Sorry, America Won’t Be Saving Your Favorite Record Store: The Los Angeles Lakers, a storied basketball franchise worth more than $4.4 billion, recently scored a $4.6 million ‘small business’ Paycheck Protection Loan from the federal government. Millions were also given to Sweetgreen, Shake Shack, and even Barron Trump’s elite prep school. Local vinyl record stores, sadly, won’t be so lucky. …Your local vinyl record shops, unfortunately, don’t have those connections or cashflow to secure a rescue loan. Mega-banks like Bank of America took care of their biggest customers while administering the largest PPP loans, all the while ignoring smaller, less profitable accounts. Which means that a large percentage of vinyl records stores will not be around when government-imposed COVID-19 lockdowns are finally lifted. That might explain why Amoeba Music, arguably the most famous record store in America, launched a GoFundMe campaign to survive (they later announced plans to abandon their Sunset Blvd. location). It also might explain why Seattle’s Bop Street Records, another storied name to record collectors decided to call it quits this week.
Salina, KS | Ad Astra takes vinyl online: Like many events during the COVID-19 crisis, BYO Vinyl Night at Ad Astra Books and Coffee House has gone digital in order to continue meeting. The desire to maintain the spirit of a regular weekly gathering is part of what Ad Astra means to many people — community. “It’s called Quaranstream while we’re doing it online,” says DJ Justin Reed. He has been spinning vinyl record albums at Ad Astra for nine months. BYO Vinyl Night meets weekly on at 7 p.m. Wednesdays. Vinyl Night has been a regular program at Ad Astra since 2012. Ad Astra closed its doors on March 31, after a week of doing curbside-only service. Tammy Jarvis, owner of Ad Astra Books and Coffee House, said her business “makes money by allowing people to congregate and without a safe space to gather, we couldn’t pay our bills.”
Kansas City, MO | NKC record store uses speakeasy past to guide unique reopening plan: Many businesses got creative when they had to close, and now they are getting even more creative to reopen. Faron Meek, owner of FM Music Vintage Sounds in North Kansas City, decided he wanted to go back to the prohibition era for his store’s reopening. The store has thousands of records, many of them used and many of them from local artists. Starting Monday, customers can come to his record store and shop one at a time, but in order to get in, they have to have a password. They can get it by texting or calling Meek at 816-716-2770. That’s how they can sign up for a half-hour or full-hour spot to shop. They’ll be the only person in the store and can listen to whatever music they want while shopping. “We’re just trying to reopen safely but also have fun with it,” Meek said. “I was watching a show Saturday night and the idea of speakeasy was mentioned in the show and I looked at my wife and I said we’re opening up as a speakeasy.”
Richmond, VA | Conflict on the web: For Richmond record store Vinyl Conflict, surviving the COVID-19 outbreak has meant taking their business online. When the coronavirus outbreak hit, Vinyl Conflict owners Bobby Egger and Melissa Mazula were out of the country. They’d had a buying trip to the UK scheduled for March 4 through 18, and as they traveled, things began to escalate. “When the travel ban went into effect, we were watching the news very carefully each day, trying to make a decision about how we would be returning,” said Egger. “We were quite far away from our return flight date, and on the other side of the country.” From another country, they had to make important decisions about what would happen with Vinyl Conflict’s retail store in Oregon Hill, which specializes in new and used punk, hardcore, and metal albums — on vinyl, of course — as well as related merchandise. And when they returned, they voluntarily put themselves into quarantine.
Miami, FL | Let Technique Records and Niu Kitchen Curate Your Journey Into Music and Wine: The instructions are simple: Pay $40 or more, select your music preferences, then head to Niu Kitchen downtown to pick up one record specially selected for you by Mikey Ramirez of Technique Records and a bottle of wine to imbibe while you listen, courtesy of Niu co-owner Karina Iglesias. Welcome to Beat Match, a collaborative project launched this week to celebrate life’s most sacred pairing: vinyl and wine. Earlier this month, Ramirez rolled out Curated Stacks, offering customers a box filled with staff-curated records that fit the bounds of a customer’s budget and musical tastes. That venture was launched with the help of Nicole Irizarry, a Miami native and the cofounder of Nice Trip, a New York creative consultancy. The success of Stacks got Ramirez and Irizarry thinking about how to riff on the concept. “My company has been working to create new takes on digital events,” Irizarry explains. “We’ve been looking at ways to bring people together during this difficult time. One of the few ways people can connect right now is through mail or personal delivery.”
Carrollton, GA | Deciding to close: While small business owners in Carrollton face the decision of reopening or staying shut during the pandemic, some have elected to close — for good. COVID-19 is an unprecedented situation for businesses everywhere, and with Governor Kemp’s decision to reopen some parts of the state economy, many business owners have had to decide what they’re going to do. And others are using these times as a chance to change completely. Jackie and George Ward have been the owners of Courthouse Cafe for several years. When the pandemic broke, they decided that for the safety of their employees and customers, they would temporarily close. But that temporary closure has turned into a permanent one with the announcement that they will not be re-opening the store. Instead, they have chosen to retire. Despite the struggles small businesses are facing during the pandemic, those difficulties weren’t their reason for closing, according to Jackie. She said that they closed simply because this was the best time to do so.
Austin, TX | Ray Hennig, owner of Heart of Texas music store, has died at age 91: The “Godfather of Texas music stores” Ray Hennig has died, his family has confirmed. Hennig owned the Heart of Texas music store on South Lamar Boulevard and had a 50-year legacy in the Austin music scene. He worked with and supplied equipment for artists Stevie Ray & Jimmy Vaughn, Willie Nelson, Eric Johnson, Ray Benson, Christopher Cross, Billy Gibbons, and many more. His family said a celebration of his life will be announced as soon as safety permits.
