We’ve closed the office for the Thanksgiving holiday. While we’re away, why not fire up our free Record Store Locator app and visit one of your local indie record stores during Black Friday or Small Business Saturday, either online, curbside, or with some sound social distancing?
Perhaps there’s an interview, review, or feature you might have missed? Catch up and we’ll see you back here on Monday, 11/30.
VIA PRESS RELEASE | Discover the extraordinary story of legendary bluesman Joe Bonamassa in the inspirational documentary Guitar Man, arriving on Video-On-Demand and for Digital purchase December 8, 2020 from Paramount Home Entertainment.
From average Joe by day to guitar hero at night, Guitar Man tells the incredible rise of blues-rocker Joe Bonamassa, whose hard work and determination have made him one of today’s top-selling blues artists. With more #1 Blues albums than anyone else in history, Bonamassa pulls back the curtain on his incredible career, allowing us to see his remarkable musical achievements and pioneering style. Featuring behind the scenes interviews and live concert footage showcasing some of the biggest names in music, kick back and enjoy the exhilarating soundtrack of his phenomenal life.
Guitar Man showcases Bonamassa’s astounding talent from his childhood as a “wunderkind” discovered and mentored by Blues legend B.B. King. At the age of only 43, Bonamassa has an illustrious career spanning over three decades. Through highs and lows, Joe persevered, taking his musical journey into his own hands to overcome challenges and reach his goals. In 2009, Bonamassa fulfilled a lifelong dream of playing at the prestigious Royal Albert Hall and was joined on stage by Eric Clapton, marking a pivotal moment that elevated his music to the next level.
Filled with an abundance of music, live concert footage, and interviews with music industry legends, Guitar Man chronicles a musician growing in his craft, traveling the globe, collaborating with top artists from across the world of music, and ascending to the heights of inevitable success.
VIA PRESS RELEASE | To date Matador’s Revisionist History series has set its focus on the hallowed year of 1995 – surfacing critical releases by Pavement, Yo La Tengo, Guided by Voices, and Chavez. Today, however, we whirl the dial on the in-house wayback machine and travel toward the future: the year 2000 and Mary Timony’s debut solo album, Mountains, which will be reissued on January 15.
Remastered by Bob Weston, Mountains comes back to us as a gold foil-embossed gatefold 2xLP and will include the previously unreleased original takes of “Return to Pirates,” “Poison Moon,” and “Killed by the Telephone,” which were delivered along with the original master tapes 20 years ago, but were omitted from the final album. The record is completed by a newly recorded orchestral version of “Valley of One Thousand Perfumes” produced by composer Joe Wong (Russian Doll, Midnight Gospel) and mixed by Dave Fridmann.
At the turn of the century, Timony (Ex Hex, Wild Flag, Hammered Hulls) was already a celebrated presence in American underground music – a fixture of D.C. and Boston rock ’n’ roll via her work in Autoclave and Helium respectively. By 1998, though, Helium was drawing to a close and Timony was feeling uncertain about the future. “I had never been good at the rock’ n’ roll business, and making a living from being in a band just didn’t seem like it was in the realm of possibility for me,” she writes. “I just knew I wanted to make another record because that was the part of being in a band that I liked the most.”
At the time of its original release, Timony called Mountains, “A Trip to the New Underworld.” “A bunch of hard stuff was happening in my life: family illnesses, people dying, people leaving, relationships ending. I fell into a deep depression,” she explains. “I tried new ways of making music: I tried writing songs without any filter at all, and I purposely didn’t think about what the music would sound like to anyone else. I was only interested in describing what was in my head.”
Tower Records launches online store: The legendary Tower Records is back and better than ever! Founded back in 1960 in Sacramento, California, the record store had to unfortunately file for bankruptcy in 2006 and has been closed ever since then. It previously had 89 chain stores across America, and their store in Japan became iconic – but had become separate from the business back in 2002 – and still runs as popular as ever today. The original Tower Records, though, is now back in an online store form. Not going anywhere now, this is brilliant news for the independent record store market, and their online form means that it will never leave us again. It’s been 14 whole years, but now the revival of Tower Records is in full swing. Stating that they’re open 23/7, they boast over 500,000 titles on CD and vinyl including 468 pages in the electronic section filled with some of the greatest dance albums of all time. Also on their store is a merch section where you can purchase logo shirts, record slipmats, hats, sweaters and much more.
