A giant red arrow painted across a black gable end is the only clue you need. There is no shop window and no street-level display, just a skeleton painted on a red door at 11a Oxton Road and a staircase lined with album sleeves leading to the first floor. Known to generations of Wirral music fans as Skellies, Skeleton Records has been buying and selling music in Birkenhead since 1972.
Background / History
The shop was started in the early 1970s by John Weaver and John Poole, with Weaver going on to run it almost single-handedly across five decades of trading. From 1976 he also promoted concerts around Birkenhead and Liverpool, booking Motörhead, The Jam, Fairport Convention, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Elvis Costello and the Dead Kennedys, and in 1978 he launched a record label under the Skeleton name that released singles by Merseyside acts including Instant Agony. Weaver died after a long illness, and the shop has carried on since, with the mural, the stock and the atmosphere all kept intact.
What You’ll Find
Stock runs to roughly 200,000 items spread across two rooms, one given over to new releases and reissues, the other to second-hand. Vinyl leads the way, covering classic rock, progressive rock and metal through punk, indie, jazz, funk, soul, reggae, dance and electronic, with plenty of pop and easier listening in the racks too. CDs, cassettes and music DVDs sit alongside the records, and stacks of back-issue music magazines such as Record Collector and Mojo fill any spare floor space. The shop buys as well as sells, paying for unwanted records, CDs and music DVDs, and it also trades by mail order, which keeps the second-hand racks turning over.
Experience / Atmosphere
Getting in is part of the fun. You step off Oxton Road, climb the sleeve-covered stairs and arrive in a shop that smells faintly of incense and usually has something interesting playing. The racks are dense enough that a proper dig will turn up things you were not looking for, and the place rewards patience rather than a quick scan. Staff know the stock and are happy to talk, point you towards a section or take a request, and a steady flow of regulars have been coming for decades. It is a working record shop of the old sort, with a genuine place in the musical life of the Wirral.
Why Visit
- More than fifty years of continuous trading, with one of the largest second-hand stocks in the North West
- Two rooms covering new releases and reissues as well as used vinyl, CDs, cassettes and music DVDs
- Genuine breadth of genres, from progressive rock and metal to soul, reggae, jazz and electronic
- A landmark painted frontage that has become part of Birkenhead’s street scene
- Fair prices paid for unwanted collections, so the racks are refreshed constantly
Summary
Skeleton Records is the kind of shop vinyl culture was built on, an independent that has survived every format shift by knowing its music and looking after its customers. Whether you are chasing a particular pressing, filling gaps in a collection or simply after an hour of unhurried browsing, the climb up those stairs is well worth making. For anyone on the Wirral or crossing over from Liverpool, it belongs near the top of the list.
