Denver, CO | Vinyl Sales Explode During Pandemic: With live music shut down for more than a year, fans have turned to albums, and vinyl collections have boomed. Leading up to Christmas 2020, for the first time since 1991, the record for most vinyl sales in a week was shattered twice, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. Nearly 1.5 million LPs were sold between December 10 and 17, and in the following week, nearly two million were sold. While vinyl sales have been growing since 2007, they increased in the United States by almost 30 percent in 2020 alone. There seems to be no sign of sales slowing down, either, says Jordan Wiggins, who works at Vinyl Moon. …“We’ve doubled in subscribers in just the first three months of 2021,” says Wiggins. “Though spending habits have changed for many consumers in light of the pandemic, a subset of spending has actually gone up, particularly when it comes to leisure and home entertainment.”
Santa Clarita, CA | New Indie Record Store, Gray Skull Vinyl, Opens in Canyon Country: A new independent record store, Gray Skull Vinyl, has opened in Canyon Country, where local music fans and collectors have suffered without one for years. Located at 19983 Soledad Canyon Road, the shop is stocked with new and used vinyl records, 8-tracks, cassettes, CD’s, VHS videos, DVDs, posters, framed photographs, t-shirts, caps, guitars, amps, music magazines, books, and more. Victor Torres Jr., a 25-year Canyon Country resident and lifelong record and music collector, and his family opened the retail shop in early April in the small strip mall anchored by the Oak Tree liquor store at Soledad and Langside. “Customers come in and they’re like, ‘Wow, I could spend a good half a day here going through all these records and talking about music,’” Torres said in an interview at the store last week. “That’s what I want when people come in and just enjoy the record store. “I want people to walk in here and feel like they’re 15 years old again, see a favorite record or a poster, and say, ‘Oh, I had one of those! I don’t know what happened to it,’” he said. “But if they find it here, they could buy it again.”
Simply Analog has released a Vinyl Record Cleaning Boxset Woodedition in a wooden case: Vinyl Record Cleaning Boxset Woodedition in a wooden case has been added to the catalog by Simply Analog, a specialist in vinyl accessories. The kit includes two different record brushes, a piece of cleaning cloth, record spray and a needle cleaner. According to the manufacturer, all these accessories will allow you to take care of the records in the best possible way and without damage. The included brushes should remove even the tiniest dust particles. Simply Analog recommended the kit for daily use. As for the wooden case, this design is offered as an alternative to the usual Vinyl Record Cleaning Boxset in a cardboard box. In Europe, the cost of the new Vinyl Record Cleaning Boxset Woodedition was 60 euros.
Margo Price Launches Rarities Vinyl Record Club: Margo Price has launched a mail-order report membership, A Sequence of Rumors. The primary tune from will probably be “Lengthy Dwell The King” which is able to seem because the B-side to the Rumors spotlight “Hey Little one.” Additionally a part of the primary cargo bundle is “Twinkle Twinkle” b/w Worth’s tackle Bobbie Gentry’s “He Made a Lady Out of Me” and “Letting Me Down” b/w “I’d Die For You” (Synthphonic). The primary set of data will ship now, and subscribers will obtain their second/third deliveries in June/July. Some are misplaced songs from That’s How Rumors Get Began periods at each Hollywood’s East West Studios and Nashville’s Butcher Shoppe; others are from pre-production periods in Texas with Band of Heathens, or lockdown recordings with Worth’s band The Pricetags. Over three month-to-month shipments, A Sequence of Rumors members will obtain a restricted version, an autographed field of seven-inch vinyl data that includes music from Worth’s 2020 album, That’s How Rumors Get Began, backed with unique B-sides, covers and unreleased collaborations.
Chicago, IL | Bob Koester, known for his famed Jazz Record Mart and founder of Delmark Records, dies at 88: Bob Koester, founder of Delmark Records, the oldest indie label for jazz and blues in the U.S., died Wednesday from complications from a stroke. He was 88. Koester also ran a retail space, the Jazz Record Mart, that was a fixture and destination point for music lovers, occupying several different downtown Chicago locations before closing in 2016. Almost immediately afterward, Koester would open a new store called Bob’s Blues & Jazz Mart on W. Irving Park Rd. “When you’ve spent most of your life in the record business, how do you celebrate your 84th birthday? By opening a record store, of course,” Tribune jazz critic Howard Reich wrote at the time, noting that when Chicago bluesman Eddie C. Campbell arrived for the grand opening, “there was no question that musical royalty was paying homage to a man who has championed blues and jazz for more than half a century.” Born in 1932 in Wichita, Kansas, Koester attended college at St. Louis University before moving to Chicago in the late 1950s and opening his first store.