Louisville, KY | Would ear X-tacy Survive in Today’s Vinyl Revolution? For music lovers in Louisville, it’s almost a citywide shared memory: You carve out some time, head to ear X-tacy in The Highlands and get lost for the next two hours checking out new music on the many listening stations scattered around the store. The hope was you’d hear that next band or artist that you were about to fall in love with and listen to incessantly, as the thrill of “discovering” that new favorite band is something that cannot be explained, only experienced. The iconic store opened Aug. 1, 1985, at 4264 Poplar Level Road, moved to a space next door to Great Escape where it did business for three years, then to the 1534 Bardstown Road location that became its long-time home. It ultimately landed in a smaller spot down the street, at Douglass Loop, before closing for good in late 2011. The classic Bardstown Road space then became a Panera restaurant, adding insult to injury. Ear X-tacy’s legacy would spark the 2012 documentary “Brick and Mortar and Love,” and many remain wistful for those days of browsing through albums and CDs and soaking in the quirky atmosphere of the destination music shop.
Rehoboth, DE | Rehoboth’s Extended Play triples size with new location: Record store moves from Rehoboth Avenue to Village By The Sea complex. After more than two years in one of the smallest retail locations in Rehoboth Beach, record store Extended Play has tripled its size with a recent move to the Village By The Sea shopping center. Owner Steve Fallon opened Extended Play in July 2018 in the space next to Dos Locos Stonegrill. At the time he estimated it to be roughly 400 square feet. The new location, Suite 8B, across from Arena’s Deli, is about three times the size, he said. Fallon said the extra space was the reason for the move. In addition to more room for records, the space allows for the display of the business’ audio equipment, he said. “Too many tiny hands could touch things in the old place,” said Fallon. Estimating 2,000 vinyl records sitting on the floor now, Jackson Beckner, Extended Play store manager, said the new location will allow him to sort out and display the remaining 4,000 records the shop has in storage. “More space means more inventory,” said Beckner, happy to have the task in front of him.
San Diego, CA | Folk Arts and Jupiter join forces: “When you own your own store it’s the real education.” Brendan Boyle began his vinyl education while working at a record shop in Sacramento. Following that, he went solo and spent about ten years selling vinyl online. The combined experiences gave him a 20-year education when it came to buying and selling records, but he claims that it wasn’t until he purchased Lou Curtiss’s Folk Arts Rare Records that he entered the uppermost realms of vinyl expertise. “When you own your own store it’s the real education,” he explained. “What you’re learning is on a whole other level than anything else. So, the biggest education I’ve had is the last six years.” Boyle’s El Cajon Boulevard Folk Arts location had been chugging along fine since it opened in 2014, but about four years into that run he decided to open Jupiter, a second record shop. It wasn’t so much a stab at increased profits as his inner soothsayer predicting bad days on the horizon. “I built Jupiter in 2018 partially as a fallback plan,” he explained. “It was a fallback plan for a potential Great American Shitshow. I was worried about Donald Trump not being the greatest president and some kind of shitshow happening — and I ended up being right.”
Poppy reveals her favorite store is Newbury Comics, announces holiday EP: It’s uncertain to really know just how many things Bostonians have in common with Poppy. But as of today (November 18), we can add our favorite chain of record stores to the list. News dropped this morning that the increasingly enigmatic metal-pop-fusion star will release an album of Christmas tunes called A Very Poppy Christmas on December 1. New England-based pop culture and record shop Newbury Comics also shared via Twitter that they’ll have 1000 white vinyl copies of the album available to pre-order, exclusive to their shops. Then came the big reveal: Poppy responded to the tweet, writing “My favorite store since I was a bb.” The news, while glorious, isn’t altogether shocking; Poppy was born in Massachusetts and lived here until her early teens until she moved to Tennessee, and then later, to Los Angeles. Multiple articles, fan pages, and her Wikipedia page state that she was born near or in Boston, making her birthplace one of the few facts about her life that isn’t constantly disputed on online message boards.
VIA PRESS RELEASE | Destiny Street was the follow-up album to one of the greatest punk albums of all time, 1977’s Blank Generation. The album was originally recorded in 1981 and released in 1982, but not to Richard Hell’s satisfaction. As he says in his new liner notes to Destiny Street Remixed, “The final mix was a morass of trebly multi-guitar blare.”
Now, for the 40th anniversary of its creation, the album is at last presented improved the way Richard Hell has long hoped and intended: “The sound of a little combo playing real gone rock and roll.” The resultant Destiny Street Complete, due out via 2-CD set and Digital, is set for January 22, 2021 release on Omnivore Recordings. Omnivore will also release a vinyl version of the new Destiny Street Remixed set for the same date.
