How Do I Get There?

The Market Hall, Peel Street, Accrington, Lancashire, BB5 1ER. Tel - 01254 399 699.

Tell Me More…

In an era where MP3 downloads are accepted in the charts and ‘Experts’ are warning that the days of the Compact Disc are numbered, owner of Custard Cube - Jim Bowes is mounting a one man crusade to keep vinyl alive.

Based in the unlikely surroundings of Accrington Market Hall, Custard Cube has seen avid collectors visit from all over Europe to trawlthrough Jim’s stock, looking for obscure Rock ‘n’ Roll from the 50’s to 80’s Metal.

Custard Cube has been running for over 12 years and visitors usually stumble across his shop via word of mouth as people generally hearabout ‘This guy who’s got all this vinyl’ but don’t quite believe it until they see it.

Your intrepid Cosmonauts happened to stumble across the shop whilst stopping off en-route from Blackburn back to Manchester refueling for a taste of the town’s famous pies!

Jim began selling vinyl to help finance his University studies and is the first to admit that collecting vinyl took over his life. Jim sees himself as a curator of a music museum, every album, 12″ or 7″ having once meant something to someone that can’t be felt when buying CD’s or digital downloads. When quizzed Jim replies “Vinyl satisfies the senses, it’s tactile. Somehow a piece of vinyl can connect emotionally with people. You can ask anyone and they will be able to tell you the 1st LP they bought and even where they bought it from.”

A quick dig through the boxes reveals the mainstream, unknown and the outright bizarre.

Cosmic Disco have been getting our fingers dusty at Custard Cube for over 24 months and spent many an afternoon’s long (And sometimes heated) discussion about records reveals that Jim is passionate about every piece of vinyl he has on offer. Jim states the fact they are second-hand shows that someone has wanted them originally and knows there will be someone else looking for them in the future.

Jim’s quest to keep vinyl alive has even gone as far as working with local schools, incorporating LP covers to use in art and history lessons.

Stagnant Shelves?

There’s so much vinyl to trawl through that it will take you a good few months to simply browse through the stock!

If we are talking turnover of items then Custard Cube’s main priority is not to have records come in and out as quickly as possible. From our experience it’s taken so long to properly go through the crates that by the time you think you’ve finished you’ll return on another visit to check other genres you may not have been perusing on a previous visit to find artists/tracks you totally missed on your last trip.

The stock has been well categorized and is generally kept in a very presentable order. Jim has a few members of staff who work tirelessly at keeping the items in as good an order as possible.

LP’s are categorized A-Z by Pop/Rock, Punk, Soul, Film/Soundtracks, Comedy/Library/Sound Effects, Reggae/World, Country & Metal but you can be guaranteed to find all kinds of sub-genres bunched up into these main categories.

12”s and 7”s are filed chronologically by year and where possible into genre but again due to the sheer volume of stock you can often find hidden gems by scouring through the incorrect sections. It’s quite common to find piles of records stashed behind the shelves or tucked away in corners where other visitors to the store have obviously hidden records that they may not have the cash to pay for on one visit so hide them for later.

Under The Counter, Special Stuff?

As all experienced diggers will know, the shop front itself is not where the real treasures lie.

The shop itself is a small unit on the ground floor of the market. Simply ask Jim for access to the store room on the mezzanine level of the market where you will be introduced to over 150,000 records. Here you will find everything from obscure space rock, 90’s Balearic House to Post Punk and Soul, Jazz and Funk where you can browse/listen uninterrupted to your hearts content.

Many a Lancashire DJ’s collection has ended up at Custard Cube. One particular collection labelled with stickers titled Howie??? is rumoured to be the once collection of a one time resident of legendary Burnley nightclub – Angels, when it was a soul club (Before it became a dance club in the late 1980’s Acid House period).

It’s rumoured that Howie took a busman’s holiday out to Spain one summer but prior to departing the U.K he owed the club owner some money so whilst he was away the owner flogged his resident’s record collection to Custard Cube in order to recoup his cash. Niles and Baggy now own a large portion of ‘Howie’ labelled 12”s which mainly included excellent cuts of quality Disco and Boogie. Bombs from Howie’s collection have included original 12″s of ‘The Bombers - Shake’ and ‘Five Special - Why Leave Us Alone?’ to name only a few.

