A morning mix of news for the vinyl inclined

In rotation: 12/13/24

Nuneaton, UK | Former Nuneaton beauty salon taken over by very different business: A former Nuneaton beauty salon has been given very different future – as a record shop. For almost a decade Beauty and Co was based on Church Road. The salon closed but a new business has opened up in the building, which is located opposite the Lamb and Flag pub. Reaper Records, according to its Link Tree page, is ‘bringing vinyl back from the dead‘. The independent store officially opened at the weekend and prides itself on buying and selling vinyl records and music memorabilia. The store is the new ‘HQ’ for the business, which also sells and buys on Instagram, eBay and Link Tree. Nuneaton is no stranger to playing home to independent record stores. For years, generations shopped in What Records in the town centre.

Columbia, SC | This legendary Columbia record shop has debuted renovations and upgrades. Take a look. The legend has returned home. Papa Jazz Record Shoppe, a staple in Columbia’s Five Points neighborhood for more than four decades, has officially reopened its longtime storefront at 2014 Greene St. The return to that address comes after roughly five months of renovations to the space. Papa Jazz had been operating out of a temporary space at 747 Saluda Ave. since July while the remodeling was going on. The return to 2014 Greene St. was marked Tuesday by a ceremony at the store that was attended by shop owner Tim Smith and his staff, Columbia Mayor Daniel Rickenmann, City Councilman Will Brennan and a host of other city luminaries.

Washington, DC | Spin Time Records Has Opened a Physical Store: The Capitol Hill record store specializes in music from DC-area artists. Jon Lottman, who launched the virtual record store Spin Time Records in 2021, has opened a brick-and-mortar location to sell his well-curated selection of vinyl—a stock that heavily favors local musicians. Spin Time started as a pandemic-inspired career shift—Lottman used to work as a videographer and documentary filmmaker who focused on environmental issues. The idea was a way to combine the love he has for his hometown and his interest in record collecting. The Capitol Hill native says he believes that if record stores specialize in something, they bring a better experience to the customer. “People will ask, ‘Is this any good?’ If it’s in here, that means it’s at least pretty good,” he says. While the virtual business blossomed, Lottman spent years looking for a store location and jumping through bureaucratic hoops.

Dalston, UK | Vinyl Bitch: Dalston-based collective tackling turntablism inequality. …For the past year, Vinyl Bitch has been hosting monthly open decks at the queer venue Dalston Superstore on Kingsland High Street, but also workshops, record shop crawls and parties. Since they started, vinyl sales in the UK have hit the highest levels since 1990, and with over 15 record shops, their home borough Hackney is something of a hotspot for what’s now commonly referred to as the “vinyl revival”. Against this backdrop, Vinyl Bitch’s efforts to democratise vinyl DJ scene is riding the zeitgeist. “I think the timing of the resurgence of vinyl, and also the MeToo movement and kind of these continued discussions on making spaces more inclusive, and you know, FLINTA-focused spaces, I think just like… it’s time!” says founder Madison True, also known by her DJ alias MADDØG.

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TVD Washington, DC

TVD Live: Gillian Welch and David Rawlings at Capital One Hall, 12/8

The first surprise in Gillian Welch and David Rawlings’ current tour is the stage: bare, with just a couple sets of microphones for guitar and voice, and a table between them for water. Rather than rely on a band or other equipment, they’ve stripped everything down to honest voice and guitar—and their show, which played the Capital One Hall in Tysons Corner, VA Sunday, was all the stronger for it.

Already, Welch’s alluring song craft and plaintive, melodic voice that’s produced a handful of great albums, her harmonies with her partner Rawlings enhance the songs, but they rise to a new dimension when he begins soloing on his trusty 1935 Epiphone Olympic, which has a small wooden body but a big, bright sound.

It approaches the sound of a mandolin when he’s playing fast, but more often he’s taking time to invent strikingly original solos and runs within the confines of songs that may not have come directly from classic string bands but sounds as if they could have.

He’ll shake the guitar as if to wring the right sound out of it, or wag his head when he isn’t shaking his instrument. Almost like magic, he never touched another guitar all night, using the mahogany and pine fronted arch top from beginning to end, playing to a microphone instead of being plugged in and never even stopping to tune very often.