Richard Hell co-founded his first band, the Neon Boys, with Tom Verlaine in 1973. That band became Television. When Hell left Television in 1975, he formed, with Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan, both formerly of the New York Dolls, the Heartbreakers. After another year, Richard departed the Heartbreakers and created Richard Hell & the Voidoids, which, along with other CBGB bands of the era, such as the Ramones and Patti Smith, formed the template for punk, the effects of which are still being felt.
Apart from Hell on vocals and bass, the original Voidoids comprised Robert Quine (guitar), Ivan Julian (guitar), and Marc Bell (drums). The Destiny Street-era band retained Quine, but otherwise the backing lineup became Naux (Juan Maciel) on guitar and Fred Maher on drums.
Chicago, IL | ‘Dusty Groove’ film sifts through the emotions of giving up your vinyl: Chicago music store owners buy stranger’s collections and hear their stories in the engrossing documentary. Rick Wojcik and J.P. Schauer are the co-founders of the Dusty Groove record store in Wicker Park, and they’ve been at this a long time. If you caught up with John Cusack’s Rob Gordon and Jack Black’s Barry Judd from the fictional Championship Vinyl record store in Wicker Park from “High Fidelity” (2000) some 20 years down the road, well, that’s Wojcik and Schauer in a nutshell. …In Danielle Beverly’s engrossing and warmhearted documentary “Dusty Groove: The Sound of Transition,” the customers aren’t treated as human props for the proprietors, as is often the case on shows such as “Pawn Stars” and “American Pickers.” Beverly is clearly as interested in the record lovers as the record store owners, and the result is a verité slice of American life shining a light on a disparate group of individuals who have one thing in common: They love their vinyl.
Kansas City, MO | Best of KC 2020: Every single record store from Topeka to KC is doing amazing, sweetie: Starting out west, and heading east: Time Machine Music, Mother Earth Records & Tapes, the Vinyl Score, Love Garden Sounds, Orange Cat Records, FM Music, Josey Records, Revolution Records, Mills Record Company, Records with Merrit, Brothers Music, Vinyl Heaven the Vinyl Underground at 7th Heaven, and Gotwhatulike Records. These stores have been at the forefront of making sure that customers are distanced, masked and, in many cases, gloved during their shopping experiences, thanks to the sheer amount of touchy-feely involved in flipping through the bins. Be it scheduled visits, where customers can browse the shops all by their lonesome like a high-rolling celebrity, curbside pickup, outdoor browsing experiences, or just a copious amount of available hand sanitizer, these record shops have allowed a certain amount of normalcy in our live, while not unnecessarily putting anyone at risk. Given that musical experiences these days are few and far between, it’s a rare opportunity to engage with like-minded music fans.
BBC: Asia’s forgotten musical gems rediscovered on vinyl: As the vinyl market experiences booming demand, crate diggers are spending time and money to re-release forgotten musical gems around Asia and beyond. Fariz Rustam Munaf, a prolific multi-instrumentalist better known as Fariz RM, was a household name in his native Indonesia during the 1980s. Back then, both teenagers and adults grooved to his signature brand of jazz fusion, which incorporates elements of spacey disco and Brazilian samba. Today, contemporary record labels are re-releasing his music for a new generation of listeners, with DJs routinely mixing his hit songs with electronic genres, such as Balearic house, at underground parties from Jakarta to Ibiza. “Being reissued is a great compliment,” says the 61 year-old. “It’s a new period of my career. I feel like I’ve been reborn.”
The 11 Best Vinyl & Record Player Accessories for Every Turntable Setup: From sound tweaks to a record club, gift ideas for every record nerd. Like any kind of collector, record enthusiasts tend to be obsessive about the object of their desire. That’s good news for gift-givers hunting for the best vinyl accessories for their friends and family. While buying records for anyone you don’t know intimately can be a dicey proposition—unless, of course, you have a link to their Discogs wantlist—the list of add-ons, novelties, and vinyl-adjacent doodads is long, with a bounty of possibilities at every price point, from humble anti-static brushes to absurdly pricey record-cleaning systems. So we’ve perused our own crowded shelves to come up with a selection of gifts guaranteed to delight any record aficionado. For still more ideas—or maybe just because you deserve a treat, too—check out our guide to buying the best record player and stereo system for any budget.
