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London Road
Not so much a music shop - more a second hand/ cheap electronics shop. The shop was a haven for young muso's who needed a Reslo, wanted a 15 watt amp or perhaps even a Watkins Rapier for a tenner. I personally spent hours hunting thru the second hand records.
Tony Lingard remembers "we bought our bands first amp (Watkins Dominator) there...4 inputs so that sorted out mic, 2 guitars AND bass...it didn't last long!"
All thats left of Mazels in the back wall - still, its next door to
a Curry House, so worth a visit!
(photo: S Bunyan)
"The main thing I recall about Mazels were the 'minders' on the door, who presumably would keep you out if they didn't like the look of you, or keep you in if they thought you'd pinched something! Allegedly Mazel was a squatter on that site for years. A mate of mine had a Mazeltoff amp!"
Paul Braddock, ex-Barratts Stuart Bunyan recalls "When I first started playing in bands we used to use Reslo mikes, the double sided ones that used to blow ribbons dead easy. We got that hacked of with them and decided to move to Shure's. We stuck silver foil out of fag packets in them to replace the ribbon and took them into Mazzell's. He bought the lot for almost as much as we bought them for cause the amp he used to test them with was crap. He was an old guy and ran the business with his wife."
"I had an acoustic guitar I'd bought for 7 quid and got tired of getting no further than 'Skip to my Lou' so I took it to Mazel's to see if I could flog it. The place had more junk in it than Steptoe's yard. I was offered £2-10s. Even though skint I thought the deal was too low and decided to keep the guitar, which I then carried into the Blood Bank off London Road to donate some blood in exchange for tea and biscuits. Then I borrowed a shilling, to add to the threppence I already had, to pay my bus-fare home to Darnhill, Heywood and more 'Skip to the Lou'. "
Peter Bradford
I was reading the article about Mazels which brought many happy memories back to me. I used to work in Charles Street in the late 50's & early 60s. During our lunch time break we used to walk to Mazels, which was on London Road, about a 5 minute walk from where we worked. We would pick up Lonnie, Elvis and many jazz records. Some of the records were in little plastic bags, because the original record sleave had been lost. Singles were about 2/6d, EP's 4/- and LP's about 5/6d.
The shop was very untidy, not as bad as Steptoe's yard. Happy days and great music.
Chris Massey.
30 Jan 1965
I remember when I first started playing guitar in the '70s and getting the 210 from Denton to Mazel Radio on London Rd.
Went with my mate Colin to buy a MAZELTOFF 10 WATT AMP, a little grey combo with 12 in speaker they were a tenner (a quid per watt maybe?)
Remember seeing the advert for Mazels in the Manchester Evening News, small ads. We really thought we had started our band on the road to success when he bought that amp, think it had 2 inputs, and one rotary "tone" and volume control on the side of the chipboard casing, don't know if they made them in the back or not...anybody know?
Anyhow, think it lasted a few months before the speaker was destroyed by putting both my Woolworths "Auditon" single pickup electic guitar and his Bass through it to practice; never found out if Colin continued to play, but hope he improved if he did!
Degsy
27/9/10
The picture on the site is too far up London Road towards the town centre, although the shop may have been here at one time, the building I recall used to be the other side of the railway out towards Ardwick, it occupied the grassed area in the photo, the flyover in the background is the Mancunian Way, as I recall the shop was demolished when the University buildings, to the right, were extended.
Beyond the Mancunian Way, in what some folk will know as the RS Colour labs building, now resides the School of Sound Recording (SSR) which is in the business of training aspiring live and studio engineers, this is a superb facility and is helping continue Manchesters great contributions to the music world. http://www.s-s-r.com/
Paul Braddock
Mazels was heaven to me..I spent hours rummaging through his unbelievably enormous valve collection .I guess he, like many others of the era ,had bought up old WW2 stock for peanuts and sat on it until the stuff became collectable .
With reference to the School Of Recording, I set up and taught myself and ran a very successful studio for many years without a " certificate " because I was very inquisitive and in those days , you had to build gear and get old government stuff to work as you just couldn't afford to buy the pro stuff and there was no courses or anything .
The graduates of the SSR will never know what they've missed !!
I still have a couple of Mazel boxed valves ( possibly Russian cold war stock !! )
Paul Adshead
3/3/11
I remember my Dad buying my first tape recorder and microphone for Christmas from here for about £5.00.
Also got a pair of Walkie Talkies from here, circa 1968.
A great place to look around.
I think thay had another shop in Harpurhey.
Ken Cowap
14/12/11
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