Welch was doing her part with rhythms and more than once pulled out a banjo to some unnecessary acclaim. They concentrated on the songs from their recent album together Woodland, but had more than enough songs from their catalogs, together and apart, to fill two sets and two sets of encores.

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TVD Radar: David Sylvian, The Good Son vs The Only Daughter–The Blemish Remixes & Died In The Wool–Manafon Variations in stores 1/31

VIA PRESS RELEASE | David Sylvian’s The Good Son vs The Only Daughter – The Blemish Remixes and Died in the Wool – Manafon Variations will be released on vinyl for the first time in January 2025. Initially released on Sylvian’s samadhisound label in 2005 and 2011, respectively, they were previously only available digitally and on CD. Available to preorder now—shipping 31st January 2025.

The Good Son vs The Only Daughter is the nine-track companion to David’s 2003 solo album, Blemish. The record features remixes by Burnt Friedman, Sweet Billy Pilgrim, Ryoji Ikeda, Readymade FC, Yoshihiro Hanno, Tatsuhiko Asano, Akira Rabelais, Jan Bang, and Erik Honoré.

Died in the Wool features six songs from Sylvian’s 2009 album, Manafon, which have been reworked by modern classical composer Dai Fujikura. The album reinvents the Manafon songs and adds new material, including ‘I Should Not Dare’ and ‘A Certain Slant of Light’, poems by Emily Dickinson set to music by Sylvian and Fennesz, sung by Sylvian, both of which feature Bang & Honoré, plus two new powerful compositions by Sylvian and Fujikura.

The album also features an 18-minute stereo mix of ‘When We Return You Won’t Recognise Us’ from the 2008–09 Biennial of Canaries. Sylvian, along with Fujikura, John Butcher, Arve Henriksen, Günter Müller, Toshimaru Nakamura, and Eddie Prevost created a semi-improvised piece for the commissioned sound installation. The piece, inspired by a genetics research article on the original inhabitants of the islands, was recorded at Air studios London and Sylvian’s own samadhisound studios in NH USA.

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Graded on a Curve:
Frank Sinatra,
Watertown

Remembering Frank Sinatra, born on this date in 1915.Ed.

When it comes to pop music icons, they don’t come much more durable than Frank Sinatra. So it remains, as the singer has accumulated fans who weren’t even alive in 1998, the year of his passing at 82 years of age. And as an influential and revered figure, the majority of his artistic output (on record and on celluloid) is well-known; an exception is Watertown, the concept album he released in 1970 with the help of Bob Gaudio of the Four Seasons and Jake Holmes (the writer of “Dazed and Confused”). Don’tcha know it’s some folks’ favorite album by the guy? Deserving of reissue, it’s out now on LP with a new mix and on CD expanded with bonus tracks through UMe and Frank Sinatra Enterprises.

A pop icon, but also a pop idol in his youth, Frank Sinatra had the kids screaming. And one barometer of 20th century pop icon/idol status is that those on the list didn’t just cut records, they made movies. Bing Crosby, Frank, Elvis Presley, The Beatles (notably, the only band in the bunch), and Michael Jackson: they all interacted to varying extents with the film industry, as the careers of all but Jackson hit their high points in the pre-music video era (and Jackson was arguably the defining artist across the short heyday of music video).

The content of the above paragraph is the stuff books are made of, so let’s rein it in. The short of it; fans clamored to see these icons/idols on big screens, larger than life. What makes Sinatra somewhat unique is how he continued making films long after the screaming subsided, and in fact that’s where his most interesting movie work is located. Forget about the Rat Pack flicks, we’re talking Guys and Dolls (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1955), The Man With the Golden Arm (Otto Preminger, 1955), the sublime Some Came Running (Vincente Minnelli, 1958), and The Manchurian Candidate (John Frankenheimer, 1962).

Make no mistake, Sinatra also starred in some crap (more crap than gems, honestly), but what’s noteworthy here is that he was ever even inclined to make a handful of films possessing substantial artistic merit, a circumstance that also applies to his recording career circa 1970. A year earlier, he’d somewhat unexpectedly scored a hit with “My Way.” Instead of playing it safe, he took a risk with Watertown, though it’s fair to say that working with Gaudio and Holmes (the co-writers of the album) likely didn’t register as commercially precarious at the time.

