Record Store Day announces 2023 Black Friday releases: The annual record store event takes place November 24th. The List of Record Store Day (RSD) Black Friday 2023 exclusive releases has been unveiled. Limited edition releases will include selections from The Beach Boys, Jeff Beck, Dierks Bentley, Buckcherry, Kiss’ Eric Carr, Cypress Hill, The Doors, Dr. Dre, Grateful Dead, INXS, Jonas Brothers, Kix, Limp Bizkit, Post Malone, Joni Mitchell, Willie Nelson, Prince, Skid Row, Lil Wayne, Rob Zombie and many others. These will be available on November 24th at participating indie music retailers. Capitol Records will celebrate The Beach Boys’ Christmas Album on green vinyl with an RSD First release limited to 7,000 copies. The Beach Boys’ Christmas Album was originally released in 1964 and features seven holiday classics and five original tracks, including the singles “Little Saint Nick” and “The Man With All The Toys.”
Portland, OR | Community rallies to clean up Portland’s beloved Mississippi Records music store after suspected arson: A group of community volunteers rallied to help Mississippi Records, an institution in Portland’s indie music scene, clean up on Saturday after the store’s owner says someone tried to burn down the store earlier this week. In a social media post, Mississippi Records co-founder Eric Isaacson, said no one was hurt when someone threw a Molotov cocktail into the business on North Albina Avenue. Isaacson said that a lot of records in the shop were damaged or covered in ash and chemical fire retardant, so he put out a plea for the community to come help clean up. Portlanders showed up to lend a hand. Throughout the morning, the shop had more than 100 people volunteer their time to clean up the mess. They had completed a bulk of the work by the early afternoon, and shoppers were back to digging through the racks.
Beckley, WV | Laying down tracks “Uptown.” When Clint Blunt moved back to Beckley after living in South Carolina for 30 years, he wanted to do something different. Recognizing that the vibrant downtown of his childhood days had dramatically changed, he wanted to see fun places to go besides bars. It wasn’t until Cheap Thrills Records closed that he began to think about potentially filling that void. The Coal City native began looking at vinyl records after receiving a record player and Patsy Kline album for Christmas about three years ago. This started his infatuation with flipping record bins at stores dotted across the southern part of the state. But, if he was going to have a store, he would need more than a personal collection. “So, I went on the search to find a collection of records,” shares Blunt. “I thought that I was going to have to put it together, you know, one estate sale at a time.” As luck would have it, he found an entire collection for sale in Virginia.
Edinburgh, UK | Edinburgh record shop Umbrella Vinyl releases limited edition vinyl with proceeds helping refugees: Umbrella Vinyl in Tollcross launched their independent record label last year. Edinburgh record shop, Umbrella Vinyl, has partnered with music charity The Glasgow Barons to support refugees living in Scotland. The Tollcross shop, which opened in August this year, began life when founders Nick Langford and husband and wife duo, Josh and Laura Thompson, launched a record label in September last year, with their debut record being a rerecording by lesser known 1960s jazz group, Brotherhood of Breath. After producing their limited edition jazz record the Edinburgh business then decided to support the wider music community by donating ten per cent of proceeds of their record to charity. The Umbrella Vinyl team, who champion music from all over the world including jazz, blues, reggae and classical hope their new record will be the first of many on their new label.