Monthly Archives: December 2017

Box sets for diehard music fans: The holidays bring exclusive gifts for diehard music fans. And if you’re the giver of such gifts, please know they’re not usually budget-friendly. Record companies mine back catalogs of legendary artists to release extravagantly packaged box sets focusing either on a certain period or the entirety of their career. With consistent sales in the niche vinyl market, some box sets previously released on CD have been reissued on vinyl. Here are a few new box sets by classic acts out in time for Christmas shopping.

The 5 Best Places to Buy Vinyl in Seattle: Small but exquisitely curated, Wall of Sound has been to Seattle what the defunct Other Music was to New York City: the place with the highest ratio of amazing, obscure, eclectic vinyl from around the world. Owners Jeffery Taylor and Michael Ohlenroth are the underdogs of the city’s music-retail ecosphere, because they cater to a tiny niche clientele who don’t care about what’s popular. If you’re looking for elite selections in avant-garde jazz, minimal synth, psych-rock, prog, funk, soul, ambient, experimental, and many manifestations of “world” music, or Bobby Beausoleil’s Lucifer Rising box set, Wall of Sound will hook you up.

What the Tech: Gifts for music lovers: Audio-Technica turntables are my choice this year. The Audio-Technica LP60 is easy on the budget at $89 and plays music the way it was made to be played. The fully automatic belt-drive turntable connects to stereo systems and has a pre-amp built in, which is important because most home audio systems are not equipped with a pre-amp and have no connections to a turntable. With the built-in pre-amp, you can connect the record player to the system through the cd input. Other Audio-Technica models can connect to a computer with a USB and some models have Bluetooth capability. Purists though will prefer listening to vinyl through a direct wired connection.

19 Iconic Record Covers Reimagined by Top Young Artists: At year-end of 2017, the creative team behind Depositphotos (one of the world’s leading visual content marketplace) came up with the idea of bringing visuals and music together within one creative project. Over a dozen visual artists were invited to reimagine some of the all-time legendary record covers. 19 top young creatives presented their personal, unique vision for the covers of 19 true masterpieces of music — from The Beatles to Sigur Ros, from Aladdin Sane to Kid A. In their experiments, the designers tried to put forward their artistic perceptions, while not departing too far away from the original images or music on the record. See all the concepts here.

Al Muskovitz – Vinyl Memories: In what I hope will become a new holiday tradition, we pulled out a record player and spun my old albums that we found boxed up in the most inaccessible to reach, darkest, spider-webbish corner of our storage room. It was a treat to see the look on the “youngins’” faces as they listened in amazement to the sounds emanating from the wax disks, especially when scratches repeated lyrics off my Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely, Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely, Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely (lift needle, gently place back down) Hearts Club Band album. To say my collection is eclectic would be a vast understatement. Besides the Beatles, we flipped through the Supremes, Moody Blues, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Streisand and Sinatra albums that co-mingled with Alvin and the Chipmunks, Captain Kangaroo’s Songs and Dances, and Detroit Tiger Denny McLain playing his Hammond Organ.

America’s Groove Honored with City Business Appreciation Award: The City of Effingham has named America’s Groove Record Store as a recipient of the City of Effingham’s Business Appreciation Award. Mayor Jeff Bloemker stated, “We applaud the Wilsons’ entrepreneurial spirit! They have applied their passion and creativity to their hobby and have turned it all into a great business. They have a cult following and I love that they are located in the Village Square Mall.” Aaron and Brianne Wilson are the owners of America’s Groove Record Store. They opened the store located in the Village Square Mall in 2016 as they wanted to bring something “cool” back to the mall, and it has been better than they could have imagined. In fact, coming up this February, they will be celebrating their two-year anniversary.

City recognizes America’s Groove Record Store: Nominator, Darin Blickem, describes the store as “a place for music lovers to find new and used vinyl, CDs and even cassettes. They also carry new and used stereo equipment, toys, video games and consoles, and a few other funky items.” Aaron Wilson holds family friendly bands to play at least once a month in the back room. The store also participates in the Record Store Day program twice a year in which special vinyl releases are made available to independent record store owners. The sales attract record collector enthusiasts who “record-store hop” on these days to find these special additions to their collections. America’s Groove hosts a biannual Toy Show that includes several vendors and brings in many attendees.

