Boise, ID | New record store now open on Boise Bench: Music fans can now enjoy a new record store on the Boise Bench. Modern Sounds Vinyl & Music opened late last year in the Vista Plaza at 556 S. Vista Ave, near Jumpin’ Janet’s. The Boise Weekly first spotted the new store in a profile just before Christmas. It offers a selection of vinyl in a small former clothing store location. Co-owners Matt Eggers and Derek Anderson started the store, following a passion for music, according to BW. The shop operates just four days per week – Thursday through Sunday, for now. Modern Sounds sells, buys and trades music – and says they are also stocking a “growing selection” of newer music on vinyl, too. “I kept looking at the space and daydreaming about it,” Anderson told BW. “I finally thought, ‘Why not take a shot or you’ll never know?’ If you’re going to do something in life it should be something you like.”
Wooster, OH | Lucky Records will close this week but vinyl will live on in downtown Wooster with opening of Blackbird Records: When Dave Rodgers opened Lucky Records in downtown Wooster seven years ago, he was a little worried. Not only was it a risk to open an independent record store during a time when he wondered if Wooster’s love for vinyl was strong enough for the place to thrive, but Rodgers and his wife, Lorie, welcomed music lovers for the first time on Sept. 13, 2013. “Coincidentally, it was a Friday the 13th, which I find very humorous,” Rodgers said last week with a laugh, and usually nothing about that is “lucky.” The store, located at 126 S. Market St., will be open for its last day Saturday. Another store, Blackbird Records, will open in its place in March. Though bittersweet, “This is a happy ending to a time in my life that I have truly loved and enjoyed,” Rodgers wrote in a Facebook announcement earlier this month. He added that he’s thankful to the loyal customers and bands he’s met along the way. Lucky Records’ run has been a dream come true for this “lifelong music fan.”
Record Store Day Heads Into Its Biggest Year Yet — Names Brandi Carlisle ‘Ambassador’: Record Store Day 2020 appears set to thrill vinyl fans and spur considerable sales. And in a testament to just how strong the record (and the record store) is, Grammy-winning singer and songwriter Brandi Carlile is jumping aboard as a brand ambassador. The announcement was made via Record Store Day’s official website. A six-minute-long video showcases Carlile’s extensive record collection (and her well-decorated, comfortable-looking “attic recording studio”). The 38-year-old’s most prized records include Elton John’s Madman Across the Water (which played during the clip), a signed Carter Family work, and a signed copy of Joni Mitchell’s Blue, among several others. It was also noted that Carlile’s love for the format has prompted her to make each of her efforts available on vinyl, dating back to her self-titled debut album in 2005. The Washington native closed the video by reminding fans that independent record stores care for and protect artists’ dreams, and that it’s important to help these businesses stay afloat.
Patchogue, NY | Record Store Day to be celebrated in Patchogue April 18 outside Record Stop: The international Record Store Day happens Saturday, April 18. And as usual, Record Stop in Patchogue is planning a block party of sorts to mark the occasion. For the uninitiated, Record Store Day involves special release records available for the first time only that-day, as well as discounts and other promotions from independent record stores. And plenty of music and partying. Lines are known to form around blocks for music fans clamoring for that long-awaited album finally pressed or re-released in vinyl form. “One of my favorite days of the year is Record Store Day, which happens the third Saturday of every April. And we are blessed to have one of the greatest record stores on Long Island right here in our hometown,” said David Kennedy, a vinyl enthusiast and the executive director of the Greater Patchogue Chamber of Commerce.
Want vintage audio for your classic vinyl? Here’s what you need to know: Eight years ago, Mikey Weiss had wanted to build a display of vintage stereos at his Brooklyn store – “a museum piece,” he calls it – to show people what stereos looked like in the 1970s. His customers, however, wanted to buy those artifacts. Since then, Weiss has since sold oodles of old school gear, and last September he celebrated the grand opening of the West Coast Branch of Mikey’s Hook Up in Silver Lake. Amidst the stock of 21st-century gizmos, there was, of course, a smattering of vintage Pioneer and Sony pieces from the 1970s. “In the 1970s, they were gorgeous. They had big silver knobs, glowing VU meters and wood cabinets,” Weiss says of those classic stereos during a phone interview. “They were a piece of furniture.” Like vinyl, which plays a major role in Hulu’s new “High Fidelity” reboot, vintage audio equipment has experienced a resurgence in popularity over the past decade. Unlike records, though, these aren’t impulse buys.
Chicago, IL | A Dusty Groove documentary premieres in Chicago: Danielle Beverly’s Dusty Groove: The Sound of Transition tells intimate stories about our deep connection to music. n one scene from the 2019 documentary Dusty Groove: The Sound of Transition, Rick Wojcik sifts through a record collection in the Pill Hill basement of Grady Johnson, a jazz saxophonist and one of Chicago’s first black pharmacists. Wojcik owns the record store after which the film is named, and he frequents such spaces in the course of his job—much of his inventory consists of the jazz, R&B, and hip-hop albums he finds there. In Johnson’s home, Wojcik unearths something that brings him closer to the 93-year-old, who was then battling cancer (he passed away in 2014). It’s an acetate disc of a largely forgotten Johnson performance, and the two of them listen to the music together—a deeply personal experience that exemplifies the kind of close connection the documentary aims to capture. The scene is the most moving in the film, but saying any more could spoil it.
Anniversary of the phonograph: Thomas Edison invention that changed the world: This bizarre invention has almost definitely had a massive impact on your life – and you likely don’t even know what it is. If you Google the history of the music industry, chances are you’ll stumble upon mentions of everything from Spotify and the iPod to Justin Bieber and Beethoven. But there’s one man – and a very strange invention we would likely never have listened to music without – who we have to thank for it all. The story of sound recording, and reproduction, began 143 years ago on February 19, 1877, when Thomas Edison was issued a patent for the first phonograph. Consisting of a sheet of tinfoil wrapped around a cylindrical drum which, when turned by a handle, both rotated and moved laterally, it hardly looked like a contraption worthy of changing the world. And yet change the world it did. The utterly simple device was a marvel and amazed everyone, earning the prolific inventor his nickname: “The Wizard of Menlo Park”.
