Author Archives: TVD HQ

Los Angeles, CA | Amoeba Music Set to Relocate Its Los Angeles Store, Plans to Seek Dispensary Permit: Amoeba Records’ Los Angeles store will move to a new location “within blocks” of its current spot on 6400 Sunset, where it’s been since first opening its doors back in 2001, according to Marc Weinstein, who co-owns the indie record retailer with Dave Prinz. The company also plans to seek a marijuana dispensary permit for the new location. Three nearby properties are being considered within the 20,000 sq. ft. range, two of them along Hollywood Blvd. According to Weinstein, that represents just a 15% smaller retail space than the current building. The official announcement will come within the next few weeks.

South Shields, ENG | Friends unite to open business ventures in South Shields: A group of friends have seen their business dreams turned into a reality after joining forces to revamp a former South Tyneside housing office. Goldie, Jill palmer and Paul Kidney worked flat out for nine weeks to give the old rent place in Charlotte Terrace a new lease of life. One half of the building is now home to Goldie’s music hub and coffee shop while the other half has been turned into The Cask Lounge – a micro bar run by Jill and Paul. The businesses opened to the public simultaneously on May 12. The music hub provides a place for fans of vinyl records to go, with a dedicated media room where they can listen to records or cassette tapes.

‘Hearts Beat Loud’: Nick Offerman & the Filmmakers on Making An Authentic Film About Vinyl & Streaming In 2018: “…There was one night when we were all wrapping up and it was me, Sasha, who plays Rose, and Brett,” reveals Clemons. “And we were in the shop, showing each other songs and albums that we liked. We’d pick up random records and were dancing, and it was cute. Brett was playing us songs from a playlist he made for his wife when they first started dating. I felt like we were still in the movie. It was a sweet bonding experience.” “You have to embrace what’s coming,” explains Haley. “But I think it’s great that we’ve gone back with music, as vinyl has come back in a big way and people are digging analog sound again.”

Clinton Township, MI | The graphic impact of punk on display at Cranbrook: Nothin’ to do and nowhere to go? Don’t let the summer heat make you feel sedated. Running through Oct. 7, Cranbrook Art Museum debuts the exhibition “Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die: Punk Graphics, 1976-1986,” the largest exhibition of its kind, exploring the unique visual language of the punk movement as it evolved in the United States and the United Kingdom through hundreds of its most memorable graphics — flyers, posters, albums, promotions, and ’zines. Drawn predominantly from the extensive collection of collector Andrew Krivine, “Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die” also includes a nod to the Detroit roots of punk.

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The 8 best vintage turntables and what to look out for when buying second hand: …Buying a vintage turntable is a great option. For many, a budget for any sort of hi-fi is a low priority. Once the bills are paid, it can be virtually impossible to purchase a new, top quality hi-fi system. Going vintage can offer quality at a low cost. Others may have spent a bundle on a new deck but have little in reserve for that second system that would be ideal for a study, bedroom or spare room. Some might even want to revisit younger days when the then ‘new’ turntables were objects of desire and now they can afford to purchase one, or even two of these classic designs. Below, we have listed our Top 8 vintage purchases, but before you run off to your local second-hand store or eBay account, pause for thought.

Characters and music star in The Music Shop: Rachel Joyce’s The Music Shop (Random House, 2017, 307 pages) takes place in England and tells the story of Frank, an eccentric owner of a dingy record store, and Ilse Brauchmann, a young German woman who wanders into the shop and soon asks Frank to teach her what he knows about music. Surrounding these two figures are a collection of Frank’s eccentric friends and fellow store owners: Kit, Frank’s young assistant who has a penchant for breaking everything he touches; Father Anthony, a fallen priest who operates a nearby religious articles store; Maud, the scowling, bitter tattoo artist who secretly loves Frank; a pair of undertakers; Pete the barman; and Peg, Frank’s dead mother. And then there is the music.

