David Bowie is Record Store Day’s top seller: David Bowie’s Cracked Actor album and No Plan EP were the top selling album and single for Record Store Day (RSD) 2017. The findings were based on data provided by the Official Charts Company. David Bowie’s Cracked Actor LP – a previously unheard 1974 live recording – and his No Plan EP, which collects the late icon’s final three recordings, were the two best sellers. The Smiths’ special RSD release, The Boy With The Thorn In His Side, which features the words “Trump will kill America” on its groove, follows No Plan on the singles list.
Record Store Day Fallout 2017: How Much Those Exclusives Will Now Cost You Online, We combed listings from scumbags on Discogs and eBay so you don’t have to: Bowie’s 3xLP live disc Cracked Actor is also fetching a pretty penny on eBay with one user looking for over $337 for the entire set. That’s almost $110 per LP. You would be smarter to try your luck on Discogs, where copies start at around $70. As for the Purple One, the 7-inch picture disc featuring “Little Red Corvette” backed with “1999” is the priciest of his RSD releases, with copies on both Discogs and eBay fetching upwards of $80. If you can’t wait to get the bulk of the singles, one seller is offering up a four-pack of them for $162.
Vinyl Record Sales Growing, Market Expanding to Target Children: For the first time this millennium, vinyl is predicted to become a billion dollar industry, according to consulting firm Deloitte. Now, as CNN’s Mary Moloney reports, some companies want to appeal a younger market: toddlers. For music lovers, there’s something special about listening to vinyl. “You drop the needle on the record, you get the warm pop and crackle, it’s sort of like a fireplace,” said Michael Kurtz, co-founder of Record Store Day. “It’s very comforting.” It’s also profitable.
Molly Moon’s starts a record label for its employees: Molly Moon Neitzel has created a record label for employees of her ice cream shops. Called Mooncrew Records, the label is meant to help support musicians inside Neitzel’s company. Bands and musicians can apply for help in purchasing record vinyl, and if signed by Mooncrew, the vinyl-only label will help market and promote their music and sell the records in the stores. “Being part of a record label has gotten harder and harder and harder in the last decade,” Neitzel said in an interview. “But, we have a good opportunity here – we can help make a record and we have a place to sell it.”
Expo for record collectors set for Sunday: The Rochester Music Expo, nirvana for record collectors, is back and will be held Sunday at the Centerstone Plaza Hotel Soldiers Field, 401 Sixth St. SW. A dozen dealers from the region will set up tables at the expo, selling and buying records, CDs and music memorabilia from all genres of music. Vinyl records are especially popular with collectors, said Rich Franson, one of the organizers of the event.
A record pressing plant has been installed inside a former WWII prison: A former World War II prison in the Netherlands is currently in the process of being turned into a record pressing plant. Two presses will be installed in the Blokhuispoort prison, located in the northern town of Leeuwarden, by Deepgrooves, a vinyl pressing service founded by Chris Roorda (Deeptrax Records) and Pascal Thulin. Deepgrooves says it will “mainly focus on smaller record labels and artists with specialty in the field of special editions including Limited Editions and colored vinyl.
Vinyl is back. But until now, record-making has been stuck in the ’80s. Just over two years ago, Rob Brown was transfixed by an eBay auction. He and colleagues Chad Brown (no relation) and James Hashmi were bidding on a record pressing machine. It was the only one the new entrepreneurs could find, and it was in the middle of nowhere—in Russia. No one knew if it worked, or could even be refurbished back into working order. Yet, the bidding was feverish: Brown’s team walked away, but the press ultimately sold for some $60,000.
Amarrass Records launches the first Vinyl Records production facility in India: Amarrass Records (est. 2010) — an independent record label, artist management, music production and licensing company — has become the first company to bring back the production and manufacturing of Long Play records, i.e., Vinyl Records to India. They are in the process of producing the first set of records at workshop in Gurgaon. The albums, all individually hand-pressed at our facility, will be released on the 28th of April at Lodi-The Garden Restaurant, at 6pm. Leading up to the launch, we will host a series of open houses for the media, music industry folks and audiophiles.
Get a glimpse of Frankie Knuckles’ record collection: With the record collection of Frankie Knuckles now at Theaster Gates’s Stony Island Arts Bank in Chicago, The Frankie Knuckles Foundation has shared a video expressing what they hope the archive stands for. Knuckles set up The Frankie Knuckles Foundation later in his life in order to help support causes he felt strongly about, like LGBTQ rights, youth homelessness, music in schools and diabetes research. Today it also helps to educate people on Knuckles’ legacy. As “The Godfather Of House Music” Frankie Knuckles helped establish the genre’s presence on dancefloors around the world. At a time when music was distributed via physical mediums, he amassed thousands of vinyl records. Now this priceless collection offers a glimpse into his world and music fans from around the world have a chance to be a part of it.
