Trick or treat at your local independent record store for a chance to hear Metallica’s “Atlas, Arise” early: To help you get into the Halloween spirit, starting this Friday, October 28th, fans around the world can visit select independent record stores for the chance to obtain a free limited edition Hardwired…To Self-Destruct Halloween mask. Inside of each mask you’ll find a special access code that will allow you to hear “Atlas, Rise!” 30 minutes prior to it’s official release on Halloween.
Music biz to honor Portland record store owner: Proof that owning a record store is still cool, The Music Business Association will present Terry Currier, owner of Portland, Ore.’s Music Millennium with its Independent Spirit Award. The presentation will take place 5/17 during the Awards Breakfast of the Music Biz 2017 convention at the Renaissance Nashville Hotel in Nashville. “Terry exemplifies the best qualities of independent music retail and has played a massive role in advocating for its health and vitality,” said James Donio, President of Music Biz.
Jakarta is having a vinyl renaissance: In the United States, record sales are on the rise, and pressing plants are working around the clock to keep up with demand. But in Indonesia, the last vinyl pressing plants went out of business in the 1980s, their machines long since sold for scrap metal, with no comeback in sight. Still, in the capital city of Jakarta, record shops are seeing a new generation of music lovers building their old-school collections, despite soaring prices and limited supply. On Jalan Surabaya, a street of low-slung buildings in Jakarta that has housed record vendors for decades, a few small shops still sell used records, packed beside others peddling discount luggage and antiques.
What goes around comes around: LPs drive substantial sales surge in changing music industry: After about 45 minutes of prowling around, Katie Dobosz and her fiancé, Tanner Kenney, leave with several treasures that should make for fine listening. There’s a classic Bob Dylan for her, and a quartet of styles for him — a live Y&T album and one by Morris Day and The Time among them. Before they depart, they cast their eyes about for their next trip to Johnny’s Records in Darien. The New Canaan couple have some choices to make. Vinyl records will have a prominent role in their nuptials next year, when their wedding party holds records instead of flowers.
Amazing start’ to Oxfam record sales: The third record promotion at the Penarth Oxfam shop had an amazing first three days with sales reaching over £1,000. Customers flooded into the shop on the first few days buying singles and LP’s from all genres and decades – from The Beatles to The Cure. The promotion will continue for at least two more weeks with stock being added as it is donated to the shop. “We are absolutely delighted with the vinyl sales at the start of our promotion. We would like to thank all those customers who came and purchased records from us but our particular thanks goes to all those people who kindly donated vinyl as without their contribution the promotion would not be a success…”
Alice Cooper will release 7-inch single featuring live versions of I’m Eighteen and Is It My Body – recorded last year with original band members: Alice Cooper is to release a 7-inch single titled Live From The Astroturf next month. It features live cuts of I’m Eighteen and Is It My Body, with the tracks recorded last October when Cooper reunited with his original bandmates Dennis Dunaway, Michael Bruce and Neal Smith at Dallas music store Good Records. They played a short set to help promote Dunaway’s book Snakes! Guillotines! Electric Chairs! memoir.
More Than Sound, The Timeless Beauty of Vinyl Records: …Shortly after finding my dad’s collection, I remember Googling “record stores near me.” My best friend and I spent a summer afternoon driving around Minneapolis looking for these stores, only to find few still in existence. We went to a store called the Electric Fetus, where I purchased my first vinyl—Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago. I’d listened to the album more times than I could count on iTunes and Spotify, but to hold it in my hands, to make the exchange of cash for the music, brought a certain physicality to music that I’d never felt before.