The End of Owning Music: How CDs and Downloads Died. Physical formats are cratering, but vinyl’s niche is growing. Jack White and other experts explain the future of listening. As streaming gives the music industry its biggest profits in a decade, the CD business continues to plunge. CD sales have fallen 80 percent in the past decade, from roughly 450 million to 89 million. Since Tesla began manufacturing cars without CD players, other companies like Ford and Toyota have recently followed. Downloads – once seen as the CD’s replacement – have plummeted 58 percent since peaking in 2012, their profits now even smaller than physical sales. Artists have taken note; Bruce Springsteen released his latest box set, The Album Collection Vol. 2, 1987-1996, exclusively on vinyl, with no CD option, unlike 2014’s Vol. 1. “It’s a streaming world and a vinyl world with a quickly diminishing CD,” says Daniel Glass, president of Glassnote Records, indie-label home of Mumford & Sons and Phoenix.

Call Me By Your Name Soundtrack Releasing On Peach-Scented Vinyl: One of the more memorable scenes in Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name is the one where Timothee Chalamet has sex with a peach. It’s kind of sweet in the context of the film. Later this summer, the movie soundtrack will be pressed on peach-scented and -colored vinyl, which, in the context of the film, is kind of gross. 7,777 copies of the “peach season” edition will be released. The soundtrack features songs by Sufjan Stevens, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Giorgio Mororder, and the Psychedelic Furs, among others. Call Me By Your Name “peach season” edition is out 8/3 through peach harvest season via Music On Vinyl.

Even Walls Fall Down: The Last Days of Cincinnati’s Ultrasuede Recording Studio: Plastic Ants entered Ultrasuede Studio to pay tribute to Tom Petty’s brilliance and soon found themselves mourning the loss of the recording space itself. Ants singer/songwriter Robert Cherry shares a behind-the-scenes look at an Ultrasuede session and documents the last days of one of Cincinnati’s longest-running music institutions — and its subsequent rebirth. Plus, check out the world premiere of the music video for Plastic Ants’ cover of Tom Petty’s ‘Walls,’ which (fittingly, as you’ll read) was one of the last songs recorded at Ultrasuede’s longtime space in Camp Washington.

Colorado Springs, CO | Independent Records closes downtown location: The Independent Records & Video network of shops has long been a musical fixture in Colorado Springs, as anyone who still enjoys buying physical media surely knows. But as far as local musicians go, the record stores have been more than just a place to cop new releases or rare LPs; they have functioned as a sort of hub for musicians and music junkies alike…Given Independent Records’ inextricable connection to the local music community, as well as its fairly iconic status, news traveled quickly of the downtown location closing its doors after a 38-year run overlooking Acacia Park. And just as quickly the local music community was aflood with memories.

Berkeley, CA | Amoeba Music Is Now Selling Weed: California has legalized weed, which means that lots of businesses are making the drug a little bit more accessible to the public. But this ‘seed’ of this idea was planted years earlier. It turns out that Amoeba’s co-founders, Marc Weinstein and Dave Prinz, came up with the idea to combine the famed Northern California record shop with a pot shop in 2012. That’s roughly when they started noticing a decline in sales. “Music, in some ways, is such an uplifting product for humans,” Weinstein recently told Billboard. “And we thought, weed is just another inspirational product that we can get behind with our hearts and souls.”

Moby is selling off his personal record collection for charity: The sale on online marketplace Reverb LP will include Moby’s personal copies of nearly every one of his own records, along with hundreds of 12-inches he used as a DJ early on his career. His collection is said to be heavy on techno, house and hip-hop from the ’80s and ’90s, with many of the records featuring handwritten markers Moby added to help him during his DJ sets. “These are all the records that I bought and loved and played and carried all around the world,” the artist explains in a video promoting the sale. “I would rather you have them than me, because if you have them, you’ll play them, you’ll love them, and the money will go to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. So everybody wins. Well, except me, because now I don’t have any records.”