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TVD Radar: Buckcherry, 15 2LP expanded reissue in stores 1/31

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Real Gone Music continues to barnstorm through the Buckcherry album catalog with a special expanded edition of the band’s third album, 15. Singer Josh Todd and guitarist Keith Nelson emerged from a four-year hiatus in 2005 with a new line-up and a killer set of songs that included three big hits in “Crazy Bitch,” “Next 2 You, and “Sorry.”

In fact, 15 (named after the number of days it took to record it) stayed in the Billboard charts for a full 98 weeks, and was the first Buckcherry album to hit the Top 40…so, for its 20th anniversary, the band have brought us—and you—something truly special. Not only does this release mark the vinyl debut of 15, but they’ve added an entire disc of bonus material highlighted by acoustic versions of “Crazy Bitch” and “Sorry” and their supercharged version of Elvis Costello’s “Pump It Up.”

All pressed in a 2-LP set of metallic marble vinyl—easily one of the best hard rock albums of the ‘oughts, finally on LP, and limited to 1,500 copies.

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Graded on a Curve:
Cal Tjader,
Latin Kick

Vibraphonist and bandleader Cal Tjader established his name in part through a steady flow of records in the Latin Jazz style. Released in 1956 by the Fantasy label, Latin Kick is one of the earliest examples of such in Tjader’s discography; December 13 brings a fresh 180 gram edition from Craft Recordings as the latest entry in the label’s Original Jazz Classics series of reissues. If it seems crystal clear what’s in store, the album does offer a few unexpected twists as it plays.

Cal Tjader hit the West Coast scene in the mid-1940s as a drummer in an octet formed by pianist Dave Brubeck, and then in a trio with Brubeck; on recordings made for Fantasy in 1950, the bassist was Ron Crotty. It was in this group that Tjader began alternating between drums and vibraphone, eventually transitioning exclusively to the vibes as his profile rose.

After injuries sustained a car accident temporarily sidelined Brubeck, Tjader continued the trio with Jack Weeks on bass and either John Marabuto or Vince Guaraldi on piano. Sessions released in 1951 by Fantasy subsidiary Galaxy were compiled onto a 10-inch and issued by Fantasy proper two years later. By that point, Tjader was working in the band of pianist George Shearing.

Upon exiting Shearing’s band and forming the Modern Mambo Quintet, Tjader’s opportunities to record as a leader increased. That group, with Manuel Duran on piano and Carlos Duran on bass, Bayardo Velarde on timbales, and Luis Miranda on congas, is featured on Latin Kick, with the addition of Brew Moore on tenor sax.

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A morning mix of news for the vinyl inclined

In rotation: 12/12/24

5 Small Businesses Bringing Back Vinyl Records: Streaming may reign supreme, but these five small businesses see the value in tangible music. Vinyl records have seen a renaissance in the 21st century, and this trend is not slowing down. Demand for this analog medium has climbed over 17 consecutive years, and in 2022, LPs officially eclipsed CDs as the most popular physical recorded music format. Some speculate that nostalgia has driven the return to the turntable, while others credit Record Store Day for the vinyl revival. Whatever the reason, these five small businesses were inspired by this comeback and are among the few record-pressing outfits in the nation.

Columbia, SC | Columbia celebrates the grand re-opening of Papa Jazz Record Shoppe: Papa Jazz Record Shoppe in Columbia is celebrating its grand re-opening with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 2014 Greene Street. Five Points Association and owner of Papa Jazz Record Shoppe, Tim Smith, has owned the record store since 1982. The record store remains the last of several that once lined the city’s Five Points district. …Papa Jazz offers a wide selection of records across all music genres, providing a vibrant marketplace for buying, selling, and trading vinyl records and CDs. Papa Jazz is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Asheville, NC | Static Age Records encounters an uncertain financial future following Hurricane Helene: Staff at Asheville record store and music venue, Static Age Records, face the effects of insufficient fall tourism as they continue to host live music. “Through the wake of the aftermath you couldn’t think of anything else to do besides help. It wasn’t until three weeks later we realized we were now struggling,” said Sophie Hull, Static Age Records’ director of operations. In the weeks following Hurricane Helene, Hull and Jesse McSwain, owner of Static Age Records, said they did roughly 20 percent of the business they normally do due to a lack of tourism in downtown Asheville. “Everybody makes all of their yearly money in a few months with slow time in between,” McSwain said of local businesses in Asheville. “Some businesses rely totally on tourism, I’m sure. At least we have a lot of local connection.”

