Author Archives: TVD HQ

Makati City, PH | Vinyl is not back…it never left! …Let’s get one thing straight. Vinyl is not back. Vinyl never went anywhere. It’s always been here. The interest in vinyl may have waned, but its presence exists. Which is why many think that vinyl, or LP records, are making a comeback. Technically, you could say that, but in certain close quarters, be they the casual LP consumer to the staunchest record collector, records have always been there. Always. Records have been around since its introduction by Columbia Records in 1948 and its adoption as the new standard by the record industry, a format that slowly but surely gained its foothold among consumers in the 60s and especially in the 70s. The LP’s product sibling, the 7’’ 45rpm record, took off as well, offering one song per side (thus, the term single) whose sales were soon surpassed by the 12’’ LP, wherein recording artists could put more music, at times turning their release into an artistic expression of their music.

Birmingham, UK | Trendy new vinyl bar and live music venue Dead Wax Digbeth to open in Birmingham: The Wagon & Horses has been transformed into Dead Wax Digbeth where you’ll be able to hear live acts, play records and even bring along your own vinyl to blast out. A new music venue and ‘vinyl bar’ where you can play records and even bring your own music is being opened in Birmingham. Dead Wax Digbeth will open its doors to music fans at the weekend with a four-day launch featuring 45 bands, musicians, artists and DJs from the city and across the Midlands. A series of specially curated free events will run across the venue’s three spaces from Thursday, November 28 to Sunday, December 1 – including two all-dayers, late-night DJ sets, rare live performances and acoustic sets. …Music fans and vinyl lovers will be encouraged to choose and play albums and singles from the bar’s large 4000 record collection as well as enjoy vinyl-only sets from a diverse line-up of DJs in a vibrant setting in the heart of Digbeth designed and created by local artists.

New York, NY | A visit to Turntable Lab on 10th Street: The older I get the less new music I am exposed to, which is why I am always particularly interested in EV Grieve’s Fridays at Five and curated musical selections. It’s turned me on to local rocker Liza Colby, Princess Nokia’s “Tomboy” and THICK’s “Green Eyes,” among others. In this A Visit To … I get the opportunity to explore new-to-me music at Turntable Lab with owner Pete Hahn and his Turntable staff. Pete arrives — on skateboard — from his nearby East Village home to meet me at the Lab’s storefront at 84 E. 10th St. between Third Avenue and Fourth Avenue, and walks me though the store pointing out both beginner record players (now made with USB port) and advanced DJ setups. I even get a mini lesson on the ones and twos on the in-house DJ booth from sales associate Paul Bennett! Aside from a tour and DJ lesson, Hahn talked about the evolution of Turntable Lab, which had its humble beginnings as an NYU side hustle, to its first shop on Seventh Street between Avenue A and First Avenue. Turntable is now in its 20th year of business.

UK | How golden oldies are driving a boom in independent music shops: Vinyl accounts for a huge proportion of sales at local retailers. Here’s some rare cheerful news for you: independent music shops are doing well despite an overall slump in the industry… The high-profile collapse of HMV earlier this year certainly makes it look that way. Although the brand was saved by a new owner, it immediately closed 27 stores in a reminder that music shops are not immune to the challenges of the high street. That includes high rents, business rates and consistent footfall declines. But there’s evidence this was good for your local record store: independents gained £5m from shoppers moving their spend from other retailers, with £1.6m of that coming specifically from HMV. That also includes spend shifting away from other places such as supermarkets. Physical music now accounts for 15 percent of spend at the grocers, down from 17 per cent in 2018. Kantar says 1.1 million shoppers stopped buying physical music in the grocers over the past year.

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Muscle Shoals, AL | Vinyl LP fans line up for Black Friday Record Store Day: Luke Newton knew exactly what he wanted on Friday’s Black Friday Record Store Day and lucky for him, the only copy of the Jerry Garcia Live box set in NuWay Vinyl was waiting for him when he entered the store. The Florence resident was among about 10 people in line waiting for the store on Woodward Avenue to open at 9 a.m. Black Friday Record Store Day is similar to the Record Store Day typically held in the spring but takes and offers re-issues of music not previously available on vinyl and other limited edition items. “I got here about 8 a.m.,” Newton said as he was leaving the store. “This is the first time this has been released on vinyl and I had to get it.” Newton said he was heading home to listen to the five-LP set. NuWay Vinyl Manager Kirk Russell came outside and offered a few ground rules to the waiting customers, such as no multiple purchases of a single item. Then he opened the doors.

