MUSICIANS from Clacks and further afield appeared in Stirling at the weekend to support Scotland's largest independent record store.

A sunny Saturday, April 23, drew the Record Store Day crowds to Europa Music, the vinyl shop which has its proud origins in the Wee County.

The day was a celebration of independent record shops such as Europa, which originally opened in Alloa back in the 1970s.

The shop still has a close connection to Clacks with Alloa's The Gator, also known as Iain Donald, and Fishcross songwriter Martin Mullady both performing on the day.

Ewen Duncan, owner at Europa Music, told the Advertiser on Saturday: "This is our busiest day of the year, at times it's probably almost as busy as the whole of December.

"It's also great as an awareness event for Europa but also independent record stores.

"We'll also be putting live music on in the afternoon which brings people to our street and it means we spread the love to the other shops in the street as well."

Staying old school and having no online store or presence, the pandemic meant Ewen had the chance to get the shop ready for re-opening.

He has proudly reorganised the back of the shop with hundreds, if not thousands, of records available.

"We are still here and this May, I will have had the store for 30 years", said Ewen.

"Come September, I will have had Europa Music between Alloa and Stirling for 40 years – long may it continue, I hope."

Europa Music originally opened its doors in Alloa under 41 High Street in 1976, Ewan taking over from the first owner, Adrian Wightman.

Singer and songwriter Martin Mullady said the weather could not have been better on the day, he even got to gig in his sunglasses for a change.

He told the Advertiser: "The shop's awesome, it's always cool – it's kind of like a hub because there aren't many places like it left and certainly not in this area, you need to go to bigger cities to see a lot of them.

"But we've got Europa, it is still going after all these years and still doing so well."

Speaking of gigging outside the store on Friars Street, Martin added: "It was really good, the weather helped a little bit.

"A lot of people stopped to listen and folks were chatting after the gig, everybody was having a great day.

"The beer garden outside No 2 was the place to be."

Martin will be playing at the Royal Oak in Alloa on May 14 alongside Clacks band Delta Manic. He is also performing full-band at Vibration Festival in September, and he has a headline show at the Oakwood Lounge in November.