JOHN ESPLEN
I heard yesterday, 15th November 2024, that John Esplen has passed away. These are the recollections of John by SIMON McKAY, drawn over forty years. John was prolific in the business of punk rock includeing; selling collectible records, releasing rare tracks (sometimes licensed, sometimes not), publishing music, promoting bands and managing them - always based in his non-native Newcastle.
JOHN ESPLEN
Taken in Jesmond, 1987; late on a summer's evening. I was wandering around with my camera, John with a bag of chips!
I first met John in early 1983. It was my first visit to the recently opened Record Box on Waterloo Street, near the edge of town. I had the latest copy of my fanzine, Eccentric Sleeve Notes, tucked under my arm and was all keyed up to hard-sell the shop advertising space in my next issue. I walked in and there was John (known as Nobby then), John Hughes (Yosser) and Sam Smith. (Rumour had it Sam was also ‘John’, so Hughes came up with all the nicknames to distinguish them.) It turned out to be my easiest sell ever as they already had a copy of my magazine and liked it. Second hand record shops were quite unusual back then. (Pet Sounds was the first, and was located nearby.) Record Box was an astonishing treasure trove. I was beginning to get bored with contemporary music, so a shop like this – selling fantastic 1960s original singles on their lower shelves for 30p each – changed everything for me.
John in the Record Box, Waterloo Street Newcastle
I hadn’t completely given up on contemporary music though. I wasn’t buying the records, but I was still going to see every live band that came to town and from about 1983 to 1985, every time I went to a gig; I’d see John, Fergus Denham and Stephen Joyce. We’d all stand together near the mixing desk (best sound). We’d never arrange anything in advance. It was just inevitable that we’d be there. When the band was playing, you had to be quiet around John though. He would have his Sony Professional cassette recorder discreetly in his hand. Within days of the show, he’d be selling cassette copies. In about 1983, he invited me to his house in Fenham. He had an amazing tape deck that could do copies at five times real time. He’d sell cassettes on his stall at John Porteous’ record fairs in Durant Hall at Newcastle Poly, along with his punk record rarities. He had all of the major league bands like the Pistols, Clash and Damned, but was also very enthusiastic about the wave of smaller bands that very few people knew about then like the Neon Hearts, the Shapes and Satan’s Rats. I knew about these bands though and remember an evening John spent at my flat on Newcastle Quayside going through my singles boxes admiring a lot of the records he was already in love with. He went on to reissue a lot of his favourite lesser-known records on his Overground label. This was when he went legit, actually licensing tracks. Previously, there had been a run of bootleg LPs including the terrific 1985 Clash acoustic set recorded at the Station – the Gateshead punk venue. It had the tell-tale bottom end sound of his Sony Professional recorder! Prior to this, we’d done ‘a little business’ when I’d leased him cassette copies of interviews with Bono, Mike Peters and Joe Strummer to release on vinyl. It was a short-lived side-line: they were legal, but quite dull really. His main business, was selling rare punk records – particularly singles. I bumped into him at McColl’s newsagents next to the Odeon and he was thumbing through a small format magazine I’d never heard of called Record Collector. He showed me an ad he’d placed for all sorts of gems going for money that I’d never have imagined.
One of John's first gig promotions, King Kurt at Longbenton with Billy Bragg supporting (1983)
He put bands on – the first I remember was King Kurt at Shelley’s in Longbenton. Later gigs, in Newcastle Tiffanys included the Mighty Lemon Drops and an emerging Housemartins. He set up a publishing company. He managed bands too, including the Sunflowers.
John Esplen at the Haymarket (1987)
The thing about John, is he spoke about his projects when they were fresh and on his mind, but he didn’t make a fuss about them, especially not retrospectively. My sense is his legacy is prolific but following each strand is impossible. (He also invested in buy-to-let flats before anybody else thought of it. He probably, quietly, owned half of Heaton.) I remember he had been determined to get away from spending so much time selling second hand records. Despite all of the things he had going on, that didn’t happen. He just couldn’t give it up. I don’t think he worked in a shop after about 1984 and he became sporadic at the record fairs, instead switching to the various punk festivals as they emerged. He continued advertising in Record Collector until we all started buying records online and he set up www.vinylonthe.net. I’ve found emails I exchanged with him about orders I’d placed going back to 2007.
As recent as October 2024, the last item I ordered from John's website.
The last time I actually spoke to John was the summer of 2018, when he was standing with Paul Schofield, propping up the City Hall bar at Emma and Stephen Joyce’s wedding reception. In September 2023, out of the blue, I heard he was on death’s door with days to live. He had an operation and various treatments after that. His life was prolonged, but the prognosis was never good. I kept in touch with him in the last few months by doing various record exchanges – the last was less than 4 weeks ago. I asked him how he was. No answer to that question. Which in itself was probably an answer. And now this. Rotten! The end of a remarkable man. He had an astonishingly deep knowledge of his specialist areas. I’ll always remember him as being passionate about his interests, easily het up about stuff. Had a golden touch for making things happen and, the thing that really distinguished him; making them a success. John Esplen RIP.
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SIMON McKAY