Goshen, IN | Goshen’s ‘Record Store Day on Black Friday’ offers alternative to shopping experience: As some shoppers waited in line for doorbuster deals at big-box retailers Black Friday, others also stood in line in the name of tradition and for the love of a good vinyl record. At about 7:30 a.m. Friday, a group of six friends huddled together in front of Ignition Music Garage in downtown Goshen. The group first met because of a shared love for vinyl records and are a part of an “exclusive” vinyl record fan club that meets monthly. On Friday, three of those friends stood in line at 5 a.m. and, as the cold morning progressed, more joined in. Together they cooked breakfast, drank coffee and talked about what records they were hoping to get when the doors opened at 8 a.m. for Record Store Day on Black Friday. …The group of friends has been carrying on the tradition of showing up early at the record store at 120 E. Washington St. for about five years. They say they do it not to get a jump-start on getting a unique record at a good price, but also because it’s what they love to do.

Charlotte, NC | Shoppers Have Eyes on Vintage Vinyl for Record Store Black Friday: Some shoppers spent hours in line on Record Store Black Friday to get their hands on some rare vintage vinyl. The annual event celebrates independently-owned record stores across the country. Music fans get a chance to buy limited releases from older artists to those currently topping the charts like Lizzo. Experts say millennials are bringing back a passion for records as well as turntables. One fan from Statesville says it’s just about loving good tunes. “You know, you can download a song and put it on your phone, but you don’t touch it. You know, it’s like the thing that made you love music to begin with. You could open up the album and read the credits and see the pictures and all that stuff. You don’t get to do that with a digital download. You see a picture on your phone. It’s something to be able to read it and touch it and pull the excerpts out and ah you know. It’s more than just the music I guess,” customer Brice Reese said. Some of the albums will only have a few hundred copies nationwide. Store owners say the limited releases sell out quickly.

Bethlehem, PA | Vinyl lovers celebrate Record Store Day at Lehigh Valley shops: If you’re over 40, stepping into the Compact Disc Center in Bethlehem may trigger the long-forgotten joy of searching for an album you didn’t even know you wanted. The store, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary, smells pleasantly of incense and is stacked with boxes, bins and shelves of records, compact discs and cassette tapes just waiting to be explored. And there was a lot of exploring going on in such shops Friday, one of two days set aside each year for Record Store Day, which celebrates the unique culture of the nation’s 1,400 independently owned record stores. Eager shoppers lined up well before the 8 a.m. opening at the Bethlehem shop in hopes of being the first to snag a coveted Pearl Jam vinyl and a recently released Louis Armstrong album recorded at Muhlenberg College’s Memorial Hall in the 1950s. “Listening to vinyl is not a background thing; it’s a foreground thing,” said Mary Radakovits, who co-owns the Compact Disc Center. “It’s an experience. You have to jump up and flip it over. You are listening intently … it’s the statement the way the artist wants you to hear it.”

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Dubai, UAE | Dubai’s only independent record store has banned influencers. Here’s why: Founder of The Flip Side has declared a no-photos policy for Dubai influencers. Shadi Megallaa is Dubai’s best-loved music maverick. The Egyptian-born owner of The Flip Side in Alserkal Avenue has been purveying rare Arabic records and Japanese pressings, among other musical curiosities, to a growing number of Dubai DJs and denizens since 2017. As well as being the first independent record store in the emirate, it’s also become a creative space for production seminars, documentary screenings and live DJ sets from local luminaries. However, Shadi’s noticed a pervasive insurgence among the crate diggers in the past two years. “We have lots of people coming in and taking anything from ten to twenty pictures of themselves posing,” he wrote in a Facebook announcement. Addressing influencers visiting for the photo opportunities, he clarifies, “The Flip Side is not here to be your personal backdrop for your Instagram stories. If you happen to be an influencer, kindly take your ‘influence’ somewhere else. Please respect our space like we respect yours.”