Edinburgh, UK | 25-year record: Inside the Edinburgh hi-fi business embracing the vinyl revival and streaming: Twenty-five years is a very long time in the rapidly-changing world of audio. Back in 1999, compact discs and cassettes dominated the music consumption market, the vinyl record appeared to be in terminal decline, a minority of people were downloading tunes and the file-sharing start-up Napster had only just begun disrupting the status quo. Fast forward to the dying days of 2024 and digital streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal now account for well over four-fifths of our music consumption in the UK, the CD has almost gone the way of the dodo, despite talk of a mini revival, and the (original) Napster is but a faded memory. And, to the delight of those who still value the physical, the 12-inch long-player is enjoying a surprise renaissance.

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TVD Radar: Idaho,
The Devil You Know [1992–1996] 4LP box
set in stores now

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Groundbreaking slowcore pioneers Idaho are marking the recent arrival of their landmark anthology, The Devil You Know [1992-1996], with today’s release of “Star,” a rare gem from the band’s earliest days available now via Arts & Crafts.

An official music video featuring archival footage premieres today. The Devil You Know [1992-1996], a four-album five-disc Deluxe Limited Edition Box Set featuring vinyl reissues of Idaho’s long-out-of-print and highly sought-after first three records (originally released on Caroline/Capitol) with an exclusive bonus disc of hard-to-find material comprised of EPs and 7”s from this seminal era, is available now via Arts & Crafts.

Recorded in 1992, “Star” dates back to the “big bang that started it all,” says Idaho’s torchbearer Jeff Martin of his lifelong collaboration with John Berry, the band’s late co-founder who would leave one year later due to his struggles with drug addiction. The song’s combustion of guttural guitars, churning in distortion, laden with Martin’s plaintive vocals, captures what he calls the “beautifully sorrowful corner of this odd church” that he and Berry built—32 years later, the alien sounds of Idaho burn as bright as ever.

“Ah what to say about these early days,” says Jeff Martin. “Mid 92 perhaps it was? John was playing drums in a band I had formed called Drain with Wade Graham on guitar and yours truly on bass and vocals. We had sent the 4-song demo to some of our contacts in the music business only to be met with predictably lukewarm sentiments. John had stepped up the by then increasingly annoying salvos of elicitations to get me to record with him on our own, make some music like we used to…

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TVD Radar: Martha Wainwright, Martha Wainwright on vinyl
for the first time in stores 3/21

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Twenty years ago, Martha Wainwright stepped out of her family’s illustrious shadow and announced herself to the world with her stunning debut album Martha Wainwright. Featuring “Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole,” a song about her father, “Factory,” and “When The Day Is Short,” it immediately proved she was a major talent to be reckoned with.

This Spring, PIAS will release this album on vinyl for the very first time. The Sunday Times called her “a tour de force,” Uncut described the disc as “brilliant” while Q said she was “a thing of wonder.” She is all that and more and twenty years on continues to enthral both onstage and record. Wainwright also announces 12 new dates on her North American spring tour. Tickets go on sale this Friday, December 13 at 10am local time.

“20 years ago my life as an artist took shape when my first record was released,” Martha recalls. “In many ways that record defined me, as well as launched me into a now over 20 year long career that has made me who I am. It was after 10 years of playing in bars, making cassettes and EPs to sell at my shows, singing backup for my brother Rufus, falling in love and out of love, practising, writing, singing until I could barely sing anymore, partying, playing with musicians and listening to great artists, working with my ex-husband in the studio for 2 years, all that created this first record.”

“20 years later, with 6 other albums under my belt, 2 kids and a career that is chugging along, I can safely say my first record paved my way forward. On March 21st we will release the record on vinyl for the first time ever as well as digitally release unheard songs, outtakes and early material from that 10 year period of discovery that led to my first record. There will be a tour with a few great musicians, where I’ll play the record in its entirety as well as a few new songs—there’s no 48 year old me with the 28 year old me.”