When paying a visit to Custard Cube, remember to start early as you are guaranteed to lose a few hours of your life up here. There’s even a story that one guy who was shown the store room was left to browse the goods. By the end of the day Jim forgot the shopper was up there and the following morning the market security found a chap wandering around a locked market with a large pile of records under his arm, trying to find Jim.

Service With A Smile?

There’s no doubt that after speaking to Jim you know he’s a nice chap with a genuine passion for vinyl. If you’re like us and love digging through piles of dusty records then you’ll be in your element.

Jim’s no mug either as Baggy found out to his embarasment in recent weeks when upon finding ‘Faust’s – So Far’ LP (Books at £40) in mint condition he tried to sneak it in the £10 pile. Jim clocked this in an instant calling for Dick Turpin to call the horses waiting outside! It was all in good humour as after a good barter you’ll be sure of lots of bargains.

Listening Posts

This is yet another bonus of shopping at Custard Cube. There are a couple of decks tucked upstairs so you can lock yourself away and listen to those obscure looking New Wave LP’s at your leisure. 

Again, anywhere you can browse undisturbed whilst giving random tracks that once over is of course going to increase the amount of vinyl you’re going to purchase and if it sounds good here, just wait to you get it home.

Got, Got, Got. Swaps!

Unless it’s an ultra rare piece of rock memorablia the chances are that you wont shift any unwanted items in exchange for your finds here.

Custard Cube has such a volume of stock that turnover of newer items is not in Jim’s interests.

Buy Big

As with any 2nd hand emporium the more you buy the more you will be able to wangle off the final price. As a general rule, 12”s go for £2-3 a pop with LP’s starting at £3 going up to anything as pricey as £20, however the majority of LP’s come in at the £6-8 mark with the majority of the LP’s being marked with Custard Cube stickers.

Another Brick In The Wall

In the main shop front (Downstairs) you will find the more collectable/expensive items hung from the wall on display. Not so much in the soft porn style we’ve noticed at various other shops but more slotted in amongst the more general bric-a-brac on show.

A recent Custard Cube sale that totaling over several hundred pounds for a single item means you can find rare and collectable items if that’s your bag but we are more interested in the ‘Obscura-thon’ pieces found upstairs.

Pony Up The Green

Don’t make the mistake we made by having your ‘Record Collectors Price Guide’ glaringly on display to then go downstairs and try and blag yourself a pricey item for way under face value. (Well, you can all but try!)

Jim has been in the game for over 15 years and is no fool! Not only that but the items found here are already reasonably priced and should you be spending a few quid you will be guaranteed to be walking away with plenty of quality bargains and a nice grin on your face.

Make The Grade

In general 80% of the records at Custard Cube are in very good condition, quite easily making the VG+ grading. The collection upstairs is kept in a dry storage area, mostly kept in very good order and although some of the 12”s can be quite dusty, after a good bit of spit and polish come up a treat.

LP’s are more often than not in VG+ to Excellent condition. Both the vinyl and the covers (Other than having stickers on the sleeve) are stored neatly in crates and not stacked up with many records kept in hard wearing protective plastic sleeves.

What We Think

Basically, we love this place!

We’ve been regular visitors at Custard Cube for over 2 years and return at least once a month to find new material we may have either totally missed on a previous visit or after some research on an artist or genre have popped back to find the item nestled in a corner almost waiting for us to take it home.

Not necessarily a 12” Disco lover’s delight (Mainly because we’ve rinsed that section!) but if you are hungry for 90’s Balearic House 12”s, 80’s pop and especially rare and obscure albums from any genre (We’ve found excellent Prog, Cosmic, Balearic, New Wave & Electronica) then Custard Cube is well worth the trek out to Accrington Market for.

If you don’t like the records you can always sample one of the town’s world famous pies.

We recommend you try the steak and pepper sauce pie with a Manchester Tart for desert!

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