Bonus Episode: Record Store Day 2026 Live Panel
Manchester is a city known and loved across the world for its unmatched music culture, but there’s one particular component in the ecosystem all too rarely credited for its contributions: record shops.
Far more than mere retail outlets, they reliably continue to fulfil their role as creative hubs of connection and community, perhaps more essential than ever as we collectively reconsider our reliance on and relationships with technology—a recalibration that’s resulted in a renewed appreciation not only for physical music, but the spaces that exist as guardians of it. Places built upon personal taste as opposed to profit-driven data, that favour careful human curation over flawless algorithmic construction and that faithfully provide a home to those who’d much prefer to bury their head in a crate than lose it somewhere far off in the cloud.
This very special episode is a recording of a recent panel event for which I was joined by three of the Manchester music scene’s finest—Hannah Tinker (Albert Hall, Fair Play Festival), Jase Jeffrey (Bent Hedonism) and Neil Clarke (Clampdown Records)— to celebrate these crucial third spaces, discussing the essential role of record shops, the communities they quietly power and the ways in which our collective relationship to physical music continues to evolve. That, and so much more!
@clampdownrecordsmanchester
clampdownrecords.com
Recorded at Common Bar by Portal Studios.
