Alibaba Records

Name: Touchline Dad
Comment: Before I discovered Crown Records I would occasionally venture into the scary basement shops of Alibaba Records and Marina Records in South Road, Waterloo, although they were often frequented by 'smellies'.

Name: Mike Brady
Comment: I worked in the South Road shop over the summer of 1979 before I went off to university. We used to walk down from school in the lunchtime and loiter around; I kept it up in the early part of the summer until Mike Hemmings (? - I think he ended up as House Manager or similar at the Everyman but that was about 10 years ago) offered me a job for four days a week (strangely, not on a Saturday). I can't remember the name of the shop manager now, but I remember Helen, who would have been a year or two older than me, tasked with running stock to Walton or Smithdown Road in her yellow Renault 5 (I can remember her surname but I'll respect her privacy, just in case).

I'd spend most of what I was paid (which wasn't much) on buying records - including 1-2 obscure new wave releases I'd convinced them to stock - at staff discount. The store room upstairs was, for me, full of hidden treasures in the 2-3 times I was allowed up there: no doubt for everyone else it was full of love and returns they'd forgotten to return (including boxes of Vibing Up The Senile Man that had apparently been cut backwards?).

A shop-full of unruly kids was alway dealt with in the same way - Mike would put A Clockwork Orange OST on the turntable, worked every time. Good times!
(29 November 2013)

Name: Chris Hill
Comment: I remember buying In the Hearing Of by Atomic Rooster in Alibaba as it was a regular drop-in for me on my way home from school. I now spend far too much money buying the records I couldn't afford at the time - sounds familiar!
(8 September 2013)

Name: Peter Power
Comment: I remember the space invader game in the shop on Walton vale👍
I also bought my first record there, The Jam's Eton Rifles 7".
(27 December 2016)

Name: Nick Vernon
Comment: I worked in Alibaba from 1985 to 1991 with Nick Robinson, Ron Downing owned it. Great place to work.
(4 July 2017)

Name: Craig Hay
Comment: You worked with me as well, Nick, I left in 1988 just before Ron moved to the other end of South Road.
(2020)