Meet Chris Gill | Record store owner, radio host, professional dancer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Chris Gill and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Chris, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
we needed something different in the town. We needed more representation for the FUNK! A space to act as a revered spot for the goodness!

Oh and I was expecting my first child and I thought adad in a video store is not cool. I’m thinking of the future and putting a dad in a record store!

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
I had never even worked in a record store before, especially never owned one too. I think to come at something with accidental fresh eyes is a great thing.
Sure I got lots of things wrong, but I also got lots of things super funky!
I never really set up systems. Systems really do constrict how businesses can run.
Point of sale systems suck. They resign you to doing lots of admin. So you can have efficient print out of past business perfomance. Well, maybe if thats what you want?!?!?
I certainly don’t want that. THe past is rather dull in terms of figures. Patterns do emerge and are reasonably glaring! You dont need sales reports to know that.
You realign what is important to you.
Its important that people feel welcomed and into the music that you present. Traditionally there is a focus on maleness in record stores and I think that opening up a store you want EVERYONE to come in and enjoy it.
THat means making things attractive to those who previously were ignored. We had our good friend ANDY WONG do the design of the space and he won the DULUX PAINT AWARD of 2002 for it! He beat the Sydney Olympics, Fed Square and A host of disapointed corporate others.
The design still pops today. Not to mention my disco ball football!
We made the store more and more intentionally maliable so that we could start to incorporate INSTORE PERFORMANCES too. THat was a change we made when we saw the obvious need for it. We can get a full live band playing with nearly 100 people in the store! SQUISHY FUNK!
IN terms of our brand, Northside Records, we flex that with our record label. The brilliantly named Northside Records. So far 35 releases deep and more to come.
Small businesses are notoriously agile and able to change and shift and move. In COVID lockdown we put our records up online on DISCOGS and ended up delivering the funk to the people. It was huge for us. We were the Soul providers. The Uber Beats.
Coming out of that we have had LOTS Of INSTORES since then and are still online with DISCOGS but put all our intention into people coming into the store!

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
One of the best bits of running a store is all of the unpaid work we do with TOURISTS. So many come through asking for tips for live music, food, fun and freakiness!
WE can help them all. I mean why wouldnt we…
Live music can be seen at amazing venues like THE NIGHT CAT, THE EVELYN, SECTION 8, WHITEHART, HIGH NOTE, THE TOFF IN TOWN, REVOLVER, THE FORUM and small spots like OLD PLATES, ROOKS RETURN, UPTOWN JAZZ CAFE and JAZZLAB.

Food, Jeeez. Where do you start. Fitzroy and Melbourne as synonymous with an incredible food and coffee scene. Just around us are amazing spots. THE BUILDERS ARMS, FATTO A MANO, LADRO, NEKO NEKO, BURNSIDE, ROSELLA and thats just within 50 meters of here.

There are so many more. Also we have GREAT COMMUNITY RADIO here in MELBOURNE. They are amazing sources of information of current good times. www.rrr.org.au and www.pbsfm.org.au

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
The shoutout is to THE PEOPLE! The amazing respsonse for our beautiful community who continue to share in the funk, the whole funk and nothing but the funk!
To see not just the poeple but also the musicians who get around fellow musicians and keep coming back.
It powers me on to know that young ones are also coming up and bringing us a brighter future too.

Website: https://www.northsiderecords.com.au

Instagram: northside_records

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/northsiderecordsmelbourne/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsgG-UMOs8bOuY3ZmDHwW3w