Monthly Archives: March 2018

Downtown record shops are musical treasure trove for avid listeners: Bob Berberich got into rock ’n’ roll early. Berberich, 70, had a sister who was five years older than he was, and she introduced him to the sounds of Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino and Elvis. And while rock ’n’ roll was famous for annoying parents, Berberich’s mother would hold sock hops in the living room of their Washington, D.C., rowhouse. It worked out well enough. Berberich became a professional drummer, playing in a band with future Bruce Springsteen guitarist Nils Lofgren and touring with a number of acts. Now he owns the East Patrick Street record store Vinyl Acres and serves as something of a mentor to the Frederick music community.

Record shop ties fate to downtown: It’s hip. It’s colorful. It has a logo that would hold its own in the most up-and-coming neighborhood of Brooklyn. It serves stacks of what hipsters dream of and would pair well with a craft beer, new restaurants, breweries, corn hole and some foot traffic. It’s Station Square Records, the only vinyl record store in Rocky Mount or the immediate beyond. And it’s open from Wednesday through Saturday at 301 South Church St., a colorful beacon in the middle of an otherwise sagging downtown setting. While reinforcements are on the way — a coffee shop is set for an April opening and Muttley Crew, a pet boutique to open next door, is also eyeing an April opening — along with a few other options, the shop has helped prop up the surrounding area.

Record Store Day 2018 in Nottingham – all you need to know: A never before told secret about Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band will be revealed at this year’s Nottingham Record Store Day, say event organisers. An as yet unnamed special guest will be sharing the revelation at Cobden Chambers, one of three city venues taking part in the annual nationwide event taking place this year on Saturday, April 21. Also taking part will be Stealth nightclub and music shop Rough Trade, which will be open from 6am for vinyl junkies hungry to get their limited edition fix. Last year several hundred collectors waited outside the record store’s doors to pick up LPs on sale for the event organised to promote the work of independent music retailers up and down the country. And this year there’s plenty to keep everyone happy too.

Def Leppard Announce ‘Volume One’, The First Of Four Planned Career-Spanning Box Sets: Legendary hard rockers Def Leppard release the appropriately-dubbed Volume One, the first salvo in their projected, four-volume career-spanning box set series, through Bludgeon Riffola/Mercury/UMe on 1 June. This first volume of the band’s complete recorded output comes in both limited edition 180g heavyweight vinyl and CD box sets, each featuring Def Leppard’s first four studio albums — along with some choice bonus live and studio material — all spread across 8LPs and 7CDs, respectively. The Volume One collection includes bonus material including Live At The LA Forum 1983, originally released as a bonus disc in the deluxe CD version of Pyromania, making this the first-ever vinyl offering of the complete show. This 2LP version comes with a new sleeve and inner bags.

WEB EXCLUSIVE: Russ Solomon Interview: In a Web exclusive, we are reprinting an interview with late Tower Records and Video founder Russ Solomon, who died earlier this month. The interview appeared in the November 1990 issue of Video Store Magazine, under the headline, “A Towering Presence: Last month, Russ Solomon celebrated Tower’s 30th anniversary and made the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans. What’s he do for an encore?” “As near as I can figure, I’ve been in this business longer, continuously, than anyone I know of,” Solomon says. “Almost 50 years – jeez, it hardly seems possible.”

CDs and vinyl are now MORE popular than digital downloads thanks to the rise in popularity of subscription services like Spotify and Apple Music: CDs and vinyls [“Vinyls” is an incorrect usage of the plural for vinyl—which is vinyl. —Ed.] are outselling digital downloads for the first time since 2011 thanks to streaming services, industry figures reveal. Apps like Spotify and Apple Music have seen an astronomical rise in popularity in recent years and this has all but destroyed the digital download market. As more people choose to stream music rather than own it, sales of physical media are now falling at a slower rate than their digital counterparts. This has been driven, in part, by a resurgence in vinyl sales among audiophiles, who prize the format’s unique sound.

The Yorkshire record shop enjoying a vinyl revival: The singer-songwriter Richard Hawley once said of Sheffield’s Record Collector: “It turns my brain to mush and I end up walking out with things I didn’t even know existed.” Opening its doors in 1978, the Broomhill shop is now celebrating 40 years of stocking genre-spanning music and in Yorkshire it is at the forefront of the vinyl revival. “It’s been a labour of love,” says Barry Everard, who has been behind the enterprise ever since it opened its doors one Saturday morning. “It’s filled with incidents of pop stars, stories, accolades and interesting things.” Previously working as a manager at Virgin Records in the city, Everard decided to open up his own shop in the student-heavy area of the city.

