derelict shop (but there were shutters down so I could not see in)

thanks very much :)
 
Well Record basement is now Zizzi's:mad:, so now people are eating Pizza where I used to stand listening to tunes all Saturday afternoon, and Dj'd as Stan

Can't quite remember when it closed, but it was an excellent place for tunes, unfortunatly didn't break even.

2 Memebers of Cause For conern used to work there, I think DJ Lee might have, Timi "Boomcat " John , Deadly P ,in fact Toby Terra , Kurse, and a whole lot more, not foregetting Basement Phil, Arthur, and all the others...Many of whom are still influential in or benhind the scenes today ...

They closed due to financial reasons, which is strange cos at one point they were doing so well...not going to go into gorry details cos not my place to talk about another mans business...
 
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i have some new info

when the shop opened it was at 40 station hill (on basement releases up till 95) and in 95 they must have moved to kings road (on basement releases in 95 it says 70-72 kings road)
i wonder why they moved?
 
I got this from discogs

Basement Records / labels (B)
Profile: The Basement label was started up in 1991 and was run from the Record Basement shop in Reading. The label was run by Phil Wells (aka Basement Phil).

The main artists on the label included Jack Smooth, Basement Phil, Kev Bird, DJ Mayhem, Wax Doctor, Roger Johnson, Alex Reece and Top Buzz.

One of the things that set Basement apart from the rest was the distinctive sound of nearly every release, courtesy of Jack Smooth's engineering and co-production. 'Jungle Techno' is a sound drawn from the label, with the phrase credited to Mikee B (one third of Top Buzz) who once famously commented that a Basement Records tune he was listening to had sounds that were actually similar to those in a jungle, mixed with Detroit influenced soundscapes.

The label was a big favourite of most DJ's throughout '93 and people like Ratty, Tango, DJ SS, Seduction, Slipmatt and Top Buzz were often heard playing several Basement releases in every set.

Spin-off labels from Basement included Sound Entity and Smooth Recordings whilst Jack Smooth had a behind the scenes influence on labels such as Homegrown, Legend, Symphony Sound and Sinister Recordings.

After the peak of 1993 the Basement label shifted to releasing the more experimetal side of Jungle throughout the mid 90's before closing down in 1997. Recent times however have seen the release of a series of Basement Classics releases plus some more new Drum & Bass productions.
 
Well Record basement is now Zizzi's:mad:, so now people are eating Pizza where I used to stand listening to tunes all Saturday afternoon, and Dj'd as Stan

Can't quite remember when it closed, but it was an excellent place for tunes, unfortunatly didn't break even.

2 Memebers of Cause For conern used to work there, I think DJ Lee might have, Timi "Boomcat " John , Deadly P ,in fact Toby Terra , Kurse, and a whole lot more, not foregetting Basement Phil, Arthur, and all the others...Many of whom are still influential in or benhind the scenes today ...

They closed due to financial reasons, which is strange cos at one point they were doing so well...not going to go into gorry details cos not my place to talk about another mans business...



Thats not exactly true Stan but ya nearly there mate.
The shop was started by Phil Wells way back in the days with his mate Pete.
DJ Lee was the original manager when they moved to Kings Road, when Lee left to tour with GLR i took over as manager. Smithy & QUiff from Total Science would work Saturdays for me. I later got jobs there for both Mark C and Stu C4C.
Hamish (Kurse) never used to actually work there but he could often be found propping up the counter.
Deadly P worked for Vinyl Distribution, Timmy & Claire ran the House & Garage side of the shop.
The shop was more than breaking even, especially as it was being bankrolled by Vinyl Distribution at the time.

Basement Phil now owns Nu Urban Music, I also work there too. DJ Lee has a Record / Skateboard shop in Oxford called SS20 and Deadly P works at Load Media.
 
Nice post
We uses to go down to basement when we were at school, remember you Trojan and mark from c4c - you guys used to sort us out all the freshest tunes. Remember seeing You might remember my mate Oli used to always be there with his mum buying records for him :) he went onto do well; got into turntabalism & represented the uk in the dmc's teams- 'the disablists'