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Graded on a Curve:
The Beatles,
The Beatles: 1964 US Albums In Mono

Ever since the 1994 Live at the BBC and the 1995 Anthology release of the TV series and VHS box set, and three multiple CD/LP sets, reissues of the music of The Beatles finally seemed to hit their stride.

The ongoing Beatles reissue program hit a high-water mark with the release of the group’s UK albums on vinyl in mono in 2014. Since the 50th anniversary of the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album in 2017, reissues of the music of The Beatles and as solo artists have been going through a particularly strong and consistent period. Substantial and well-produced reissue programs that offer various editions of a particular release and archival projects have offered fans a wealth of officially previously unreleased material and bespoke, gift-worthy packaging.

The main releases that have elicited the most interest are those that mark a milestone anniversary of an important album. This has been particularly the case with the 50th anniversary releases of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles (the White Album), Abbey Road, Let It Be, and the Disney series Get Back, but also some of the key solo albums from the members of the group that were released in the 1970s not long after the group broke up. The Live at the Hollywood Bowl was also a welcome release, as was the companion film Eight Days A Week in 2016.

Other more recent welcome releases include The Christmas Albums box in 2017 and The Singles Collection box in 2019. The reissue series for Revolver in 2022 seemed to pick up where Let It Be left off and appeared to set the stage for Rubber Soul to be given the deluxe box edition treatment. Instead, 2023 saw the reissue of the The Beatles: 1962–1966 (Red) and The Beatles: 1962–1966 (Blue) compilation releases, highlighted by the “new” track “Now and Then.”

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Lucinda Williams,
The TVD Interview

PHOTO: DANNY CLINCH | The gravelly drawl was familiar. Lucinda Williams was calling from Minneapolis, where she just appeared as a special guest on Cyndi Lauper’s farewell tour, joining her on a poignant “Time After Time.” Days earlier, Williams dueted with Elvis Costello on “Wild Horses” at the Jesse Malin comeback concert in New York City.

It all followed a fall tour that alternated the autobiographical Don’t Tell Anyone the Secrets I Told You, based on last year’s memoir of the same name, with a tour that emphasized her 15th studio album Stories from a Rock and Roll Heart, also released in 2023.

Now, she’s got a new album on Thirty Tigers, Lucinda Williams Sings The Beatles from Abbey Road featuring her takes on “I Got a Feeling,” “Yer Blues,” “Rain” and others. It represents the seventh edition in a series of Lu’s Jukebox series of cover songs saluting specific artists. All of this despite suffering a stroke in 2020 that sidelined some of her activities, including guitar playing.

We talked about the new album, the difficulty of choosing Beatles songs, writing her book, and the vinyl that set her on her course.

How did the Lu’s Jukebox series begin, anyway?

I always enjoyed taking other people’s songs and playing them to see what we could do with them. We had some studio time at Room and Board studios in Nashville with Ray Kennedy, who had been Steve Earle’s guy, and we worked with him so we were excited to set up some time, and we picked a couple of artists to do and picked the songs. Tom Petty was the first.

We knew a couple of guys who were good at videos and photographing and brought them in, to film those live sessions which we would then livestream. It just kind of took off, people seemed to really like it, and we decided to put them out as albums and as CDs. We were on a roller coaster

You went on to do soul and country classics, a Christmas album, and tributes to Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones—all in addition to making a new album of your own material. Did you have all that time because the pandemic kept you from touring?

That’s the whole thing. We wanted to be productive. Since we couldn’t go out and things were limited, we just decided to spend our time in the studio.

It had been a couple of years since your last Jukebox collection. What made this one different, recording at Abbey Road?

That’s the biggest difference. After the last one we were talking about what artists we were going to do next. We’d done a Rolling Stones one, and once you do a Stones one, who’s next? The Beatles. We were going to do a show in London anyway, so we had this idea of going into Abbey Road to cut Beatles songs, so it all fell together.

But first I had to pick the songs, and that was the hardest part of it. Then we rehearsed in Nashville before we left. When we got to Abbey Road we had three days.

Did you gravitate towards the Beatles songs you liked the best, or to those that best suited your sound?

A little of both. First, the ones I liked the best, I made that list, the initial list. There were ones I remembered from a long time ago, but for others I had to go through and look at albums and remember some songs.

