It was the indie record store that became a magnet for the capital's disaffected youth at the height of the punk movement in the late '70s.
For a generation of young music fans, Hot Licks records store on Cockburn Street was one of the best places to be and be seen on a Saturday. Renowned for being ahead of the curve the owners of the independent store always seemed to have a knack of spotting what was going to be the next big thing - and they were seldom wrong.
Those at Hot Licks had their fingers on the pulse of what was happening, even managing to attract up and coming groups such as The Jam and The Damned to the store for album signings and personal appearances.
READ MORE: Seven Edinburgh Playhouse gigs that made it the best music venue in the city
And for local bands, the record store was a true lifeline. At the front of the store was a bulletin board where aspiring young artists could place an advertisement looking for like-minded souls.
The record store was just one of a host of cool shops active on Cockburn Street in the late 1970s. The street, which had gained something of a reputation as Edinburgh's answer to Carnaby Street, was home to a number of boutique clothing outlets selling all manner of hip threads.
Many of the shops were part of a franchise by local businessmen Fraser Mackay and Alan Wilson, who ran a number of clothes shops on Cockburn Street.
Fraser and Alan were approached by a man with a vision, Steve Mackie, who suggested the idea of opening a record store on the street. In early 1977, Hot Licks became a reality - and they were just in time to capitalise on the popularity of a fresh musical movement the press were calling punk.
The store, which was originally located at 32 Cockburn Street, before moving across the road to number 47 around six months later, embraced punk, new wave and reggae and became the go-to place for fans of those styles.
“I think it was Steve Mackie’s offer to set up a shop,” recalled John Edwards, who started working as singles manager at Hot Licks in mid-1977, and would later go on to run two legendary capital record stores himself: Vinyl Villains and Hog’s Head Music.
“[Fraser and Alan] just let us get on with it. They were very hands off, and we gradually got more and more independent and basically rode the punk and new wave movement for quite a while.
“We were really, along with Bruce’s, one of the only shops you could buy punk singles in initially. It was the centre of the weekend for thousands and thousands of young people.
"It was a real independent little shop and we loved it. It was a way of life - it wasn’t a job."
In that first year, Steve Mackie managed to pull off a masterstroke by persuading Paul Weller of the Jam to stage a record signing at Hot Licks for the band's debut album In the City. The Jam at this time were the next big thing, and the event put Hot Licks on the map for an entire generation of music-loving youngsters.
Soon after, punk rock icons The Damned made an appearance at the shop, sparking scenes the likes of which had never been witnessed on Cockburn Street as hundreds of young punks descended on Hot Licks.
John Edwards recalls: Ah, Jesus, yeah! It was scary, that, because glass in shop windows is not what it is now and I can remember looking at the window and the glass was moving back and forward with all these people crammed right up to it.
“It was just wild - the street was rammed and we were just trapped inside the store. It was quite a major, stressful event. There would’ve been hundreds there for certain.”
In a post on the Lost Edinburgh Facebook group, Fraser Mackay spoke about the shop's beginnings and revealed that the name was inspired by a 1960s US band, Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks.
He also explained that while Hot Licks was hugely-popular, the shop struggled to turn a profit - even during its heyday.
He wrote: "Hot Licks was a cool record shop on Cockburn Street that brought in hard to get American imports and also put on several gigs in Edinburgh.
"The Jam was one of the groups that made a personal appearance at the shop another one was the Damned that brought into the street a shed load of punks who were into spitting - which was the hallmark of a true punk rebel. [It] was disgusting and there was a bit of cleaning up to do at the time. Having said that, punks were cool and that's coming from a hippy.
"[Hot Licks] was a great shop run by Steve, Archie, Jock [John Edwards] and Mel and a great place to hang out. The music the chat and the vibes drew people in. These guys used to bring in rare albums from the US which attracted a bit of a cult following. But there was no profit in it. You bought in for a £1 and sold for £1.20. We were never going to be Warren Buffets at these margins.