Jacksonville, FL | Amid height of vinyl revival, Tiger Records opens in Jacksonville’s Riverside: As vinyl rides a new wave of popularity, Tiger Records — out of Riverside — marks the latest record store to open in Jacksonville. …Tiger Records marks the city’s second new record shop to open this year. In July, Eraser Records opened in Murray Hill on Edgewood Avenue. Both shops join older spots including DJ’s in Westside, Yesterday and Today in San Marco, Wolfson Equipment and Records on University Boulevard and Young, Loud, and Snotty in Mayport. “I just want to be the record store that everybody wants,” Siboni said. “I’ve got a lot of indie rock and punk, but if the only thing selling here is Lady Gaga, then I’ll sell only Lady Gaga.” Records range in price from $1 — with about eight bargain bins chock-full of everything from Lou Reed to Manilow — to $1,000… Right now on the floor, Siboni says there are roughly 5,000 records and 75 percent of them are secondhand. “I think it’s cooler,” he said. “I love going through boxes of old records.”

Virginia Beach, VA | Lengthy corporate career leads to indie book and record store in Virginia Beach: John Brittell spent a career opening stores across the country for someone else and learning all he could about what made their customers tick. Then he cashed in on that experience to open his own place. Before opening AFK Books and Records on Valentines Day in 2011, he was the vice president of e-commerce and direct marketing for video game retailer GameStop. It was the result of 23 years in the video game business that started at the Lynnhaven Mall with a job at Games ‘n’ Gadgets, a store owned by Electronics Boutique – the brand later gobbled up by Gamestop. Throwing corporate analytics and measurements to the wind, for the most part, his customer service strategy has been simple: focus on being joyful and kind. “It was really easy to get distracted by those numbers,” he said. Now, he knows he might need to recalibrate if a week goes by when he doesn’t hear someone say “oh man, this is the best store ever.”

Meet the man who restores old music to its original glory: Pete Hutchison’s Electric Recording Co. uses era-specific gear to reissue records the way they were meant to be heard. Listening to records was a reverent act in Pete Hutchison’s childhood home. Whenever his parents played their beloved Ravel and Debussy works, they enforced one rule: “You weren’t allowed to talk,” he says. Though Hutchison favored rock and jazz when he started his own collection as a teen in the 1970s, he returned to classical upon inheriting his father’s LPs. His interest in the genre eventually grew so deep that he spent $12,000 on a pristine copy of ­Mozart a Paris, a rare seven-disc set released in France in 1956. Hutchison now makes what many music aficionados consider the finest records on Earth. He meticulously crafts reissues of jazz and classical titles (including his prized Mozart) from the 1950s and ’60s—wrapped in letter­pressed sleeves—that sell for $350 or more. Most labels churn out vinyl by the thousands with modern equipment, but Hutchison’s outfit, the Electric ­Recording Co., mints no more than 300 copies of each ­album. “Some of these very famous studios take the ­original master, and put it onto a digital system to play around with it and process it,” he says. “I don’t know why they’re ­bothering. They’re just degrading the sound.”

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Can Those Involved in Physical Goods Survive the Big Distribution Debacle? I can remember Jim Caparro, former president of PGD and WEA distribution, making a comment in the early 2000’s that some day all distribution from the majors would most likely be out of the same warehouse. The reason? A cost savings by each, with not having to have their own back room and staff. He was a bit ahead of the game but in April of 2019, this became a reality. Direct Shot, a third party warehousing system, already distributed Universal Music and Sony. This also included goods from their independent arms, the Orchard and In-Grooves. Around the beginning of the year it was announced that WEA and its independent distribution arm ADA would join the club and also be distributed through Direct Shot. This was after a year of offering buy out packages to staff involved in physical goods and a good 50% of them taking the packages, as they were not guaranteed jobs if they stayed.

