THE closure of record shops is exposing the general public to the borderline humans that worked in them, it has emerged.
The shops are becoming extinct as major labels like U2’s Mercury Records increasingly market their remaining CDs as big earrings or bird scarers, while vinyl has become the exclusive preserve of balding men who think Robert Elms is a modern lifestyle shaman.
But experts warn that ex-record shop staff will be unable to function in mainstream society.
Music industry analyst, Tom Logan, said: “After someone has worked in a record shop for more than five years, they become introverted, wary of females, develop unhygienic facial hair and have the general demeanour of a sexually frustrated dungeon master.
“These are not transferable skills.”
He added: “Without a counter to slouch behind, they are robbed of their power, like Nosferatu in daylight but with a stained Jesus and Mary Chain tour t-shirt from 1985 instead of a cloak.
“It’s only a matter of time before one of them does something hideous on public transport.”
Stephen Malley aka ‘Ape’, formerly head of pre-1979 progressive rock and Brazilian sex film soundtracks at Hackney’s Toad Records, said: “I don’t care what anyone thinks of me as I have an original mono pressing of Esoteric Wolf Dimension Inhabitor by the Disciples of Trung, with the embossed full colour sleeve in near mint or near mint minus condition, depending on which grading system you favour.
“And that is why it’s fine for me to lob my faeces at people while wandering around bus stations naked from the waist down.”
He added: “Some people have recommended that I experience something called ‘human female vagina’. But I’ve looked in the Record Collector price guide and it doesn’t seem to have a catalogue number.
“It can’t be that good anyway or I’d have heard it.”
