Beatmerchant Record Store – December Opening Hours

 The Beatmerchant Record Store Opening Hours for December 2014.

Tuesday to Saturday – 10am to 6pm

Sunday – 11am to 5:30pm

Monday – 11am to 5:30 pm

Closed Christmas Day

Boxing Sale Sale – 11am t0 5:30pm

Looking for new releases and classic releases – then look no further.

Where else can you go for a good selection of CDs, Vinyl Records & DVDs.

We are now fully stocked
for Christmas in all areas, Vinyl Records, Compact Discs, Posters, DVDs
Music and Films, T Shirts and all the unique goodies we have for sale.
So come and shop early to avoid disappointment.

 

Lastly, Don’t forget to get in your Beatmerchant Beat Club cards for our
special Christmas draw prize for a unique piece of artwork which will
take place in the store on Saturday December 20th at 2pm.

See you all soon                                                                                 

Frankie Neilson
The Beatmerchant – Steveston Village
604 204 0044

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MUSIC at the CANNERY ~ STEVESTON VILLAGE ~ HARPDOG BROWN

 

Music at the Cannery ~ Steveston Village ~ Last Show 2014

Music at the Cannery Summer Series at the Gulf of Georgia Cannery in Steveston Village on 4th Ave  we present the final show on Friday August 29th ~ HARPDOG BROWN and Jordan Edmonds on guitar

Master Blus Harpist Harpdog Brown will be joined on stage by super blues guitarist Jordan Edmonds.  
Admission by Donation and show starts at 6:30 pm Sharp!

With 7 sold out shows so far  this summer ~ Be there by 6:10 pm to get a seat.

Admission by Donation. Rain or Shine the show goes on! Outdoors or Indoors

Frankie Neilson 604 204 0044

 

Paul Simon & Sting together at Rogers Arena ~ Thurs Feb 20th @ 8pm

When you go to see Paul Simon & Sting on tour together you are actually going to see 4 artists, Paul Simon, Sting, The Police and Simon & Garfunkel, this is  the wealth of recorded material that these two artists can draw on  for this show.

No Art Garfunkel on stage tonight but Sting is here to fill that space and what a good job he will do, also no Police boys tonight guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland are missing in action, but 14 musicians fill the stage and Sting’s band fill the Police void with the brilliant master class Vinnie Golaiuta on drums and the tasteful classically trained Dominic Miller on guitar add to these on keyboards David Sancious and Jo Lawry who is featured on the film ‘ 20 feet from Stardom” on backing vocals with young new kid Peter Tickell on electric violin who is an outstanding talent.

The first thing I notice is Sting is still in strong voice hitting all the notes and still has his vocal power and is first and foremost  a great musician with the chance to play bass with some stellar musicians tonight which he seems to relish and to sing some of Paul Simon’s songs as they merge their material and verses and voices together being very gracious to each other between songs.

Starting in with “Brand New Day” all of Sting’s solo songs and Police goodies are on display here tonight and the crowd are right there for the sing~a~long Roxanne and  Walking on the Moon including yours truly supporting a fellow English boy in Vancouver!

Paul Simon acknowledges the Canadian Woman’s Hockey team win over the USA and gets a big cheer in our home town hockey  stadium.

Next thing I notice is Paul Simon’s band ~ Wow!  every one of them are up to brilliant and deserve a special mention ~ Mick Rossi on Hammond keyboards, Bruce ‘Sunpie’ Barnes on Accordion and Harmonica, Bakithi  Kumalo on bass, Vincent Nguini on guitar, C.J. Carmerierion trumpet and French Horn and Andy Snitzer on Saxophone and Flutes who are a brass section to end all brass sections and  the three who really sparked my  interest, Mark Stewart who would join the brass section on Saxophone and played a mean guitar as well, also Jamey Haddad on percussion who nearly stole the show with his solo and last but not least young drummer extraordinaire Jim Oblon  who I think will be much in demand in the future and is also a fine guitarist.

The songs of Paul Simon carry him through the night, surly one of the best songwriters in the last 50 odd years, he has adapted his voice to suit the all time classics ~ Slip Slidin Away, Stll Crazy, My and Julio, Bridge Over Troubled Waters, Mother & Child Reunion  and the beautiful drum intro into 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover and the crowd are on there feet and in seventh heaven at this point.