Norfolk, UK | Seven of Norfolk’s best record shops: Vinyl is now well and truly back with British record stores selling over 4.5 million records per year collectively. These are the best places to go crate-digging in Norfolk. Soundclash: The county’s only independent record shop selling new vinyl, expect to find a wide variety of music from the latest indie, punk and psychedelic rock to funk and soul. The shop is the only one in Norfolk to participate in Record Store Day, making it a must visit for the event’s exclusive releases. Soundclash also has a wide range of reasonably priced secondhand LPs and singles as well as a selection of new CDs. Fine City Sounds: One of the best in the county for secondhand records, spread across two floors, Fine City Sounds mainly focuses on rock and pop with specialised sections for punk, metal and 60s LPs on its top floor. On the ground floor there is a plethora of singles from a wide array of genres along with used CDs and box sets. The shop also sells second hand record players and other related equipment…

Bury, UK | HMV opens up its Bury store to unsigned acts: When you walk into a record store great music is just what you expect to find. But one Bury outlet has been mixing things up by bringing talented unsigned artists to the masses in a series of in-store gigs. Bury HMV has just wrapped up its first season of an innovative initiative ­— opening its doors and its shelves to underground bands and musicians in a bid to help them boost their exposure and land their big break. The Live and Local campaign not only offered seven artists the chance to have their releases sold and promoted in-store, but also saw them play unique, free to attend gigs in the shop. Steve Toolan, HMV Bury’s store manager, said: “The response and support that we have had from our customers and general public has been phenomenal and surpassed our expectations.

Wausau, WI | Cover Art Was Part Of The Thrill: One thing that is not available for today’s music consumers is the fabulous cover art that was found on LP’s. Great photography, graphic design, liners notes etc were all part of the music listening experience. CDs couldn’t compete and MP3s or downloads?…fuggidaboutit. I mention this because it was Nov 21 of 1967 that the 3rd Lp from The Who appeared. It was called Sell Out and featured pictures of the band using real products in humorous ways on the front and back covers. I dont remember how this album came into my possession but it was a really intresting musical step for the band. It included a stone cold classic in “I Can See For Miles” along with some other tunes that grew on me like Armenia City In The Sky and Tattoo. The album also included fake radio jingles and commercials around the songs making it sound like a radio broadcast of the day.

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Wrexham, UK | Wrexham to host ‘bumper’ record fair: A record fair believed by organisers to be the largest in Wales will be held in Wrexham this weekend. On Saturday (November 23) VOD Music bring their last record fair of the year with a total of 33 stalls on the day. Ty Pawb will host the event, which runs from 10am to 4pm and is free to enter. Vinyl, CDs, DVDS, Pop Art, memorabilia, merchandise and more will be available with some of the UK’s top record dealers attending. Organisers have said the day will offer “collectables, bargains and a great social event for like minded music lovers”. There will also be DJ sets throughout, as well as street food stalls, a bar, art gallery and market stalls that occupy the venue.

Bromsgrove, UK | Final Vinyl Record and CD Fair of 2019 takes place in Bromsgrove this weekend: The biggest Vinyl Record and CD Fair in Bromsgrove returns for one last event of 2019 this Sunday, November 24. The event at the Bromsgrove Hotel and Spa takes place between 10am and 4pm and boasts more than 40 stalls selling thousands of records – from rarities to bargains and everything in between. There will be classic rock, 90s Brit Pop, reggae, hip-hop, punk, dance, soul, rock ‘n’ roll and more on offer. There is free on-site parking when registering at the hotel, along with a cafe, restaurant and cash machine if people run out of money. Visit www.midlandsrecordfairs.co.uk.

Waterloo, CA | Fueling the vinyl revival: Alumnus co-founds company that makes modern, automated record presses: The idea of designing and building a modern new machine to produce old-school vinyl records came totally out of left field for James Hashmi. Equipped with a 2007 degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Waterloo, he’d spent years establishing a career in medical technology, not traditional manufacturing. But when he looks back almost five years later, leaving medtech to help fuel the vinyl revival – now an estimated $1-billion annual industry – actually seems like a natural progression. Hashmi, 36, was a visual artist and multi-instrument musician before pursuing mathematics, science and a career in engineering. Now, as a co-founder and chief technology officer at Viryl Technologies in Toronto, all of those passions are in play together.