Tame Impala announce 10th anniversary InnerSpeaker box set: We kinda had a hunch this was coming… Earlier this year, Kevin Parker commemorated the 10th anniversary of Tame Impala’s debut album InnerSpeaker and hinted that “something very special coming v soon.” That special something is a new vinyl reissue of the album. The 4LP box set features “2020 mixes” of the tracks ‘Alter Ego’ and ‘Runway Houses City Clouds’, instrumentals for ‘Why Won’t You Make Up Your Mind’ and ‘It Is Not Meant To Be’, a collection of demos, and a 40-page book. Diehards will get excited at the inclusion of a previously unreleased ‘Wave House Live Jam’ – as in the studio property in WA where InnerSpeaker was made, and that Parker purchased recently. InnerSpeaker won the 2010 J Award for Australian Album of the Year – we praised it as a “spiralling, trippy adventure” at the time. And just a few months back, the album came #3 in Double J’s list of the 50 Best Australian Debut Albums. hailed as a “timeless album that still hits like a mind-melting sonic adventure from another era.”
VIA PRESS RELEASE | In his directorial debut filmmaker Tyler Q Rosen offers a revealing and inspiring documentary about how a man and his guitar can be the beginning of change for an entire nation, one person at a time.
Doin’ My Drugs is a profound and personal look at the extraordinary life of musician Thomas Muchimba Buttenschøn as he uses music in an effort to wipe out AIDS in his native Zambia and beyond. Born in Zambia in 1985 to a Zambian mother and Danish father, Buttenschøn was diagnosed HIV positive as an infant. After emigrating to Denmark with his family for treatment, Thomas lost both of his parents to AIDs at the age of nine and became deathly ill himself at 13. Upon regaining his health after beginning antiretroviral (ARV) treatment, he threw himself into music, and at 20, became a Danish pop star.
After marrying and fathering two sons, Thomas reconnected with family in Zambia, and was shocked to discover that the country remains trapped in a senseless HIV/AIDS epidemic. While he is able to live a full and healthy life with the virus, a staggering 13% of Zambians who are infected with HIV remain untreated because of the social stigma attached to the virus, and the resulting reluctance to get tested, despite the availability of free treatment from their government. Determined to make a difference, Thomas has dedicated his life to using his music and his own story to raise awareness about HIV and treatment in Zambia. Teaming with an extraordinary group of Zambian musicians, Thomas embarks on a crusade to wipe HIV and AIDS in Zambia, and throughout Africa.
The film is executive produced by longtime HIV/AIDS activist Jake Glaser of The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. EGPAF seeks to end global pediatric HIV/AIDS through prevention and treatment programs, research, and advocacy. Released by Freestyle Digital Media, the film distribution division of Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios.
VIA PRESS RELEASE | UMe’s Urban Legends, the label imprint and cross-platform initiative devoted to the curation and celebration of over three decades of urban catalog music and culture, and Soul In The Horn, an innovative digital movement that seeks to bridge cultural gaps by bringing together a diverse cross-section of creative talents, have teamed up to create an extraordinary one-of-a-kind 3-D experience for ardent Mary J. Blige fans that celebrates the November 29 anniversary of My Life, one of the most critically acclaimed and important R&B albums of all time.
Over the past few days, 500 randomly selected superfans from her newsletter and website, ages 21+, received an invitation to dive into a dynamic online environment full of rare content via mobile or desktop that mirrors virtual reality. Custom-built so fans can interact with one another as well as with digital concierges designed to guide them on-demand throughout the journey, UMe’s Urban Legends and Soul In The Horn provide VIP access to My Life music, performances, visuals and more.
Mary J. Blige, the legendary singer-songwriter, actress, philanthropist and honorary Queen of Hip-Hop Soul, will re-release her acclaimed 1994 sophomore album, My Life, on November 20 via Geffen/UMe. The album will be released in three physical forms: a 2CD, a standard weight black double vinyl, and a triple vinyl edition in translucent blue with a lenticular cover, including bonus tracks featuring LL Cool J, and Smif ‘N Wessun. The 3LP edition will also be available digitally which will also feature commentary by Mary J. Blige on the original album tracks. From her No. 57 hit “You Bring Me Joy” to her No. 22 version of Rose Royce’s 1976 soul classic “I’m Going Down,” My Life was one of Blige’s most creatively vital works to date.
Portland, OR | Photo Essay: Music Millennium Survived the Advent of Streaming Services. Now It’s Surviving the Pandemic, Too. Each month since reopening, sales have roughly equaled figures from the previous year. Founded in 1969, Music Millennium has survived Napster, smartphones and streaming. When the COVID-19 pandemic came, the store switched to curbside- and online-only service for 10 weeks but returned to limited in-store shopping in June. Now admitting up to 10 customers at a time, there is frequently a line to enter the store. Each month since reopening, sales have roughly equaled figures from the previous year.