What made the final list, once I made the list of the ones I liked, I had to sit down and sing through them and decide which one fit me the best. That’s what made the final decision. We had to pick out the ones in the right key. Once I sat and actually tried to sing them, It was obvious which ones would work.

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Graded on a Curve: Jennifer Castle,
Camelot

Although her roots are in indie rock, Toronto-based singer-songwriter Jennifer Castle has more recently ventured into contemporary folk territory, and to considerable success. With her latest record, she continues to expand her sound and strengthen her songs; one track from the album in particular has given her a substantial boost in profile. Camelot is out now on 140 gram vinyl with a poster insert and on compact disc in a gatefold LP replica sleeve from Paradise of Bachelors.

Jennifer Castle’s last record, Monarch Season, was released four years ago. Featuring her alone on vocals, guitar, piano, and harmonica, it was Castle’s first release to be accurately described as a truly solo effort (and a fitting pandemic recording, although it was cut just prior to the outbreak). Contrasting, Camelot opens with vivid intimacy, Castle singing sweetly in the title track, her piano augmented by Evan Cartwright’s drums and the grand sweep of Owen Pallet’s string arrangements (performed by FAMES Skopje Studio Orchestra).

As noted above, Castle is a singer-songwriter, but “Camelot” is decidedly Singer-Songwriter in approach (reminiscent of those records of yore when an undersung performer landed a sharp producer and a budget). But for the album’s next song, Castle scales it back to just voice and guitar, and yet the sturdy coffeehouse strumming of “Some Friends” registers distinctly from the more fragile indie folk aura heard on Monarch Season.

The drums swing back in alongside Mike Smith’s bass in “Trust,” setting in motion a warm pulse that culminates in a subtly pretty crescendo. “Lucky #8” follows with a full-band melodic rock thrust that’s topped off with sharp jangle-chime guitars; when the solo lets loose, it brings to mind Lucinda Williams from back in her Rough Trade days.

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A morning mix of news for the vinyl inclined

In rotation: 12/11/24

Music Lovers Are Ditching Streaming For Vinyl: According to The Economist, vinyl is having a huge resurgence, growing faster than streaming with a rate of 15.4%, compared to streaming’s 10.4%. Even more impressively, vinyl has outsold CDs for the fourth consecutive year. What’s driving this vinyl resurgence? The answer is devoted music lovers, who are snapping up records from their favorite artists, with Taylor Swift leading the charge. In April, Taylor smashed records with her album The Tortured Poets Department, selling a staggering 700,000 vinyl copies in just three days. And her dominance doesn’t end there with her albums accounting for an astonishing 7% of all vinyl sales in 2023, with over 3.4 million records sold that year alone. The vinyl boom is proof that, even in a digital age, fans still value the tangible connection and nostalgia that only physical records can provide.

Glasgow, UK | We visit Blitzkrieg record shop which has moved to a new premise across from the Barrowlands: From live music to rare records to special prints Blitzkrieg is an artistic hub in Glasgow’s East End. All of Glasgow’s independent record shops have adopted their own unique positioning in the structure of the city’s social fabric, each driven by a passion for analogue music, specialised genres and an ambition to immerse in community. Individually they are an expression of a person’s creative interests, reflected in design and stock, and because of the healthy offering there is a hub suitable to almost every taste. It is commonly believed that Glasgow punches above its weight when it comes to musical offering and the demand for these stores is proof of that. Along the Gallowgate, directly across from the Barrowland Ballroom is Blitzkrieg—recently relocated from a smaller premise on London Road. At its core it embodies the city’s DIY spirit and approach to music, a trove of rare finds and host of live sessions.

Athens, OH | ROAR brings the noise to Athens: Despite the rise of the MP3 and platforms such as iTunes and Spotify, recent years have seen a resurgence of the record store. While big record store chains disappeared around the time of the Great Recession of 2008, boutique record stores began to emerge from the ashes. Unlike compact discs or cassette tapes, vinyl records have a unique appeal because of a combination of nostalgia, collectibility and sound quality. In 2022, nearly $1.2 billion worth of vinyl records were sold in the United States. Republic of Athens Records, also known by the abbreviation ROAR, opened in November 2021. Initially located at 79 E. State St. near Stimson Avenue, ROAR moved to a new location at 30 E. State St. in 2022. At present, ROAR’s neighbors include The Side Bar, the Bleeding Heart Boutique and Passion Works Studio. According to Mackenzie “Mac” Price, ROAR’s social media marketing director, the move has been beneficial