Tāmaki Makaurau, NZ | Interview: ‘A Short Run: A Selection Of New Zealand Lathe-Cut Records’ Exhibition: Currently showing at Tāmaki Makaurau’s Objectspace gallery until the end of November, A Short Run: A Selection Of New Zealand Lathe-Cut Records is an exhibition presenting an eye-popping array of lathe-cut records – an affordable polycarbonate plastic alternative to vinyl pioneered and manufactured by Peter King in Geraldine from the late 1980s onwards, locally produced for artists in limited editions as low as 20 units. Curated by musician and designer Luke Wood (The Hex Waves, The National Grid), A Short Run makes tangible a significant selection of ‘underground’ or ‘obscure’ musical activity from throughout Aotearoa, and brings to light such scarce artefacts as Aldous Harding’s sophomore record, of which there are only 40 copies in existence.

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Why vinyl records have made major comeback: …In the process of cleaning up I also visited my collection of CDs and vinyl records, many going back to the 1970s. I also have a few shellac records which belonged to my mother, including her favourite “Shenandoah Waltz” from the 1950s…The record sleeves themselves were works of art and I recall the beautiful psychedelic renditions on many covers, which appealed to the youthful eye. When you buy vinyl today, it is like an investment. There are many people buying, collecting and reselling vinyl and it tends to retain if not increase its value over time so you can sell or pass it down to your children as an appreciating asset. There is something special about removing a well kept record from its colourful sleeve, wiping it down with an anti-static cloth and holding it by the edges before carefully sliding it down the spindle of a good quality turntable.

Baltimore, MD | Baby’s on Fire to soft open Fells Point location tomorrow, host festivities next week: Baby’s on Fire is set to open its new Fells Point location tomorrow, and fittingly the record store and cafe that is setting up a new coffee shop in another record store, The Sound Garden, will mark the occasion next week with a free concert. The local indie band PLRLS is performing a set on Nov. 27–the day before Thanksgiving–followed by music from DJ David K, aka Baby’s on Fire co-owner David Koslowski, the store announced yesterday. One night before that, four comics will perform as part of Ugly Baby: A Comic Show. But if you’re just dying to see the new cafe, housed in the Sound Garden’s old vinyl room, the soft opening starts tomorrow at 7 a.m. and promises coffee, scones, sandwiches and more. Sound Garden owner Bryan Burkert told Baltimore Fishbowl last April he approached Koslowski and his wife and co-owner, Shirlé Hale-Koslowski, about combining forces to “give the store a better vibe” and also boost foot traffic.

Phonocut lets you cut your own vinyl record: Vinyl records are back in our living rooms, with sales steadily growing in recent years to a level that could see the format outsell CDs for the first time since the mid-1980s. That’s great news for consumers, but for gigging bands and solo performers not signed to a major label, getting in on the vinyl action could be out of their budgets. That’s where Phonocut’s Home Vinyl Recorder might help. Essentially the device allows users to plug in an audio source (wireless connectivity is in development), place a blank vinyl record on the platter and push a button to start cutting a 10-inch vinyl record at home, at the studio or in the rehearsal space. Of course, you don’t have to be a musician to make the most of this system, you could just create the vinyl equivalent of mix-tapes to give to a loved one. Phonocut recommends that it’s “special recipe” blanks are used to ensure the “highest fidelity, longest durability and cleanest cut.”

Take Those Old Records Off the Shelf: For the past ten years, vinyl sales have been rising more than they have since cassettes first came out. Record stores have been opening back up around the country with events to promote their sales like the annual Record Store Day in April. More and more people are posting about their latest vinyl selection on social media. The question is why? Why are vinyl records coming back in an age of digital music like Spotify and Pandora that make listening to music cheaper and easier. People may argue that vinyl has a nostalgic aspect to it. …Senior, William Mangum, doesn’t get the whole vinyl phase . …However, Senior, Jesus Landa, would disagree with Mangum. “Vinyl just seems more real to me. It’s like holding tangible music in the palm of my hand.” he continues, “I definitely think it’s worth [paying] the extra money for vinyl. Owning music online doesn’t really feel like you own it.” Landa also agrees with the nostalgic aspect of vinyl, “…listening to the music through actual vinyl instead of blaring it through speakers calls to some people.”