Madison, WI | Strictly Discs in Wisconsin, in a Pandemic: New COVID-19 Closures Are ‘Getting Closer.’ In an “eventful week,” store owner Angie Roloff deals with a family tragedy, exploding coronavirus cases and the threat of new closures. In October 1988, Angie Roloff and her husband Ron opened Strictly Discs in Madison, Wisconsin, after Ron left a career in the biomedical research field to pursue his love of music full time. Nearly 31 years later, the couple made the difficult decision to shutter in-store operations due to COVID-19, roughly a week before Gov. Tony Evers forced a mandatory shutdown of all non-essential businesses. Now that the Wisconsin Supreme Court has overturned Evers’ stay-at-home order — ruling it “unlawful” and “unenforceable” — the Roloffs and their employees have reopened the store. As part of Billboard’s efforts to best cover the coronavirus pandemic and its impacts on the music industry, we will be speaking with Roloff regularly to chronicle her experience throughout the crisis.
Richmond, VA | Musical Healing: Record Store Day offers a special release of a legendary concert at Plan 9 Records from 14 years ago. In the summer of 2006, the Richmond music scene was still reeling from the tragic murders of the Harvey family. On July 13, Plan 9 Records in Carytown held a rock concert to raise money for the Harvey family memorial endowment – a show that would go down in the history books of that Richmond institution. The sold-out event for just over 200 people started at 10 p.m. and raged on for two and half hours, about an hour longer than the band originally planned. Now others get to hear all its sweaty glory when a four-record vinyl set of the Drive-By Truckers’ “Plan 9 Records July 13, 2006” is released on Record Store Day this Black Friday – an album one national music critic is calling the band’s best live recording. As for its pay that night, the group received a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon and two bottles of whiskey — all of which was consumed by the encore.
AU | Why are vinyl records making a huge comeback? Just when we roll our eyes at the fact that kids these days only listen to Spotify, we see news that the sales of vinyl records surpassed that of CD. Wait, what? Are we back in the 60s? Are vinyl records really back from the dead? Well first of all, vinyl never really died. It decreased in sales when CD became famous in the late 80s but there were still a bunch of people who are vinyl freaks. Vinyl sales dropped fast but it continually increased in sales years after, peaking in 2006 and it never stopped going up since then. Years later, here we are. The Recording Industry Association of America, LP vinyl records accounted for $232.1 million of music sales in the first six months of 2020, whereas CDs have only brought in $129.9 million. This is the first time since 1986 that vinyl has outsold CDs. Today, you don’t have to be a hotshot musician in order to release vinyl because one great benefit of the internet is that you can also find ways to lessen the risk of financial loss. Nowadays, you can make as few as 50 units and just sell it on your website or even do pre-order (they buy before you press vinyl) so you are sure every vinyl you press will get sold. Although vinyl is still relatively expensive to make, there are many tricks and tips for a cheap vinyl record pressing.
Norman Cook: ‘I would go out actively looking for strange old records I could take little tiny bits of.’ “…You know that that beautiful moment in DJing is when the whole room becomes as one like a collective euphoria and a collective abandon, which is a very powerful thing and if you can achieve that at arena level it really is quite an emotional thing to witness that kind of, the togetherness and the community within it… It started that I just had a big record collection so when I discovered a sampler and the fun you could have with it, I started trawling through my record collection. I was always a crate digger and I was always a vinyl junkie and that just kind of fed my habit that I could – when I was DJing abroad, I would always hit record shops in the afternoon and thrift stores and then yeah, so I would go out actively looking for strange old records that I could take little tiny bits of. So again it sort of fed my addiction of being a vinyl junkie but I was calling it my job because this was source material.
VIA PRESS RELEASE | Featuring Jon Batiste, Mavis Staples, Leon Bridges, Gary Clark Jr, Valerie June, Brandi Carlile, Maggie Rogers, Rachael Price, Chris Thile, Bermuda Triangle and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band backed up by The Dap-Kings.
Recorded during the finale of the 2018 Newport Folk Festival, A Change Is Gonna Come was a once-in-a-lifetime collaboration between some of our very dear friends. Featuring Jon Batiste, Mavis Staples, Leon Bridges, Gary Clark Jr, Valerie June, Brandi Carlile, Maggie Rogers, Rachael Price, Chris Thile, Bermuda Triangle and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band backed up by the inimitable Dap-Kings.
