This week’s Staff Pick comes from the man, the myth, THE LEGEND… The one and only Kenny White aka ‘Ken You Feel It’. If you’ve visited the shop in the past two years, you’ve probably had the pleasure of meeting this friendly Glaswegian. He started off as an intern and quickly rose though the ranks to become one of the most essential members of the Phonica crew and now that he’s moving on to greener pastures we can’t put into words how much we’re all going to miss him… but before we all start crying our eyes out and drowning our sorrows in his secret stash of buckfast (yep… we found it) we wanted to give him the opportunity to shake up the Staff Pick Of The Week with a selection of his favourite records he played across the shop soundsystem during his time behind the counter.
“Phonica Records can be a strange place to work. When the rush and bustle on the streets of central London spills into, what is typically, the relaxed, slower pace of a record shop it makes for a completely unique union of atmospheres. Combined with the lay out of the shop; the wide service area of the counter / listening stations and the vast, customer facing wall of new records that creates a constant “kid in sweetshop” vibe for feverish shoppers fighting over the last copies of whatever, at peak times things can a bit…manic.
These records, for the most part, are ones that have sat in filing for a good percentage of my time here and i have played over the system consistently. Predominantly, energizing and uplifting, they are records that I could rely on in the manic times and ones that I will forever associate with working at the shop. Most of my colleagues will be sick to death of hearing these by now but perhaps in my absence they will find themselves reaching for them now and then.” – Kenny White
The opening track on a timeless house LP. I would often refuse sale of this album when playing it over the system, requesting the customer to let it play out (sorry Simon).
This one just cheers everyone up. Take the journey!
I have actually sickened myself with this album. I’ll come back to it in a year or two.
Probably the record I have listened to most in the shop, although my love for it permeates the work place. It seems to have the ability to calm, as well as energize. All time.
Most of my choices on this list are either part of an amazing album or just pretty long individual tracks. This is because it gives you time to get shit done in between flipping the record. This is an exception on the basis that it is just a complete stoater.
One from the early days. One day the boss of Irdial Records came in the shop and asked me to play him ONE new record that I thought was truly great, that would make him involuntarily take the money out of his pocket. I played this whole EP over the system and he just stood there with a smile on his face. When it finished, he thanked me, took the record, gave me a tenner and the name of the website where he had uploaded all of the Irdial back catalogue. That was on like my third week here or something.
On many an occasion I’ve made a right twat of myself dancing, and singing, to this one. However, in most cases, I have not been the only one.
