Just for the record: Europe's Largest Vinyl Fair

by Kieron Tyler

Arriving by train in Utrecht on a sunny April morning, you notice little that's unusual. The train station is large and modern, airy even. There's a good supply of those typical Dutch fast food places with little glass windows that, on sticking a coin in the slot, open to allow you to grab a deep-fried croquette. It's Saturday, and hoards of people are heading east, down the wide corridors leading towards the adjacent indoor shopping centre and the City's huge outdoor market. Some folks will take in the sights, including the Dom, Netherlands' tallest church tower.

But there's another tide, aiming the opposite way and leaving the station to end up on a non-descript windswept plaza. Their goal - my goal - is the Jaarbeurs, a convention centre on the opposite side of a dual carriageway. This massive series of unlovely sheds is hosting the twice-yearly second-hand sale that takes in anything vaguely collectable. It's monstrous. If it's portable, it's here: phone cards, pottery, stamps, stuffed toys, clothes, film memorabilia and furniture. Four football stadium-sized halls house the antiek and curiosa sale.

A large proportion of the crowd is intent on a specific aspect though: the Mega Platen and CD Beurs, Europe's largest record fair. An unbroken stream of around 1000 people links the station to the Jaarbeurs. One and a half are filled with 455 stands, representing all of Europe's dealers in records and CDs. Some American dealers have even made the trip.

European record collectors have nothing else like this. At home, London's largest record fair takes in about 60 sellers - large, but dwarfed by Utrecht. The enticement here is the range of what's on sale. British dealers might offer a few German or Danish Beatles' singles in attractive and unique colour picture sleeves, but there are 1000s and 1000s of the things here. Some of prices might be eyebrow raising, but what's on offer is incomparable. Should you have deep pockets and want a complete set of promotion-only Madonna CDs from Italy - with otherwise unavailable dance remixes - you'll be in luck. Every record you have ever wanted must be here.

Thankfully, the organisers seem to realise that the endless ranks of tables covered in boxes of records and CDs bring on a sort of overload. Indeed, a headache is guaranteed within an hour of walking into the Mega Platen and CD Beurs. Not only is a massive amount of concentration needed to spend all day looking through records in this (or any) environment, but you're assaulted by competing soundtracks. Norwegian death metal battles it out with French rap. The British music writer Jon Savage said "the Utrecht record fair is so overwhelming that you have to engage some kind of philosophy, if not some kind of spiritual disengagement in order not to get swamped by the sheer immensity of what is offered." Relief comes with appearances on a stage at the far end of the hall. A local label is promoting a compilation of Dutch glam rock and '70s star Bonnie St Claire is singing along with her 1972 hit Clap Your Hands Stamp Your Feet. David Bowie, Marc Bolan and The Sweet might have defined the era for us Brits, but Holland had its own silver-clad, platform-boot-wearing icons. And here is one of them, gamely exhorting the crowd to sing and clap along.

Dutch glam rock might not be at the forefront of European culture, but it clearly meant and still means a lot to quite a few music fans at Utrecht. A Dutch strand to glam rock might seem odd, but why shouldn't it have thrived? After all, American rock 'n' roll conquered the world in the 1950s and home-grown performers sprang up everywhere. Cliff Richard followed the Elvis template, so why isn't he as rarefied a taste as Bonnie St Claire? Really, it boils down to what you're used to. We might all think we're different, but actually we're all interpreting the same sources, mixing in our local styles. With its stamping beat, sing-along chorus and insistent melody, the irresistible Clap Your Hands Stamp Your Feet is easily as good as all those shouty Suzi Quatro hits.

Look a little beyond all the rare and obscure goodies on offer and the Utrecht record fair becomes a showcase for European pop culture in all its diversity, whether locally lauded, internationally recognised or plain obscure. A row of tables is taken up by dealers specialising in extreme metal, black metal and the unenticeingly-branded death metal. This unremitting dentists drill of a music might have the appeal of eating broken glass, but it is intriguing that all the dealers have come to Holland from the Nordic countries. Norway and Finland have a particular appetite for this doom-laden, depressive stuff. The geographical claim might be explained by long, dark winters and a Viking heritage. A Norwegian band called Dark Throne are big and well represented at Utrecht. Beginning as black metal, they evolved into death metal.

Obviously, other genres are linked with particular countries or regions. Germany generated a string of schlager performers that would seem to have limited appeal elsewhere. The likes of Heino and Heintje sing a brand of easy listening with booming vocals, brass instrumentation and stamping beats (them again) that's unique. Small doses are best for non-Germans. Yet sellers here have boxes and boxes of Heintje records. These dealers are convinced they are going to make a sale. And they do, I saw it happen - it's quite probable that there's also a bit of showcasing going on: "we've got this, it's ours and great, you need it too."

More easily assimilated - like Dutch glam - are the continental European versions of the types of music that crossed into borders. Often, the familiar became thrillingly unusual and unpredictable when reinterpreted by a band or singer from a country where English - the international language of rock 'n' roll - isn't the first language. I was pleased to pick up a copy of Kick And Chicks, a 1966 single by The Zipps, a Dutch band with all the power and immediacy of The Kinks and The Small Faces. But their mangled delivery sounds as though the pieces have been reassembled in the wrong order. Remember Belgian punk bandwagon jumper Plastic Bertrand? Before his international hit Ça Plane Pour Moi, he drummed for a band called Hubble Bubble, whose brand of punk is even more buzz-sawish than the most furious English bands. Their rare album sold few copies in Belgium in 1977. Now it costs 150 Euros.

As you continue looking around it becomes clear that the boundaries between different countries and different styles are easily sidestepped. A couple of the stalls are devoted to eastern European jazz. Beside them are tables covered in records by internationally-known jazzers like Ornette Coleman. The music from a country that used to be hard to access is an arm's reach away. Unlike an internet download, this is the physical object, the record that the artist intended you to own, not a collection of ethereal data. Whether or not you take it home with you, it's a privilege to be exposed to this colossal amount of new and unfamiliar music

Before the internet and before the growth of the multi-national record labels like Universal or Sony, huge amounts of amazing music existed in relative isolation. At Utrecht, there's a unique opportunity to find most of it under one - huge - roof. It's overwhelming, a mass gathering like no other.

Check http://www.recordplanet.nl/ for the next fair.

© Kieron Tyler. All views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to the European Commission.