About Off the Beaten Tracks
We are Mark Merrifield and Lee Conybeare from Off The Beaten Tracks. We got married in 2001 and in 2003 we moved to the market town of Louth, Lincolnshire, close to where Lee had grown up. There wasn't a record shop in the town at the time and as Mark spent most of his free time in record shops, we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to give it a try ourselves.
We have recently moved to new shop, our 3rd premises on Aswell Street in Louth.
It's new music that keeps us going. Waiting for the next exciting new release and watching new artists emerge. We also love getting second hand vinyl and CD collections in and it's great to share this with a lovely customer base that we've built up over the years.
The music fans of Lincolnshire travel from all over the county to visit the town and to shop with us. We like to champion music from all different genres. Louth (and the wider area) has a good live music scene.
A positive thing about our new premises, as well as being bigger and closer to the town centre, is that we now have more room for in-store live music, so we are looking forward to inviting local bands and artists in for that very soon.
We have a very supportive customer base built up over 18 years, many of who are now friends, some even helped us with our recent shop move. We're also chuffed that new people have also just discovered us since relocating to our new shop.
One of our favourite moments in the shop was when a customer came in to buy a DVD and was very bemused to find the shop rammed, not realising it was Record Store Day. Whilst waiting in the queue to be served she was getting more & more exasperated on the phone to her friend who was waiting to meet her in town, shouting to the whole shop, 'I don't know what's going on, it's normally dead in here'!
Although we try, we can't please everyone of course... there was a time when a guy brought in a bag of punk singles hoping to sell them to us. Though they were great titles they were completely scratched and unplayable. He was so unhappy that we weren't interested that he took the singles and smashed them all over the entrance to the shop. It was a shocking and properly punk thing to do!
We've had lots of positive experiences of course. After being tipped off by a friend online about the Beatles records, we had in store a guy from Florida who booked a holiday in Lincolnshire several years running so he could come and shop with us.
The first item we ever sold was a second-hand Beatles red compilation double cassette for £4 to a lovely pensioner called June who continued to come in every single day for many years.
The last item we sold was the DJ Fresh Gold Dust RSD22 release to a very excited teenager at closing time on Saturday.
The first record shop that Lee visited was 'Sounds Electric' in Market Rasen, Lincs in the 80s. At that time, it was full of racks of cassettes and ghetto blasters. Her dad bought Abba and Bee Gees Best of tapes from there for her when she was 5 years old.
The first records that Mark bought were from WHSmith’s in Manchester – 2 classics from 1982... Phil Collins You Can't Hurry Love and Modern Romance Best Years of Our Lives.
As a student in Leicester in the 90s Mark fell in love with Timebox Records, which was like a labyrinth with a great array of second-hand records run by a friendly, knowledgeable owner.
Lee was a student in Norwich in the 90s and fondly remembers Soundclash which has just celebrated its 30th birthday.
Rockaboom in Leicester, which when we first visited in the early 90s felt like the coolest place on earth with fantastic new release displays. Shopped in there for many years including going to a signing with Billy Bragg. We're very happy to see it's still going.
Mark remembers Rockaboom playing Suede's Coming Up in the store a few days before it was released, hanging around to listen to whole album, desperate to buy a copy for himself.
Record Store Day has been a great boost for our shop. We love the buzz it creates, especially seeing customers queuing up overnight much to the bemusement of passers-by and neighbouring businesses. It has really helped our profile and we have people from further afield become regulars because of it.
Mark: Anoushka Shankar at Womad in 2002
Lee: Lamb at Glastonbury in 1999
Mark: Revolution In The Head – Ian MacDonald
Lee: The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje
Mark: The Wicker Man
Lee: Don't Look Now
Mark: Mental Health – Bombastic Mind, This Is The Kit – Two Wooden Spoons, Laura Groves – Pale Shadows, Steve Mason – Never Be Alone, Animals That Swim – Faded Glamour, McAlmont & Butler – You Do, Boo Radleys – Lazarus, Dinosaur Jr – Start Choppin, Stereolab – French Disko, Future Sound Of London – Papua New Guinea, Terry Callier – Dancing Queen, Lal & Mike Waterson – The Scarecrow, Davy Graham – Maajun
Lee: Bob Marley – Sun Is Shining, Nirvana – About A Girl, Radiohead – Jigsaw Falling Into Place, This Is The Kit – Spinney, Depeche Mode – Policy Of Truth, Midlake – Roscoe, Nick Kershaw – I Won't Let The Sun Go Down On Me, John Frusciante – Song To Sing When I'm Lonely, Billie Holiday – Blue Moon, Lamb - Gorecki
Mark: Beatles, Neil Young, Gil Scott Heron, Prince, Morning Star, Pulp, Sebadoh, Kruder & Dorfmeister, Cornershop, Fleetwood Mac, Big Thief, Sunflower Bean, Liane La Havas, Rozi Plain, Rachael Dadd
Lee: This Is The Kit, George Harrison, Father John Misty, Animals That Swim, Radiohead, Jimi Hendrix, Kate Bush, Billie Eilish, David Bowie, The Lemonheads, Blur, Wet Leg, Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, Otis Redding, Orbital
Mark: The Beatles - Revolver
Lee: Radiohead – In Rainbows
Events Coming Up
The first RSD at our new premises at 8 Aswell St, Louth, LN11 9BA.
The shop will open from 8am with plenty of the day's rare RSD vinyl releases and goodie bags available to customers.
We will have some fantastic local live music to celebrate Record Store Day.
The Rum Jiggers are a brand new funk & soul jazz collective based in and around Louth, headed by fantastic drummer James Irvine. They will be performing outside the shop from 4pm.
As is now tradition here on Record Store Day at Off The Beaten Tracks we have Lincoln artist Experimental Sonic Machines performing for us in the morning from 9.30am.
Our friends from local, family run HiFi business Expressive Audio will be joining us for the day.
Weather permitting, they will have a pop up shop next door to ours where you will be able to play your brand new RSD vinyl on their high end HiFi system with products from British brands Rega Research and Fyne Audio.
They will also be demonstrating the Okki Nokki One vacuum record cleaning machine, so bring along a treasured vinyl (or a bargain bought from Off The Beaten Tracks!) and have it cleaned for 50p, plus receive a free Tonar anti-static record sleeve.
Other Participating Shops