Get pumped for Rocket League with a new vinyl soundtrack: If you’ve been craving an analog answer to your Rocket League wishes, then iam8bit has a special gift just for you. The company has announced the Rocket League x Monstercat: Greatest Hits 2-LP vinyl soundtrack set! The fan-curated album is available for pre-order on iam8bit.com, and it will feature 18 tracks that include music by Slushii, Infected Mushroom, Tristam, Dion Timmer, Muzzy, Tokyo Machine, and more. Rocket League is known for its pulsing, addictive music, and now it can play in your home! If you pre-order the Rocket League x Monstercat: Greatest Hits soundtrack before midnight on December 2nd, you’ll receive access to exclusive Rocket League in-game bonus content! And this will be the only time you can get these bonus items. Check out what’s available…

Portland, OR | The 3 best vinyl record shops in Portland: Got a need for vinyl records? Hoodline crunched the numbers to find the top vinyl record sources in Portland, using both Yelp data and our own secret sauce to produce a ranked list of the best spots to venture next time you’re in the market for vinyl records. Hoodline offers data-driven analysis of local happenings and trends across cities. Links included in this article may earn Hoodline a commission on clicks and transactions. 1. Bull Moose: First on the list is Bull Moose. Located at 151 Middle St., the video game store, which offers music and DVDs, vinyl records and more, is the highest-rated vinyl record spot in Portland, boasting four stars out of 43 reviews on Yelp.

IE | 7 of the best record shops in Ireland: Taking our cue from Red Bull Radio’s Counter Intelligence show, we look at some of Ireland’s best record stores. If you’re a regular listener to Red Bull Radio, you’ll be aware that Counter Intelligence – the show that highlights the stories behind both some of the most famous and most obscure record stores around the globe – is a cracking listen. (And if you’re not a regular listener, get on it, stat.) Taking that show as our cue, we’ve put together a list of some of the best and most interesting record stores in Ireland that are worthy of their stories being shared – and at the very least, worth checking out for myriad reasons, which you’ll read below. In no particular order…

Pasadena, NL | Welcome to the Vinyl Garage, a small-town rec room turned live music venue: Jan Stephen opens his home, decorated with music memorabilia, to host concerts and live his dream. On a quiet cul-de-sac in Pasadena, N.L., a yellow home with a white covered veranda looks like any other, but sometimes when the sun goes down, it turns into a rocking live music venue. Jan Stephen has been living his dream for the past two years hosting live acts right out of his own home. He calls it the Vinyl Garage, but don’t be fooled into thinking this is some glorified shed party. In fact, it’s not even a garage. “This room, originally in the house plans, was supposed to be a car garage,” said Stephen. “[But] instead of putting in a garage door at the front, they put in a bay window and turned it into a rec room.”

Verona, IT | Inside Mother Tongue – Europe’s newest pressing plant: A visual tour of the Italian vinyl outpost. As demand for vinyl has increased in the last ten years, so has the number of pressing plants, whether in high profile affairs such as Jack White’s Third Man in Detroit, or a number of independent operations pressing records for niche audiences. One of these operations is Mother Tongue. Located in Verona, Northern Italy, the pressing plant was launched by producer Patrick Gibin and a group of friends – with the help of an EU grant – in early 2019, and encompasses a record label, online shop and distribution service. Tackling the complex and finely tuned nature of the record pressing process, Gibin has enlisted Andrea Pasini to take care of manufacturing, utilising the plant’s sole Pheenix Alpha AD12 press – a modernised upgrade of original the Swedish-made Toolex Alpha AD12. Mattia Cristofoli, Carlo Grossule and Pietro Battista complete the team, managing administration and technical duties.

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