Wrigleyville memorabilia shop brings history to life: Tom Boyle can’t help but poke through his shelves. He’s in search of a movie poster that only he can visualize. It’s somewhere among the newspaper clippings, the vinyl records, the buttons and the books. “Let me see,” he says, furrowing his brows and shuffling through his inventory. After searching for a few minutes himself, he sends his colleague over to the other corner of the store, hoping he can help find it. Poking and prodding through the posters, the pair finally pull it out of the pile: “A Stratton Story.” Their eyes glance over the picture depicting the 1949 film about an injured baseball player. They notice the faded red-and-white hues and the way James Stewart embraces June Allyson. “This is it,” Boyle says with a smile.

Crate-digging millennials are seeking out classic East African music at Nairobi’s vinyl master: Tucked between butchers and hair braiders in Nairobi’s Kenyatta Market is the Real Vinyl Guru, a shabby stall that has become a mecca for vinyl lovers. James ‘Jimmy’ Rugami has sold second-hand records from stall 570 since 1989. In the cramped space, hundreds of seven and 12-inch vinyls are tightly packed. Among hit Motown albums is a veritable trove of East African music. Among them is the Kenyan-based Tanzanian duo Simba Wanyika and the recently re-discovered “Sweet as Broken Dates: Lost Somali Tapes from the Horn of Africa.” They’re all mementos of a bygone era, when Nairobi’s record presses created a hub for the regions musicians in the 70s and 80s. Many flocked to Nairobi to lay down their tracks and stayed to become part of a vibrant local scene.

Doc’s Records returns in a funky space at The Foundry that’s a perfect fit: After a long run in west Fort Worth, Doc’s Records & Vintage — the city’s largest record store — closed its doors, with plans to reopen in a new location in the fall of 2017. Music fans waited as fall came and went. Now Doc’s has finally reemerged — bigger and weirder than ever — in an enormous, colorful warehouse at 2632 Weisenberger St. in the Foundry District. The new space is jam-packed with records, CDs, and cassettes — along with an interesting collection of turntables, speakers, and other used stereo equipment for sale. There are mannequins populating the aisles, along with a bizarre collection of T-shirts and posters that all seem to be at least 20 or 30 years old. And of course, there are shirts, stickers, and bags with that disturbing logo of a man in a wheelchair, getting his fix from an IV that is somehow hooked up to a vinyl record — a not-so-subtle representation of people who are addicted to buying records.

CDs and vinyl are outselling digital music downloads: Digital music downloads began to outsell physical media since 2012. It took four more years for digital music revenue to surpass those from physical media as well. Then streaming happened, and last year generated more money in the US than all the other formats. Now, digital downloads are coming in dead last, with fewer sales than CDs, vinyl or other physical media, according to the latest annual report from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Even though shipments of physical media dropped 4 percent to $1.5 billion, digital download revenues fell 25 percent to $1.3 billion in 2017, putting CDs and vinyl back on top of non-streaming music formats.

The Future of Downloads, Accelerating Growth & Vinyl Vinyl Vinyl: 5 Takeaways From the RIAA Year-End Report: The “vinyl revival” has been one of the industry’s favorite underdog storylines of the past decade, after the format averaged 38 percent growth from 2012 to 2015. But after growing just 3.7 percent in 2016, there were signs that the revival was stuttering into a more even lane, and may be nearing its peak. Yet in 2017, the numbers perked back up again, as revenues from LPs got a 10 percent boost over the year prior, to $395 million. It’s not the type of roaring growth that it was, but it’s heading back in the right direction, with many fans still seemingly bent on having that physical piece of art to call their own.

Local radio personality making vinyl great again: PHOENIX – A classic radio station in Phoenix is bringing back vinyls. (“Vinyls” is not a word. —Ed.) Yes, those discs with the circular grooves that play music. Russ Egan, who is KSLX-FM’s weeknight radio personality, wanted to add a different element to his evening show. So, he decided to spin things up, and bring back vinyl records. “I thought let’s play a vinyl album side, ’cause I’ve done that at stations in the past, and enjoyed stations in the past that have done that themselves,” said Egan. The team was immediately on board with his idea. Soon after, Egan dug up a turntable and his old vinyl records. He says it was like a trip down memory lane. “It’s like opening up a book,” said Egan. “You can smell it. You can feel it. You remember so many things from the last time you listen to the record.”

Vinyl Revolution: New Brighton Shop Set To Celebrate Its First Record Store Day: Brighton based independent record store Vinyl Revolution will be hosting its first
Record Store Day, next month, and will be providing its customers with access to exclusive vinyl releases, as well as numerous live performances outside the store in Duke Street. The store is the brainchild of musician Simon Parker – whose musical career has its roots and cultural inspiration in Brighton – and his business partner, Rachel Lowe. “Buying records in a supermarket is soulless, but too many record stores are unwelcoming and quite blokey – even my musician friends, who really know their music, say they have felt unwelcome or intimidated,” explained Simon Parker.

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