Hamilton record store’s expansion solves signage issue: Main Street Vinyl, a record store that opened in Hamilton in May, won approval Tuesday for a sign on its facade. The sign issue, which has been pending since July, was made possible partly because of other good news for the record store: It has been able to expand into an adjoining space, making it possible to center its sign above both of the storefronts it now occupies. Main Street storefronts have increasingly been filling, and officials hope that with the proposed Spooky Nook Sports at Champion Mill development nearby along North B Street, that trend will accelerate, with both Main Street and High Street becoming an entertainment district to serve all the athletes and their families, who are expected to visit from as far as a 3.5-hour drive from Hamilton.

Canadian Record Store Chain Grows 925% — In One Year: Ten years ago, the fate of traditional record stores looked really, really bleak. By 2007, file-swapping had eviscerated CD sales, and vinyl was an antiquated format for niche audiophiles. People still loved music, they just weren’t going to record stores. Instead, they were stuffing their iPods with thousands of songs while spending their savings on festivals. Accordingly, established record stores were going bankrupt, unable to make ends meet. Up in Canada, that included HMV, which recently shuttered more than 70 stores during a gruesome bankruptcy process. Enter Sunrise Records, which made a daring move earlier this year.

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The downtown shop you didn’t know you needed, Mantiques has a little bit of everything: There really is something for everyone as toys for kids line the shelves and opposite them are the vinyl records for those who miss the sound of record playing. A mixture of older furniture and new DVD’s are also within the store and there are two levels to shop from as Trimble assures that both are popular as far as the response from the community tells him. “People have been telling us they love it,” said Trimble. “So far we’ve had folks really grabbing up the vinyl records as well as men’s and women’s jewellery. We also have popular Coca-Cola items which are sought after by collectors and military stuff that is hard to keep in stock. There is even a rare item in here of poison bottles that has a Barrie drugstore name on the label and are half full. You never know what you’re going to see.”

South London’s YAM Records Is Moving House: Peckham’s YAM Records is on the move – but they’re staying south of the river. The record shop is a vital hub for music fans in South East London, with the attendant record label releasing some superb music in 2017. Named as one of our favourite off-the-beaten-track record shops in the capital, YAM Records is now set to move to another location. In a statement the owners said: “Going into next year we will be joining some of our favourite South London music heads in Bermondsey.” Closing the shutters on Holdrons Arcade on December 23rd, YAM Records will re-open in their new South London home in 2018. The new shop will be bigger, holding more stock and affording the team the chance to expand their involvement with YAM Recordings.

Vinyl sales “highest since the 1980s” in Ireland according to Golden Discs: Golden Discs has been at the heart of Irish music for 55 years and continues to thrive despite the dominance of streaming platforms and digital downloads. And so it’s fitting that the long-running retail chain – who house a dedicated vinyl lounge in Cork – bring the news that vinyl has enjoyed a serious surge in sales this year, posting up numbers not seen in decades. “We haven’t seen this volume of sales since the ’80s,” says Golden Discs CEO Stephen Fitzgerald, noting that it’s not just new releases but back catalogue, reissues, limited editions and box sets that are catching the attention of music lovers across the country. As for the year’s biggest movers; Ed Sheeran’s Divide, Pink Floyd’s iconic Dark Side of the Moon and George Michael’s back cataogue lead the way, while Liam and Noel Gallagher are duking it out for the title of December’s best seller.

Vinyl Records Add to the Cool Vibe at Two California Hotels: Can vinyl record players in hotel lobbies—and even in guest rooms—enhance the visitor experience? Absolutely, according to a recent New York Times article that explored this nascent trend. In fact, two Kimpton hotels in California, the Goodland in Goleta and the Shorebreak in Huntington Beach, have tapped into the low-tech, retro music movement. The Shorebreak has a custom-built player in its library as well as a 50-album collection of music for guests to peruse and play. At the Goodland, every room is equipped with a record player and there is a vinyl record shop in the lobby. “Almost everyone who stays here comments on how much they love the players,” according to Drew Parker, director of sales and marketing at the Goodland. “For our younger clients, they’re a new discovery and for our older ones, they’re a throwback to the past.”

Rue the day you gave away that boombox — the cassette revival is here to stay: When Disney released its Guardians Of The Galaxy soundtracks on tape in 2014 — making a real-life feature of the film’s cassette-based plot point — the format was given a huge boost. Latest statistics suggest this was more than just a flash in the pan: according to the Official Charts Company, cassette sales have more than doubled in 2017. Artists such as Kasabian, Arcade Fire, Jay-Z and Lana Del Rey have released Walkman-ready records in recent times. Nevertheless, their retro appeal is still a factor in 2017. ‘I remember sneaking my Walkman under my pillow so I could listen to The Beatles,’ says Rou Reynolds of Enter Shikari, whose album The Spark is so far the third-highest selling cassette of this year. ‘There’s a lot of nostalgia there for me.’