"I loved the place though and the guys but it became a bit of a vanity project. Nevertheless it added another dimension to the street so perhaps it paid its way to some extent."
Working at Hot Licks meant a constant pressure to keep up-to-date with all the latest sounds. The best way to do this at the height of punk, was by tuning into John Peel's show on BBC Radio 1.
Whatever Peel played would generally become the next big thing, and for John Edwards, staying ahead of the competition meant having his finger simultaneously on the pulse and the record button at the same time.
John said: "Being the singles manager, it was my job to find out what was going to happen next. I used to religiously listen to John Peel and figure out what was the next big thing. If John played it, then the next morning people were in looking for it.
"Standing at the counter when you’ve got loads of punk and new wave fans coming in, if you wanted to be ‘the man’ you had to know what they’re asking for and have you got it or are you getting it. It was quite a bit of pressure there.
"We also used to take the record company reps down to the Wig and Pen and ply them with alcohol all day to get free product for the shop. The poor guys! The state of some of them!"
Sign up to our Edinburgh Live nostalgia newsletters for more local history and heritage content straight to your inbox
One of many bands to make good use of Hot Licks in the late 1970s was Edinburgh post-punk outfit Scars. The group completed their line-up thanks to an ad spotted in the shop's window and went on to develop a huge following nationwide culminating in the release of their debut album Author! Author! in 1981.
Former Scars guitarist Paul Mackie says Hot Licks played a vital role in assisting his old band during their formative years.
Speaking to Edinburgh Live, he said: "Hot Licks for me as a teenager was the coolest place in Edinburgh and the centre of gravity for the whole Saturday.
"We used to just go there and flick through record sleeves and listen to what people were talking about and hopefully bump into like-minded souls.
"I remember hearing Althea and Donna, Uptown Top Ranking ages before it came on Top of the Pops. That was like the song of the day in Cockburn Street at the time. Essentially Hot Licks influenced what was being played in the shops at the time."
He added: "It was one of the places you always used to look forward to going. My favourite memory of being in Hot Licks was one afternoon when I was with Rab King [Scars lead singer] and we started chatting with Stuart [Adamson] and Richard Jobson from the Skids and I remember thinking 'this is it now, we're really rubbing shoulders with the greats!'.
"It was very likely that a lot of bands formed from seeing ads in Hot Licks. There was no internet back then, we're decades away from the internet back then and that was one of the only ways to make contact with like-minded people."
While Hot Licks was seen as one of the capital's leading independent record stores of the punk era, it definitely wasn't alone. When it came to record shops, Edinburgh was positively saturated.
"Even before I was involved in record shops in Edinburgh, I did ‘the trail’," said John Edwards. "It started on the Royal Mile and St Mary’s Street with the Other Record Shop, then you went up to Ripping Records, then you went to Phoenix, then you went to Hot Licks and Bruce’s. It was a huge Saturday afternoon out. People came from far afield."
By 1979, punk's popularity was on the wane, and it was really beginning to show in Hot Licks' sales figures. Desperate to keep the shop afloat, Steve Mackie and the management team decided to pursue the next big music phenomenon - disco. Their gamble would sadly fail to pay off, and by Christmas 1980, the shutters were put up on the store for good.
John Edwards said: "We were at the point where punk and new wave was really over the top of the hill and the New York disco scene was really taking off. Trade was slow for the shop and we had to start making money to pay the rent, so Steve and Archie decided to try and bring in from New York all this 12 inch dance stuff.
"We ended up in this New York disco sort of mode for the last six months.. And it was not very good!"
Edinburgh drugs and sexual health information charity Crew are now located in the premises originally occupied by Hot Licks, while the record store's latter address is now home to clothing shop Pie in the Sky.
READ NEXT:
Seven awful things we remember about Edinburgh buses in the 80s and 90s
Nine Edinburgh places that made for a great day out for kids in the '90s
Lost sweets Edinburgh locals would love to see return to supermarket shelves
Incredible colour footage captures Edinburgh life in the 1950s
The lost Edinburgh women's clothes shop that teens couldn't get enough of
