'You’re only a stranger once at Beck’s Rock Box': Derbyshire shop is den of music collectables

Ian Bexton, 58, is known to all as Beck, and he is most certainly a character. His shop, Beck’s Rock Box in Clay Cross, is a den of music collectables. A second hand treasure trove of records and CDs, tee-shirts and memorabilia, and everything in here, including Beck, has a story.

“The only thing I’m getting excited about is selling records and stuff like that. It could be worse, I could be chasing other ladies… but I’m out chasing tee-shirts and records,” he said.

“You’re only a stranger once at Beck’s Rock Box. And if you’re coming in, it’s just like you’re coming into my front room.”

Agreed. Elvis plays in the background as we sit chatting. Beck’s handshake the greeting of someone you already know. His humour and conversation likewise. Grinning, he calls himself “a stubborn old git”, but this ‘stubborn’ seems one of good intent.

“Yeah, I’m selling it, but I’ll try and give the best deal I can… It’s the smile on someone’s face… far more reward than pounds and pence. It’s like, ‘Ooh I’ve looked everywhere, and I didn’t know shops like this existed anymore’… I couldn’t find any shops like this in the area, so I thought, twenty years ago, ‘Oh, you’ve got to create one’.

Did the Beck ‘stubborn’ play a part in this? “Don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t. Or don’t let anybody make you feel like you’re nothing. Because, if you’ve got that true passion, it doesn’t have to come overnight. I didn’t set my first business up until I was forty. And that was through other people saying you can’t do it, you’ll never do it…

“To get my first month’s shop rent, I dug a sewer ditch. And somebody said ‘What’s a sewer ditch to do with your shop?’ And I said, a means to an end. Because digging that sewer ditch, got me the shop.”

Before this, Beck worked at Trebor Bassett in Chesterfield “loading lorries, picking orders” before working at music festivals with his first wife. This was a vital part of the journey to Beck’s Rock Box.

“She did the catering at Glastonbury… all the major festivals. And when I was there she’d say ‘Where are you going because you don’t sit and have your sandwiches with us?’ And I said ‘I’m talking to the roadies, about where all the merchandise goes after the tours.’ I’d thought to myself, I’m going to need some sources.”

Did you speak to any performers? Beck laughs, tells of bumping into the rock band Metallica backstage at a festival. “I remember yakking, and I was thinking why? Why would they know where Clay Cross is? I was saying ‘Yeah, I’ve got a shop in Clay Cross’. They just looked at me bemused, and I was like, ‘Sorry, I just get carried away… I’m passionate about what I do’.

After more laughter, Beck remembers admiring the lead singer’s waistcoat. “He said, ‘You’re not having it’, and I said ‘I didn’t say I was having it… it’s like I’d admire a waistcoat in a shop window but it doesn’t mean I’m having it!’.”

Beck tells another backstage story of the lead singer of Manic Street Preachers being miffed that a Hell’s angel had slapped him on the back. “And I said what’s up with him? One of their albums was called Generation Terrorists! He comes from some tough area of Wales, man!”

Beck tells of his own upbringing, sometimes tough, but a place where his love of music grew.

“Ever since I was a youngster, the house was always full of music. My dad was a regimental sergeant major, and he bought brass band music, always bringing folk back from the pub with bagpipes and whatever. He was trying to ease me into the army, but I discovered Led Zeppelin in the early seventies… long hair… and my mam was a beatnik, so, two different sides.

“And when my mam and dad split up, she was like ‘Just be yourself’. I admired my dad, but I said to him, ‘Dad, I wouldn’t mind going in the army, but I want to keep my long hair. I want to visit the countries, but I don’t want to jump off a boat or a plane and put a bullet in somebody. I want to shake their hand.’”

Beck recalls a Christmas where a drum kit was taken back to the shop and swapped for a train set. “There was a bit of a tug of war. My mum wanted me to be a free spirit, but my dad wanted me to be more into the regimented thing.”

A man comes into the shop, smiles and says his wife is shopping so he’s come for a look around. Beck points him in the direction of the music he’s after, and the man chats to Beck about the Shadows fan club meeting he’s off to later. It feels like time stands still in Beck’s Rock Box. Big Mama Thornton sings Hound Dog as the man laughs, Beck saying “The youngest customer I’ve had is eight, the oldest, 82”. The man says “Well, that’s good because I’m only 81”, and leaves with a handful of CDs.

Beck sits back in his chair. Tells of DJing in a Clay Cross pub one night, only to be approached by someone. “‘I’ve got some news for you, you’re a dad…’ And I was like hold on, let me just put this record on, what you on about I’m a dad?’”

“That was in my wild period,” he says, adding that he took responsibility, doing what was needed.

This shop that feels like Beck’s 'living room’ has what can only be described as a relaxed atmosphere. Beck himself, gives off a calm vibe that gives no sense of his chaotic backstory. Is there a learning here?

Beck smiles. “Somebody said ‘How can you be so laid back?’ I see it like this. When you’ve been in that eye of the storm, you crave that peace… and even though I go to loud rock concerts that brings me peace.”

So if music is the medicine, which is your favourite band? “Rolling Stones. I’ve seen them quite a few times. I used to take Mick Jagger off when I was a kid. When we had power cuts in the seventies and we had the candles lit, I thought ‘Ooh, how can I cheer people up?’ So I’d take Mick Jagger off. I’d be eight… If I had to pick one band it would be the Stones. I just love them.”

And what’s your favourite thing in the shop right now? “That jacket, up there.” Beck points to a leather jacket, a hand-painted Iron Maiden design on the back. “I wore it a couple of times and got it out my system. I tried to convince myself it doesn’t fit me right, looking for an excuse… You’ve got a shop! You sell things! Let somebody else have the enjoyment out of it!”

Is there a sense of community here? “When people come in the shop, it’s not many that don’t become friends. I’m confident, but I’m not very good with compliments, so I just make a joke of it, it’s just a shop.

“I don’t do the hard sell, just come in and have a yak. You might have something next time… there you are. It’s flattering that people respect your knowledge. It’s something that I grasped from an early age. I wanted to know everything about it, anything to do with music. It gnarled me that I couldn’t play an instrument. I think I sound alright when I’m shouting and rawping at a gig. But, as somebody quite eloquently put it: ‘Beck, you sound like a goose farting in the fog’… I thought, I might even put that on a teeshirt.”

Final question. So, Beck, considering where you came from, to where you are now, what advice would you offer? “It’s not a preachy kind of thing, it just proves that no matter what you go through in life, you can move forward, and have some happiness – everybody’s got something that makes them happy.”

Beck’s Rock Box is having a 20th anniversary party at the New Cannon pub in Clay Cross next June.