Story by Abigail:

When you work in a record shop one of the biggest challenges is learning to tolerate and eventually appreciate other people's music selections.

At Vinyl Exchange, where I worked, the staff seemed quite polarised in their tastes. It was indie upstairs and dance downstairs and that was that. (For the most part.)

Occasionally a record would appear that would cut across everything. 'United' (ironically) by Phoenix was one such record.

I think it was a fairly big shop outing to see Phoenix at the Hop & Grape in 2001. I can't remember anything about it apart from the fact the keyboard player used a talk box to great effect, and also that the Eddie Van Halen-esque guitar solo in 'Funky Square Dance' was replaced with a keyboard solo, which I was slightly disappointed by!

I saw them again at MDH in, I think, 2008.