Spillers Records
Encyclopedia
Record shop
A record shop or record store is an outlet that sells recorded music. Although vinyl records and audio cassettes are no longer sold in the majority of music stores, in favour of compact discs and home video recordings products, people in some countries, like the UK, still use the term "record...
in the world. It is located in Cardiff
Cardiff
Cardiff is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales and the 10th largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for...
, Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
. In addition to selling music, it is the city's main location for buying tickets for alternative
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
music concerts.
Spillers was founded in 1894 by Henry Spiller at its original location in Queen’s Arcade, where the shop specialised in the sale of phonograph
Phonograph
The phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...
s, wax phonograph cylinder
Phonograph cylinder
Phonograph cylinders were the earliest commercial medium for recording and reproducing sound. Commonly known simply as "records" in their era of greatest popularity , these cylinder shaped objects had an audio recording engraved on the outside surface which could be reproduced when the cylinder was...
s and shellac
Shellac
Shellac is a resin secreted by the female lac bug, on trees in the forests of India and Thailand. It is processed and sold as dry flakes , which are dissolved in ethyl alcohol to make liquid shellac, which is used as a brush-on colorant, food glaze and wood finish...
phonograph discs. In the early 1920s, Spiller's son Edward took over the running of the business and, with the aid of the popular accordion
Accordion
The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
ist and bandleader
Bandleader
A bandleader is the leader of a band of musicians. The term is most commonly, though not exclusively, used with a group that plays popular music as a small combo or a big band, such as one which plays jazz, blues, rhythm and blues or rock and roll music....
Joe Gregory, sold musical instruments alongside the pre-recorded music. In the late 1940s, Henry moved the shop around the corner to a larger premises on The Hayes.
Since 2006 the shop's future has been uncertain as the site rent has been increased by Spillers' landlords, Helical Bar, who state that they are keen for the shop to survive. A local campaign to save the shop was initiated, including a petition
Petition
A petition is a request to do something, most commonly addressed to a government official or public entity. Petitions to a deity are a form of prayer....
initiated by Owen John Thomas
Manic Street Preachers
Manic Street Preachers are a Welsh alternative rock band, formed in 1986. They are James Dean Bradfield, Nicky Wire, Richey Edwards and Sean Moore. The band are part of the Cardiff music scene, and were at their most prominent during the 1990s...
and Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
. In 2010 Spillers moved to the nearby Morgan Arcade, initially on a temporary basis, with the expectation that the move will be made permanent if successful.