Then next up  you have the Graceland songs to wow  the crowd and again they are up on their feet again for every note and word ~ Boy in the Bubble, Diamonds on the Soles Of Her Shoes and You Can Call Me Al with bass player Kulamo showing the audience that he can play just a bit and kissing his bass guitar after a standing ovation at the end of the song. Follow that!

Great show boys ~ Paul Simon at 73 & Sting at 63 ~ Good Friends and happily Still Crazy After All these Years and with smiles on their faces

Frankie Neilson

Genuine CD sound quality drawing music lovers back

to the Beatmerchant.

Frankie Neilson of The Beatmerchant Record Store in Steveston, which offers CDs and vinyls, such as this Amy Winehouse album.

Martin van den Hemel photos

By Martin van den Hemel – Richmond Review
Published: January 13, 2012 11:00 AM
Updated: January 13, 2012 11:47 AM

 

History has a way of repeating itself, and so it appears with the predicted demise of CDs since downloading music from the Internet became a multi-billion dollar industry.

 Big box music store HMV recently closed its store at Richmond Centre mall after gradually placing less and less emphasis on its music CD collection. And HMV tried to fill a void left by the closing of A&B Sound in Vancouver.

 But business has never been better for Frankie Neilson, owner of The Beatmerchant Record Store in Steveston, a specialty music store in the heart of the fishing village.

 “I think the big box stores…haven’t survived because they haven’t been giving people what they want. They stock all the same stuff,” said Neilson.

 Much like when CDs came on the scene in the 1980s, many pundits wondered how long it would take for vinyl albums to become extinct. And although vinyl albums aren’t being mass produced anymore, there’s no shortage of demand from audiophiles seeking the authentic sound quality they offer.

 Similarly, downloads from iTunes for play on iPods and other MP3 players doesn’t have the same quality and range of sound offered by music CDs or vinyl records.

 Neilson said one customer walked in after spending thousands of dollars on iTunes downloads, but had nothing to show for it and is now buying vinyl.

 Aside from better sound quality, having something you can hold, along with the signature artwork on CD jackets, along with additional content such as lyrics, that can’t be replicated by online downloads.

 Beyond that, people miss going to a store and chatting about music with people who are knowledgeable about it, he said.

 Over the past five years, Neilson said it’s a shame that the technology is becoming more important than the music itself.

 “The music is what’s important, not the technology,” he said.

Vancouver Province Newpaper Beatmerchant Article

 

Aura of British invasion at Beatmerchant

 

 

 

By Tom Harrison, The Province July 2012

 

 

Don’t tell Beatmerchant the CD is dead.

Besides CDs, the tiny shop in Steveston has racks of vinyl, DVDs, books, posters and – for some reason – a selection of tea and coffee mugs. There are other stores in the Lower Mainland such as Zulu, Red Cat, Scratch and Neptoon. Each seems to specialize, so it’s no surprise that there is a British Invasion aura about Beatmerchant, that carries over to its selection of CDs. There are a lot of English imports in stock.

This implies a knowledge of music – British at least – and a sympathy for the record buyer/collector. Want that rare Pretty Things single? Beatmerchant has (or had) it.

This is especially warming for the long-time record consumer who’d heard nasty rumblings that the CD is dead. Stuck with their CD habit, averse to downloading, the inveterate collector has been forced to order CDs online and will for as long as CDs are made. Right now, Vancouver hasn’t a single chain where new CDs can be bought. This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. If CDs sales are plummeting, it’s because nobody can buy a CD. They have no choice but to shop online . . . providing they know for which they’re shopping. Which is another attraction of Beatmerchant et al.: Browsing.

One of the pleasures of record shop-ping used to be discovering, while browsing, records in the racks you didn’t know about or never thought you’d find. As well, some of my greatest guilty pleasures are records I bought because they were in the delete bin and cheap. Beat-merchant has a relatively small selection of CDs and vinyl at reduced prices.

The store is located in the corner of a mall at 12240 2nd Ave.

Read more of my posts about local music at blogs.theprovince.com.

© Copyright (c) The Province

Max Bygraves ~ Fings Ain’t Wot They Used To Be

I Wanna Tell You A Story!