Fullerton, CA | OC’s punk legacy lives on at Fullerton record store: Being a punkhead himself, William Evans, owner of Black Hole Records and guitarist of SoCal punk band Naughty Women, was looking for better ways to make a living while still being in the music industry. He had worked many different jobs throughout his life, at one point working in a newspaper mailroom, but he was always in bands and the world of music always found its way into his life. Evans figured working at a record store would help him fulfill his wishes. However, with many store owners he worked with being incompetent by his standards, he decided to use the connections he made during that time to open his own record store. Born out of the Orange County punk scene, Black Hole Records has been serving Fullerton’s community of individuals looking to escape mainstream media since 1986. The store originally got its name from the notorious Black Hole, a flophouse and hangout for punk and LGBTQIA+ youth that was also considered one of the birthplaces of OC punk.

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TVD Washington, DC

TVD Live Shots: Steel Panther with Stone Horses at the Fillmore Silver Spring, 12/5

The Fillmore Silver Spring hosted a night of hair metal and laughs as Steel Panther made a stop on their Feel the Steel 15th anniversary tour. It was a fun weeknight gig, and the venue was packed with fans ready to let their hair down and let loose for a night. 

Maryland’s very own Stone Horses are support on this tour. The band kicked off the festivities with an energetic performance showcasing their raw take on classic rock sounds, influenced by giants like Led Zeppelin and Robert Johnson. Led by vocalist John Allen, Stone Horses (with drummer John Heiser, guitarist Teddy Merrill, and bassist Dylan Howes) got the crowd amped with songs like “Reckless Ways,” “Free,” and even a cover of a Black Keys song (“I Got Mine”). The set was a tight thirty minutes but packed a punch for the home state crowd.

For the uninitiated, Steel Panther is a “comedic” glam metal band, hailing from Los Angeles. The band (vocalist Michael Starr, guitarist Satchel, drummer Stix Zadinia, and bassist Spyder) provide their fans with an often hilarious parody of the 1980s glam metal experience. The songs are debauched and profane and defenestrate any idea of political correctness, all in the name of some naughty, tongue in cheek fun. I found myself laughing quite a bit. So did everyone else.

This tour commemorates the 15th anniversary of the release of Steel Panther’s first album, Feel the Steel. That album introduced the world to songs like “Asian Hooker,” “Community Property,” and “Eatin Ain’t Cheatin’,” all of which were in the set Thursday night. You can use your imagination to figure out what those songs are about. Steel Panther look like the prototypical glam metal band, too—with neon, big hair, spandex, a dash of leopard print, and wind machines. It’s a hoot.

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TVD Radar: Joe Pernice, Chappaquiddick Skyline on vinyl for the first time in stores 1/24

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Joe Pernice of the Pernice Brothers & Scud Mountain Boys will release Chappaquiddick Skyline on vinyl for the first time on January 24, 2025 via New West Records. The original mixes were remastered by Bob Weston and will be released nearly 25 years to the day of its original issue by Sub Pop on January 18, 2000. Chappaquiddick Skyline will be available on limited edition clear vinyl as well as standard black vinyl. It can be pre-ordered now via New West Records.

Produced and engineered by Thom Monahan (Devendra Banhart, Fruit Bats) and recorded at home on 8-Track, Chappaquiddick Skyline was Joe Pernice’s follow up to the Pernice Brothers’ 1998 debut Overcome by Happiness. On the album, he is joined by Monahan (Pernice Brothers, Monsterland, Lilys), Peyton Pinkerton (Pernice Brothers, New Radiant Storm King), his wife Laura Stein (Jale, Pernice Brothers), Mike Belitsky (The Sadies, Neko Case), as well as countless friends who stopped by to assist.

Met with critical acclaim at the time of its release, No Depression said “Pernice has topped himself with a marvelous diamond in whose facets shine many such defining moments, in all their stark terror and nervous beauty” while AllMusic said “…marrying rapturous melodies with a poetic grace virtually unmatched among his contemporaries, Pernice’s confessionals cut almost unbearably deep, giving voice to the yearning and isolation most of us struggle to suppress.”

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