A Change Is Gonna Come is being issued as a limited edition 2-record set pressed at RTI on premium 180-gram vinyl and housed in a genuine old style tip-on gatefold jacket. Limited to 1,000 hand-numbered copies, each pre-order comes with an immediate free digital download of the recording. Vinyl will ship in early 2021. Fans can pre-order the album here today. Proceeds will support Newport Festivals Foundation’s ongoing initiatives to support musicians in need and music programs across the country.
“In the Spring of 2018, I was in the famed Studio A of Electric Lady Studios watching Jon Batiste and The Dap-Kings blow the minds of those fortunate to attend one of our first live Newport Festivals Fundraisers. Immediately afterward, sitting with Jon in the control room digesting what we all had just experienced, we both knew this needed to be witnessed by more than just a handful of lucky souls,” says Newport Festivals Executive Producer Jay Sweet. “And so the idea was born to close the 2018 Newport Folk Festival with a set we called ‘A Change Is Going to Come,’ a celebration of the festival’s storied history with the civil rights movement.”
VIA PRESS RELEASE | To commemorate its 20th anniversary, Conspiracy of One, the sixth album by punk rock trailblazers the Offspring, will once again be available on vinyl—the first time since its release in 2000. On December 11, Round Hill Records/UMe will release a deluxe version of Conspiracy of One pressed to yellow and red splatter vinyl, which includes spot gloss on the cover and a custom turntable slipmat featuring the Offspring’s flaming skull silhouette logo. A non-deluxe, limited-edition canary yellow vinyl variant will be available on uDiscover & The Sound of Vinyl. A standard black vinyl version will be released in early 2021.
All editions will feature the bonus track “Huck It.” The anthemic, sub-three-minute blast was featured on their 2000 VHS/DVD Huck It and used to soundtrack various skateboard stunts, including longtime Offspring drummer Ron Welty doing a successful board-to-board leap over two of his bandmates. “Huck It” will be released as a stand-alone digital single on November 13. A lyric video featuring footage from the Huck It VHS/DVD will also be released on November 13. In addition, the official videos for Conspiracy’s first two singles—”Original Prankster” and “Want You Bad”—will be available on the Offspring’s Official YouTube channel in newly remastered HD.
Conspiracy of One, the first Offspring album of the 21st Century, was the fourth album from the game-changing punk group to be certified Platinum, a feat completed only a month after its release on November 14, 2000. The album is best known for its lead single, “Original Prankster,” a song that broke the Billboard Top 100 and hit Number 2 on the U.S. Alternative Airplay charts. The song and its mischievous video by director Dave Meyers included a funky sample from War’s “Low Rider” and a cameo from hip-hop legend Redman. The album’s follow-up single, “Want You Bad,” could be heard in the film American Pie 2 and the video game Crazy Taxi 3: High Roller.
Tower Records returns as an online store: 2020 has been a tough year, but one bright spot has surfaced as the year winds down. Onetime record store chain Tower Records has been resurrected as an online store. The new Tower Records, which can be found online here, will have online events, the return of their Tower Pulse! magazine, a merchandise section and a wealth of vinyl, CD and cassette selections. The onetime record store giant has been shuttered since 2006, minus a store in Japan, after filing for bankruptcy. The chain’s rise and fall was documented in the 2015 film All Things Must Pass. Deadline reports that the Tower resurrection was expected to be revealed earlier this year at Austin’s SXSW festival. However, the cancellation of the annual event due to COVID-19 led to the delay of the announcement. The intent was to add a series of pop-up shops as well, which could still happen when the pandemic lessens. Tower Records’ new CEO Danny Zeijdel made a statement about the company’s return. “[The news] has been met with tremendous success, feedback,” Zeijdel said. “A lot of people are so happy taking pictures of when they receive an order from Tower Records, posting it on Instagram.”
Memphis, TN | With Patreon & an Online Variety Show, Goner Records Adapts to the Pandemic: Record stores have been hit hard by the age of quarantine, and in the case of Goner Records, which is also a label and festival promoter, the effect has been tripled. And yet their many innovations, from a “telethon” for Record Store Day, to Goner TV (which debuted in July), to this year’s virtual Gonerfest, reveal their willingness to innovate in order to accommodate the new normal. Now they’ve embraced another approach to both surviving and staying connected with fans and customers, one that is more typically associated with artists: Patreon. I spoke with co-owner Zac Ives to learn more about the reasons behind their latest move, and what kinds of offerings patrons can expect. “…the positive thing about this is, it really allows people to have a more direct impact on things that they care about. And so that’s what this turned into. If you like what we’re doing, there’s a way for you to directly impact our ability to keep doing these things. And at the same time, it lets us be creative with what we can give back to people for their help, for being a patron.”