Walter Bygraves was born one of six children in the docklands of south east London and his father was a boxer, he came from a poor council estate background and his is a story of  rags to riches steeped in music hall tradition. When he joined the RAF he used to impersonate Max Miller and that is where he picked up his nickname Max. My nan & grandad once told me he started his career singing in the Beacon pub in my home town Dagenham. Wonder if that is true!

Max had been making a name for himself on the BBC radio show “Educating  Archie” with the catch phrase “Good Idea, Son!” but in 1954 the British Hit Parade came into being and that year was a stellar year for young comic Max with hits with the Tanner Sisters ” Friends & Neighbours” and on his own with “Heart Of My Heart” and the classic ” Gilly Gilly Ossenfeffer Katzenellen Bogen By The Sea” which became a firm family favourite in our house. Also making her UK chart debut that year was Petula Clark with her song “The Little Shoemaker”.

One of my favourites as a kiddie was ” You’re A Pink Tooth Brush” which was on the radio a lot and I  met one of the writers of the song in the mid 80’s who was a fine old gentleman by the name of Bob Halfin who was working as a music publisher for a company called Campbell &  Connelly which sounded like a firm of solicitors but was one of the oldest music publishing companies in Britain.

Over the next couple of years Max appeared in the charts with “Heart” & “Meet Me On The Corner”. In May 1958 he hit No.3 big on the chart with “You Need Hands’ c/w “Tulips From Amsterdam” which became his theme tunes, both songs staying on the charts for 21 weeks that summer and selling over a million copies. At Christmas ’59 Max returned with the Christmas song “Jingle Bell Rock” .                    

In 1960 Bygraves bought the rights to an unknown song that he liked one of the songs from ~ The musical was “Oliver” written by Lionel Bart and the song was “Fings Ain’t Wot They Used To Be” and after that he never had to count his pennies again!

In the 70’s Max Bygraves enjoyed huge success with his Sing~Along~With Max albums on Pye Records which drew heavily from the nostalgia of music hall of the family medley sing~song! and he dented the charts again in 1973 with the Wink Martindale classic “Deck of Cards”.  Few British all round entertainers have been more loved.                     

I was lucky enough to meet Max Bygraves when one day he parked his beautiful Rolls Royce next to my wreck at ATV House in Marble Arch and he got out said hello and shook my hand.

I will never forget the number plate on the Rolls ~ it was MB 1. Years later Mercedes Benz offered Max one million pounds for that number plate and he turned them down.

When he was awarded the OBE his friend Eric Skyes rang him to asked him if he knew what the intitals OBE stood for! “No” said Max ~ “Over Blinkin’ Eighty” replied Eric.

Great little story from 2003 was that an Oxfam charity shop in Kent banned Max Bygraves records from the shop because they had too many of them already! Good Idea Son!

They Paved Paradise & Put Up A Parking Lot

 

I run a Record Store in Steveston Village called the Beatmerchant and this year we have had paid parking introduced into Steveston village by the Steveton Harbour Authority and that was quickly followed by the City of Richmond jumping on the band wagon with them and introducing permit parking in the lanes and employing two Traffic Enforcement Officers to police the streets who have been aggressive & brutal for the village and it’s visitors.              

 

Steveston Village is supposed to be a Tourist Destination and Tourism Richmond recently opened a Vistor Centre in the village post office, but is this how we greet people who are visiting Steveston with this paid parking war and money grab! The City of Richmond and the Harbour Authority should be ashamed of themselves.                    

 

The big parking lot on Chatham Street is now paid parking and is always empty as most of the paid parking lots are and the merchants in the village would like to see this parking lot given back to the working employees of Steveston to be able to park for a minimum fee per month and also for visitors to be able to have somewhere in the village for FREE to park so they can walk around and enjoy Steveston instead of this constant harassment.

 

Paid parking was introduced in White Rock some years back and had a bad effect on the merchants trade there and the same is gonna happen in Steveston with cross border shopping also affecting the trade in the village. Some action needs to be taken.

 

Are we saying ~ Welcome to Steveston ~ Have a ticket!                       

 

We should be saying ~ Welcome to Steveston ~ Enjoy Yourselves.

 

Frankie Neilson

604 204 0044