Cleveland, OH | Cleveland’s Music Saves record shop finds new life with online store and pop-up events: It’s nearly impossible to think of the Waterloo Arts District without the image of the iconic Music Saves sign glowing next to its Beachland Ballroom neighbor. But at the end of 2017, owner Melanie Hershberger knew it was time to close the door on the record shop’s day-to-day operations. Luckily for music fans in Cleveland (and beyond), the song isn’t over. This June, Music Saves launched an online store. For fans of Hershberger’s sharp curation of records that were always stocked at the shop, you’ll find a wide selection of indie, rock, folk, electronic and more online. Music can be shipped to your doorstep or picked up at the shop at 15801 Waterloo Road.

How the Rolling Stones’ Massive New Vinyl Box Came Together: “…I didn’t have any original master tapes for this. The management of the band archived everything digitally a few years back, and I was loaned a hard drive – they said, “You can have this for 24 hours; take anything you need off of it, and then it has to come back.” They had several high-resolution transfers of each album, or at least high-resolution where the source was analog tape, which was most of it. They just said, “Take your pick, and work with whichever transfer you feel is better with you.” I’d have liked to have got hold of the tape, but old analog tape is starting to get quite fragile, especially the stuff from the late Seventies and early Eighties, because the tape was not great…”

Minneapolis, MN | Watch: Electric Fetus gets a 50th birthday message from Ringo Starr. The historic Minneapolis record store celebrated turning 50 with a First Ave concert at the weekend. “Peace and love, Minnesota.” With an attempt at American twang – which he swiftly drops – Ringo Starr starts his birthday message to his favorite Minneapolis record store, Electric Fetus. The venerable south Minneapolis store, which also has an outlet in Duluth, celebrated its 50th anniversary over the weekend with a celebration party at First Avenue headlined by Real Estate on Saturday. “Ringo here, just want to wish Electric Fetus record stores a happy happy 50th anniversary,” he says. “I want to congratulate you for still being open and selling records.”

When Did a Famous Guitar-Smashing Occur? One Fan of The Clash Insists Everyone Has It Wrong Decades after a photo appeared on the ‘London Calling’ album cover, Dave Marin is on a quest to prove the picture’s date is off—by a day. When the British punk band the Clash’s acclaimed double-album “London Calling” came out in the U.S. in January 1980, Dave Marin rushed to buy it. The cover featured the famous image of rocker Paul Simonon smashing his bass guitar on stage. Mr. Marin, then a college student, had been in that New York audience to witness rock-star history. But as he read the album’s liner notes, his heart sank. The photo was dated Sept. 21, 1979. He knew that was off-key: He witnessed the bashing and his ticket stub—which he still has—is dated Sept. 20.

Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder is exclusively releasing a single for baseball fans: Pearl Jam‘s Eddie Vedder has announced that he’ll be releasing a new single – but there’s a slight catch if you’re hoping to get your ears around it. The new 7″ inch single will be released by Jack White’s Third Man Records this Friday, exclusively with tickets to the Chicago Cubs game on Friday, July 6. The A-side of the limited edition blue-and-red colored vinyl features a recording of ‘All the Way’, Vedder’s 2007 song which expresses his love of the Cubs. The B-side, meanwhile, includes a 1984 performance of ‘Go, Cubs, Go’. It isn’t clear if the vinyl will later receive a wider release. But despite the release, it seems that a new Pearl Jam album is still some way off.

Spiritualized to release new album And Nothing Hurt as orange vinyl box set: Spiritualized have announced the release of new album And Nothing Hurt, via Fat Possum/Bella Union on 7th September. The band’s first release in six years since 2012’s Sweet Heart Sweet Light, And Nothing Hurt had previously been teased in Morse Code. Full details of the release have now been made public, with a deluxe orange vinyl box set on the way, alongside a standard vinyl release. Both feature a sleeve design by Mark Farrow…According to the press release, Jason Pierce made the album on his own at home in London. Speaking about the process, he says: “The biggest thing for me was to try to make it sound like a studio session. There are bits that I went to a studio to record — mainly drums and percussion. I mean, there’s no way I’m going to get timpani up my stairs…”