Announcing a new venture

And maybe the start of "Adventures in the Vinyl Trade"

You may (or may not) have been wondering why BRG has slowed down so much of late. I published 100 newsletters in the space of about 120 days, and then it decreased to something more manageable and less annoying, and then it slowed down to a few a week, and then… well… I haven’t posted in the last 10 days.

I’m not on holiday, although lord knows I could have done with one. No… there are a number of reasons for the slowing down of BRG, and one of them — just one of them, mind you — is that I have been working to set up a new business.

And that is what the announcement is relating to.

That’s right… me and one of my oldest, dearest grinning soulmates, Graham Taylor (he of Goldie Lookin’ Chain-fame), have come to the conclusion that the time is right to do something we have talked about since we were kids: we are opening a record shop.

GRINNING SOUL RECORDS will soon open its doors in the centre of the town of Monmouth, the beautiful Wye Valley market town I have called home since 2022.

Gray and I will be working our socks off to make Grinning Soul Records a vibrant musical hub for all music fans, a place where you can indulge your passions and discover new ones, and over the next month there will be plenty of further details and announcements about what we have planned.

As for BRG… I’m not going to abandon it. It will continue to be a place where I publish short fiction (in fact there’s another story coming very soon), and I will no doubt write other things here when I have the time. And I hope that you’ll follow Grinning Soul Records on all the ensuing internetian hyper-avenues.

And more details of all that stuff will follow too — social media, website etc. etc. etc.

It’s going to be fun.

And there will be music.