Toronto, CA | Jason Momoa spotted at Toronto record shop: Jason Momoa was spotted getting his groove on to some soul music at a Toronto record store. The Aquaman star stopped into Cosmos Records, located at 607a Queen St West, on Friday. The shops Instagram account posted a video of the actor dancing along to Syl Johnson’s “Different Strokes” as he looked through the vinyl. Cosmos wrote that the Game of Thrones alumni’s visit was “good vibes only.” Momoa was previously photographed at Ozzy’s Burgers in Kensington Market, and has been seen strolling through Parkdale. According to the City of Toronto’s list of Current Productions, the actor is in the city to film the second season of the dystopian Apple TV+ series See.
Elvis Costello on Turning His 1979 Tour De Force, ‘Armed Forces,’ Into 2020’s Splashiest Boxed Set: In a Variety bonus Q&A, Costello revisits how Bowie and ABBA influenced him four decades ago, why he’s cool with the super-deluxe “Forces” coming out via vinyl, streaming and downloads but not on CD… and drops a new performance of the classic “Party Girl.” Very few music boxed sets aspire beyond being gussied up digital repositories to becoming actual physical pieces of pop art. But opening up the new vinyl set from Elvis Costello, “The Complete Armed Forces,” feels like getting several Christmas mornings all at once, with a suitable-for-fondling nine records, seven paperbacks and various other ephemera intended to bring back the color explosions of 1979 as well as invoke other visual styles from the pulp-fiction ‘50s to the present. At the center of the “super-deluxe” set, enveloped in elaborate, Barney Bubbles-designed origami packaging, is one of rock ‘n’ roll’s fairly undisputed masterpieces, “Armed Forces,” a semi-concept record that reinvented Costello’s style three albums into his career and made “emotional fascism” sound like great, brow-furrowed fun.
Naples, IT | New record shop, Organica, opens in Naples: The store is run by the team behind popular venue Basic Club. Naples has a new record shop. Organica Records, which is run by the team behind popular local spot Basic Club, opened on Friday, November 6th. Located in the city’s historic centre, on Via Vincenzo Bellini, the shop stocks all sorts of music on vinyl, from Latin, soul and jazz to techno, disco and deep house. There are listening decks in-store, plus a selection of beers and soft drinks. Head to Organica’s website for more information, and check out some photos.
VIA PRESS RELEASE | Live Events Lift Up Festival, also known as LEVL UP Fest, will stream live from the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on Wednesday, December 16 at 8:30 p.m. Eastern. This “festival of music and stories of life on and off the road” will feature performances from more than 25 artists and entertainers who have stepped up to honor all those who help them “go live.” Throughout the event, we’ll hear stories from artists and crew about what it means to be part of a “road family” and get a glimpse behind the scenes of what it takes to produce live entertainment and events.
In early March 2020, the live events industry was shut down by mandate in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Suddenly, an entire workforce whose livelihoods revolve around creating events where people gather, came to a grinding halt. The collapse of the ecosystem in the live events industry, from supply chain to front lines, quickly became catastrophic. Live events support more than 12 million jobs; and according to statistics from several sources, including the Department of Labor, 77% of the workers in live events have lost 100% of their income. Event pros are grappling with the loss of their income, the uncertainty of when work might return, whether the Government might do enough to stabilize the industry and trying to figure out how they are going to survive.
“We’ve seen depression and anxiety take hold across our community, loss of life due to suicide, families in fear of losing homes and generational small businesses closing their doors,” says Shannon Cook, Co-Founder of LEVL UP Fest. “With large-scale gatherings not expected to return until mid to late 2021, workers across this industry face a very uncertain future.”
VIA PRESS RELEASE | The Black Keys release Brothers (Deluxe Remastered Anniversary Edition), an expanded version of their watershed 2010 multi-platinum, Grammy-winning sixth studio album December 18, 2020 in the US and Canada and on January 1, 2021 in all other territories, via Nonesuch Records, on which the record is newly available throughout the world.
To celebrate its tenth anniversary, Brothers will be re-released with three added bonus songs: “Keep My Name Outta Your Mouth,” “Black Mud Part II,” and “Chop and Change.” It will be available in three formats: a 7” box set, a 2-LP set, and a CD (full info about each below). This will be the first in an annual series of archival releases from the band. Brothers (Deluxe Remastered 10th Anniversary Edition) is available for pre-order here. The band today also share their promotional video for the release, directed by Bryan Schlam.
