New York, NY | Rough Trade Closing Brooklyn Location, to Relocate This Year: “…Our much-loved Williamsburg store has done us proud in helping establish Rough Trade as a New York-worthy music retail and gig destination, serving the city’s music lovers and the wider music artist community with expertise, creativity and passion,” Rough Trade co-owner Stephen Godfroy said in a statement. “Not only has it helped put us on the map here in New York, it’s also proven the relevancy and importance of record shops to a whole new generation of music fan — showing that alongside the merits of streaming, there’s also a time and place for hanging out in an inspiring space that celebrates past, present and emerging music culture, one that offers a kaleidoscopic array of recordings to cherish and own, a place to meet other curious minds that helps establish a life-affirming sense of belonging, community and friendship.”
Ayr, UK | Tributes paid to tragic Ayrshire record shop owner after suspected heart attack: Ian Wallace was a much-loved figure in Ayr and owner of Big Sparra Vinyl. A well-loved former record store owner was found dead in his shop following a suspected heart attack. Emotional tributes have been paid to Ian Wallace after his sudden death on Friday, January 15, aged 64. The owner of Big Sparra Vinyl was discovered in the Ayr’s New Bridge Street store which he was planning on transforming into a gift shop after the end of the Ayr record revolution 2019. The alarm was raised after Ian had not returned home to his flat above the shop where he stayed with his partner of 15 years, Jena Thompson. Business partner Robert (Sanchez) McCain collaborated with Ian by setting up the Ayr store and its sister shops in Dumbarton, West Dunbartonshire and Glasgow. He told the Ayrshire Post: “Ian lived above the shop where sadly he was found. The post mortem hasn’t happened but it is assumed he had a heart attack—he hadn’t been in good health for some time, he was working in the shop which he was going to turn into a gift shop.”
How to Buy and Sell Records Online: If you fancy yourself something of an audiophile and Spotify doesn’t cut it for you, you might be itching to start (or build out) your own record collection. Transitioning to vinyl opens doors to an entire musical universe that may not even be available on Spotify or other streaming services. Whether you’re looking to start DJing or just love the warmth generated by a needle caressing your favorite LP, there are a few things to keep in mind when buying and selling wax online. Part of the thrill of collecting records is finding something rare in the wild, or digging through crates for hours and coming up empty, only to find a gem at the last minute. While anyone can and should listen to whatever records they want, I recommend looking outside the realm of contemporary mainstream pop if you want to put together a sizable record collection, the reason being—and forgive me if I sound a tad snobby—the allure of records comes partly from their physical reality, which often entitles you to rarities like decorated vinyl and exclusive bonus tracks. You don’t necessarily want to spend a ton of money on a basic album replicating material you could readily listen to on Spotify, do you?
The best albums are live albums, especially during the pandemic: Why many of my all-time favorite records are concert LPs. Especially now in lieu of actual concerts. Confession: The “best albums of 2020” list I ran a few weeks ago was largely a sham. Truth is, if I were to name the albums I listened to the most over the past year, a majority of them would have “live” in the title, or something similar. I’ve loved live albums going back to the very first record I owned: Kiss’ “Alive II.” Santa brought it to me by request when I was 5 — way too young to know how creepy “Christine Sixteen” really is or what “studio augmentation” meant (Kiss’ live albums purportedly aren’t all that live). I pored over the concert photos in the double-fold LP jacket. I air-guitared to Ace Frehley’s solo in “Shock Me.” I mimicked Paul Stanley’s carnival-barker stage banter. I became a lifelong fan of the live rock ‘n’ roll show even before I saw one. Fast-forward to 2020-2021. For a guy used to attending concerts three, four, sometimes seven nights a week, the pandemic has been quite an uneasy adjustment.
How Mo Ostin Turned a Faltering Record Label into the Powerhouse of Rock: …Reprise president Mo Ostin had stumbled into the record business after UCLA, when he took a job at the jazz label Verve. He needed to support a wife and baby. (“I was looking for a job. I could have been an insurance agent,” he recalled.) The one thing that both Warner and Reprise shared was a “no rock ’n’ roll” edict. But within a couple of years, Ostin and a team that included executives Joe Smith, Lenny Waronker, and marketing genius Stan Cornyn changed this with spectacular results. Warner/Reprise developed a knack for spotting new talent, an artist-friendly reputation that prioritized music over profits, and a portfolio of eye-catching, break-all-the-rules advertising. As Peter Ames Carlin details in this excerpt from Sonic Boom, his new history of the label, the roots of Warner Bros. Records’s great run can be traced to an afternoon in 1967 when Ostin gave the company’s troops the most unexpected direction ever uttered by a top executive at a corporate record label: “Let’s stop trying to make hit records.”
