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How do!

Finally, a thread to unite two of the great loves of my nerd life. All Things GW, and Music.

Given I’m a Dakkanaut of a certain undisclosed vintage, and a former GW Till Monkey, this thread might well fall flat on its arse. But whilst it’s been a few years since I spent time in a GW store and I don’t know if they’ve switched to like, Spotify or something? The old mix tapes/CDs genuinely turned me on to a great number of songs and bands.

And of all such songs? What follows is one that has stuck with me. I consider it a certified banger, and one that came during a pretty rough period of my life. See, around 2009/2010? I was homeless, and working one day a week in my local GW. I’d pick up any spare shifts I could, but never enough to get my own place. Until a particularly fateful day. Our regional manager was visiting, and having absolutely nowhere better to be I was lurking in the store. Turns out the Epsom store no longer had any staff (dunno why, didn’t ask, didn’t matter at the time). Regional Manager was trying to figure out how to staff it in the interim/

Well, Y’know I said I was in the store because I had absolutely nowhere better to be? I also had absolutely nothing better to do. So I volunteered. Couple of phone calls later, I had keys in hand, a code for a train ticket, and a photo copy of the new training manual. I was to open the Epsom store for the next week. Which became a month. A month in which by reading, digesting and applying the new training manual, I took the store from the bottom of the local league to the top. A fact I found out when Ken (of Ken Empire infamy) singled me out during a managers meeting, which I had to go as I was technically a manager.

Anyways, it was around that time* GW were making staff cut backs, and my part time job got the chop. But due to my sterling efforts at Epsom, I got myself and my new found self confidence on the management training course. Which I promptly effed right up, and still wound up redundant. Still had my self confidence from it, and after a bit entered my current industry more or less through the back door, and haven’t looked back.

And this song was on the mix CD at the time, and it really resonated with me. Still one of my go to songs when I need to lift my spirits a bit.




*I’m aware I’m sound like Abe Simpson. Wasn’t intentional, but it works for me

This has awakened an old memory - my local GW 'donated' a number of those CDs to the local gaming club and I spent a while ripping them to MP3s and trying to name the songs. I'll have to have a look to see if I've still got them...

The only one that comes to mind is Lux Aeterna (remixed Requiem version) just a few months before every nerd video on YouTube played that piece into the ground.

My local GW mostly played the LOTR soundtrack over and over and over. Mostly.

CDs? Mixtapes? Bah! In my day we listened to Bolt Thrower vinyl records that came with copies of White Dwarf.

We had a really good mix at our local and it was the first time I was introduced to Iron Maiden.

There's so many songs that I'll hear over a decade later and it's like instant transport back to those golden days of youth in GW at the beginners days.

Absolutely none.

This is because I've only ever set foot inside 1 GW store, once, about 5 years ago. I was there for about 15 minutes.
I don't recall if they had music playing or not.
If they did I highly doubt it was anything I hadn't heard before. And if there was something playing I'd never heard before it obviously didn't leave the slightest impression.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/40ZeZ7KSI0nHQk4r7qmUBX

Oh nice!

Putting that down as an unexpected Christmas Treat!

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
CDs? Mixtapes? Bah! In my day we listened to Bolt Thrower vinyl records that came with copies of White Dwarf.

That is the only GW music I can think of as well. Space Lord by Monster Magnet kind of feels like a 40k song, I guess?

Stateside, I got to go to the GW HQ in Baltimore once for an interview. Got offered a gig, but turned it down as I was offered a better one that did not require a move across country.

Other than that, I have never stepped foot in an official GW store because none have been within a days travel of me. There is now one about 2 hours away, but I still have not gone.

What I miss from back in the day, was the Nerd Store staple of having a store cat. I do not see that much anymore.