Members of The Black Keys fan club, The Lonely Boys and Girls Club, were treated to an early listen of one of the new tracks from the deluxe reissue, as well as an early look at some of the bonus material included in the upcoming release.
Brothers, originally released on May 18, 2010, was largely recorded at the famous Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama. It was a career breakthrough for The Black Keys, receiving critical praise and earning three Grammy Awards, for Best Alternative Album, Best Rock Performance, and Best Recording Packaging for Michael Carney’s design. Upon release, Rolling Stone hailed the album “a masterpiece,” and Uncut named them “one of the best rock ‘n’ roll bands on the planet.”
UK | Independent record stores to be celebrated in relaunched #recordstoreoftheday campaign: It kicks off with Brighton indie store Resident. A campaign to celebrate independent record stores in the UK has been relaunched. Originally launched back in March at the onset of lockdown, #RecordStoreOfTheDay is back from today (13th November) to fly the flag for stores across the country. It kicks off with Resident in Brighton. Posted on Instagram, Record Store of the Day organisers said, “We are excited to announce that Record Store of the Day is back! In response to lockdown 2.0, we thought it only right to continue our campaign highlighting the best indie record stores around, starting with @residentbrighton.” Supported by Association of Independent Music, BPI, ERA and more, the initiative will focus on one independent record store each day of the week. See the full list of record stores below. Back in June, a separate event, Love Record Stores Day, boosted music retail by £1 million.
The legendary Tower Records returns as online store: The iconic chain closed all its non-Japanese stores in 2006. The legendary Tower Records chain has made a comeback as an online store. The chain has been out of action for over a decade, closing all its non-Japanese stores in 2006 after filing bankruptcy. A new Tower Records website is already up and running, with vinyl, CDs, merchandise and an online version of their Tower Pulse! magazine on sale now. As Deadline report, the second coming of Tower Records was set to be unveiled at this year’s SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, which was then cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak back in early March. A series of pop-up shops were also set to accompany the store’s return, and may still come to fruition when COVID-19 rules are relaxed. Tower Records’ new CEO Danny Zeijdel made a statement about the company’s return. Zeijdel replaces late founder Russ Solomon, who died in 2018 at the age of 92. “[The news] has been met with tremendous success, feedback,” Zeijdel said.
Traverse City, MI | Collecting Vinyl Records: A Hobby that Will Never Go Out of Style: With the colder weather slowly pushing us inside for the winter, chances are you’re looking for new ways to stay entertained. One hobby that will never go out of style is collecting and playing vinylStudio Anatomy Pkg Ll 4 records. Studio Anatomy, a recording studio and event space in downtown Traverse City opened a record shop called Eugene’s Record Co-Op. It’s a consignment shop where people can buy and sell records, turntables, and accessories. Brian Chamberlain the owner of both Eugene’s and Studio Anatomy says, “records are definitely the comeback. I think a lot of younger people are interested in something that’s tangible.” Eugene’s is located within Studio Anatomy, a recording space for some of Northern Michigan’s talented artists and performers. Anyone and everyone is welcome to use the recording studio for a reasonable fee.
Asheville, NC | Citizen Vinyl: Put Another Record On: Session Bar & Café is my beat, but you can feel a different kind of beat pulses throughout the entire building at Citizen Vinyl. …They’ve come at the business of vinyl from a lot of different directions: the retail record shop, recording studio, their ability to make vinyl masters, as well as large and short album runs, and the rooftop, which may be used for intimate live performances. With the record press installed and running on the main floor, you’ll be able to watch it do its magic through large interior windows while you have lunch, sip a latte, or meet with friends for cocktails.
Is it ideal to start collecting vinyl records right now? Collecting anything is a very intimate process. No matter what type of collection someone pursues, it’s going to look a little different than anyone else’s collection. Often collecting leads the collector down a path of study, research, and introspection. Often the collector ends up with highly specialized knowledge that not everyone else is going to be able to relate to, understand, or appreciate (but those that get it, really get it). Truly great collections take time and energy—a consistent study over a long period. Then, even after all the learning, there’s still the hunt—the seeking out of rare items that are hard to find—the pieces that make any collection truly spectacular. Difficulties aside, collecting can be one of the most rewarding hobbies there is. The physical items that have been found and compiled provide joy and look great in a home, they sometimes entertain as well, but it’s more than this.