Big respect
 
The Record Basement originally opened as a 2nd Hand Record Shop in 1987 in Reading Berkshire, situated on the Oxford Road in a basement shop under a Dentists practice, selling Soul, Jazz & Rare Grooves. Reps who called in on the commercial shops in the Town to drop off up front Dance Promos etc...and would call into see my partner Pete Sinclair or myself, as we were both active in the Rare Groove & Club scene at that time. Also at that time I was buying a lot of Chicago & Detroit House and I had customers looking for the same records and a lot of the Balearic titles that built the early Rave Scene, so slowly the shop built up a reputation for stocking upfront Dance Music.
We outgrew the original basement and moved to Station Hill in 1990 opposite Reading Train Station. The Shop was visited from DJs from all over the UK and loads from Europe and the USA. The shop was also famous for its late openings on a Wednesday evening, where a group of top UK DJs would meet up each week and take over the decks in the shop going through the records put aside for them.
Out of the back of the shop I launched Vinyl Distribution LTD which became very successful distributing music. So once again we outgrew the premises and moved in late 1994 to a 3 storey building on the Kings Road also in Reading. This new building housed the Shop, Vinyl Distribution LTD and a 24 Track Studio. I left the company in 1997 and the Company was closed in 2000.
 
I was 14 when I started this thread working in a DJ shop about 2 doors away from where the Station Hill shop was situated, so this is like going back down memory lane haha cheers for that!
 
The Record Basement was one of the highlights of Reading for me music wise and an even better label. Some classics on there.
It was almost before my time, but I used to go in there in the mid- late 90's now and again with my bro and buy a few plates. There were always plenty of good tunes. I drop a few basement tunes now and they always go down well. The Sentinel (Photek) was probably my favorite producer on Basement. Like a lot of things you don't realise how good something is until it's not there anymore.
I moved away in 2000, and later heard that it had dissolved. Such a shame.
It's about as clear as mud as to exactly what went wrong, but I believe Arthur De Sousa took more of a role in directing the company after Basement Phil left. In 2001 Arthur and a friend were gunned down in Pangbourne (of all places) and the shop closed shortly after. Arthur survived and recovered though his friend sadly died and I think this caused him to pull out of the company. Nice place, Reading!! Was glad to have moved away when that was all over the news..
 
Thats not exactly true Stan but ya nearly there mate.
The shop was started by Phil Wells way back in the days with his mate Pete.
DJ Lee was the original manager when they moved to Kings Road, when Lee left to tour with GLR i took over as manager. Smithy & QUiff from Total Science would work Saturdays for me. I later got jobs there for both Mark C and Stu C4C.
Hamish (Kurse) never used to actually work there but he could often be found propping up the counter.
Deadly P worked for Vinyl Distribution, Timmy & Claire ran the House & Garage side of the shop.
The shop was more than breaking even, especially as it was being bankrolled by Vinyl Distribution at the time.

Basement Phil now owns Nu Urban Music, I also work there too. DJ Lee has a Record / Skateboard shop in Oxford called SS20 and Deadly P works at Load Media.

Weirdly was looking for Record Basement pictures & came across this for many years ago !

Tobie you are right before 2007 i spent a lot of time in the shop but you must have a bad memory as i worked for Vinyl Distribution for over 5 years, i was there when Stuart C4C started in fact that was just before i became the warehouse manager & i also gave Deadly P his job in the warehouse, along with a few other ..
 
The Record Basement was one of the highlights of Reading for me music wise and an even better label. Some classics on there.
It was almost before my time, but I used to go in there in the mid- late 90's now and again with my bro and buy a few plates. There were always plenty of good tunes. I drop a few basement tunes now and they always go down well. The Sentinel (Photek) was probably my favorite producer on Basement. Like a lot of things you don't realise how good something is until it's not there anymore.
I moved away in 2000, and later heard that it had dissolved. Such a shame.
It's about as clear as mud as to exactly what went wrong, but I believe Arthur De Sousa took more of a role in directing the company after Basement Phil left. In 2001 Arthur and a friend were gunned down in Pangbourne (of all places) and the shop closed shortly after. Arthur survived and recovered though his friend sadly died and I think this caused him to pull out of the company. Nice place, Reading!! Was glad to have moved away when that was all over the news..


im not sure where you get your stories from , the shop shut because Vinyl Distribution moved to larger premises in Caversham & continued to trade for a few years, the company ended up in financial trouble due to falling sales of vinyl it changed hands & became Vinyl UK but the new owner turned out to be not as wealthy as he had made out and we all ended up getting made redundant about 6-12 months later.
 
im not sure where you get your stories from , the shop shut because Vinyl Distribution moved to larger premises in Caversham & continued to trade for a few years, the company ended up in financial trouble due to falling sales of vinyl it changed hands & became Vinyl UK but the new owner turned out to be not as wealthy as he had made out and we all ended up getting made redundant about 6-12 months later.

Ahh... The Reading Post is where I got the stories! Good to know the true story... Was the new owner the one who also bought the matrix club?
 
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