In rotation: 3/2/20

Distribution Crisis Threatens Record Store Day 2020: Can physical media continue to prosper at a time when streaming has all but consumed today’s music industry while the likes of Spotify and Amazon sign up subscribers at unprecedented rates and the distribution chain responsible for shipping most catalog classics and new releases on LP and CD implodes? It’s a topic weighing heavily on the minds of independent record store owners around the country, not to mention indie labels and artists as Record Store Day 2020 approaches. Indie shops are struggling to update their inventory in the face of a distribution crisis that boiled over in recent months, causing many to ask: Will the distribution arm of the music biz be able to get its act together in time for the national event set for Saturday April 18.

Baltimore, MD | Physical Good Still Rule: For a number of years, I worked at a record store, and for a number of years before that I had been a customer at said record store. Every time I went into the store, I noticed one of the managers there had a button on his name-tag that read “Physical Goods Still Rule”…Now that I had more time to listen to music at home, I remembered what made me love physical media so much in the first place. You can hold it; it’s tangible. The sound quality of a record or CD compared to that downloaded MP3 played on your phone is dramatically better. While I sit in my living room with a record on, I can read about the record from the packaging it came in. I can learn who played on the record, who produced it, where and when it was recorded among many other things. Through this you feel a deeper connection to the music. You learn that the people making this record aren’t just a name and an album cover, they’re real folks like the rest of us. But the tangibility of these pieces of music is only half the reason why physical goods are superior.

Ottawa, CA | Hobo Cannabis taking over Compact Music Centretown location as record store downsizes: Compact Music Co-owner Ian Boyd says he’s just glad it’s not another record shop taking their place after 17 years in downtown and Centretown. Marijuana is following music at one centretown business location, as Compact Music closes one of its long-time stores. Ian Boyd and his brother James have been selling records in Ottawa for more than 40 years — 23 of those with Compact Music in The Glebe and 17 in their downtown and Centretown locations. The 206 Bank Street retail space has belonged to Compact for the last seven years, and Ian Boyd, 62, says he’s been getting ready to downsize to just one store simply because he’s getting older. He had recently given his landlord notice that the business would be leaving on June 30, but then received a notice from the landlord on February 5 that he needed to be out of the building in 90 days.

Madison, WI | Looking at the history, function of B-Side Records: Since inception in 1982, B-Side Records has survived ownership change, CD, digital music revolutions to become State Street’s last surviving music shop. Walking down Madison’s most trafficked street, there is a store that might be missed by the average passerby. Its exterior is simple with a blue neon sign reading “B-Side Records,” but most people know little about the decades of music history seen by State Street’s last surviving music shop. B-Side Records was opened on State Street in the fall of 1982 by two graduates from the University of Michigan. The partners, Ralph Cross and Dan Jenkins, worked together at the Ann Arbor record store Schoolkids Records and dreamed about opening their own store upon graduation. In 1983, Madison Area Technical College student Steve Manley was one of B-Side’s most loyal customers, later becoming one of the first people to be placed on B-Side’s payroll. Within a year, he worked his way up to manager. Just under 15 years ago, Cross and Jenkins fulfilled their long term promise and sold their share of the store to Manley.

Company Turns Employees’ Memories Into An AR Vinyl Record On Instagram: HUSH, a company designing innovative ways to connect digital technology with physical spaces, has created an AR filter for Instagram that leverages a collection of data composed of experiences and nostalgia from its own employees to deliver a really cool interactive experience that employs both sound and physical motion. HUSH/LISTEN reimagines the idea of vinyl records, a classic form of analog sound storage in which a finely-tipped stylus moving through a set of physical grooves to emit audio. Instead of a physical stylus and record, however, HUSH/LISTEN has you dragging your finger across your smartphone screen to unlock a symphony of soothing chimes that can be played forward or backward. Because this AR filter uses sound, I highly recommend using your headphones for the most immersive experience possible. You can use the speakers of your smartphone, though it will be a significantly less impactful experience.

Soul Asylum’s Dave Pirner Takes Up Turntablism, Confounding Bandmates: These days, Soul Asylum frontman Dave Pirner has taken to scratching vinyl records on a turntable and slip-mat combo he picked up at a Guitar Center. It was shortly after he discovered DJ Shadow and the 2001 turntablism documentary Scratch. His new passion has befuddled his bandmates. “My guys in the band were like, ‘Why are you fucking around with this stuff?’” Pirner says. “I’m like, ‘Because it’s interesting?’” Pirner, who also went through a theremin phase, adds that Soul Asylum won’t be taking on a DJ, and people shouldn’t be expecting his instrumental hip-hop solo debut to drop any time soon. “I have no aspiration of being DJ Dumbshit or whatever,” he says. Soul Asylum, nearing its fortieth year in existence, is coming through Denver on March 1. The alternative band is releasing Hurry Up and Wait, its twelfth full length in April.

Are you a Zoey or a Rob? On ‘Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist’ and ‘High Fidelity,’ music is the lingua franca: …“Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist,” whose “Great Pretender” episode is set to air Sunday night, isn’t the only new TV series thinking through the ways that music lovers bend songs to the particulars of their lives. There’s also “High Fidelity,” Hulu’s 10-episode remake of the 2000 movie starring John Cusack (itself an adaptation of Nick Hornby’s 1995 novel), in which Zoë Kravitz plays a lovelorn record-shop owner with a carefully assembled mixtape to commemorate each of her many heartbreaks. Sitting in her vinyl-lined apartment, wearing silky green pajama pants and a faded Beastie Boys T-shirt, Kravitz’s character Rob — short for Robin in a welcome gender-flip of Cusack’s and Hornby’s scruffy man-children — drops the needle on Ann Peebles’ “I Can’t Stand the Rain” in the show’s pilot as she smokes a cigarette and ponders her latest relationship gone bust. We’ve only just met her, but already we understand Peebles’ “sweet memories” as Rob’s own — a kind of emotional ventriloquism that grows richer in later scenes involving songs by Stevie Wonder, Nick Drake and David Bowie.

This entry was posted in A morning mix of news for the vinyl inclined. Bookmark the permalink. Trackbacks are closed, but you can post a comment.
  • SUPPORTING YOUR LOCAL INDIE SHOPS SINCE 2007


  • Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text
  • Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text Alternative Text