Monthly Archives: February 2020

Lincoln City, OR | Output Music reopening in Lincoln City, owners make big plans for 2020: Output Music was a music community cornerstone for Lincoln County from 2005 to 2011. Now, 2020 will see Output reopening as Output Records. Lincoln City’s new again music store will sell vinyl records, turntables, music accessories and a curated selection of clothing, homegoods and accessories. The owners, Corrie and Taj Richardson, say they want to help the Central Oregon Coast get into vinyl records. “The music format has made a big comeback over the last 10 years; we’re selling turntables too, so if someone doesn’t have one already, we can get them set up with a turntable, speakers, and their first record for around $150 bucks,” the Richardsons said. Beyond selling records and goods, Output Records has a mission statement that focuses on building the music community on the Central Oregon Coast. “A big part of us wanting to reopen Output is to build up a music community that gets the kids involved with music,” the Richardson’s said.

Bury, UK | Vinyl frontier – Bury at forefront of record revival: …This renewed interest has also cultivated a renaissance in high street record shops, reversing years of decline and closures which saw dealers outside major cities almost go extinct. Last summer new independent record store Wax and Beans opened at The Art Picture House ­in Haymarket Street and proved in instant smash hit. Voracious appetite for vinyl has meant the outlet is already drawing up blueprints to relocate to larger premises to better meet the needs of Bury’s music lovers. Ben Soothill, Wax and Beans’ owner, said: “I think interest in vinyl has always been there, it’s just that it has not been completely accessible. “With the push we have given it on social media and the service we provide in store I think it has struck a chord with people. “They realise it’s there, and it’s a format they have loved, and it’s really taken off.

Boston, MA | Monumental Market: Jamaica Plain’s Antidote to Spotify and Starbucks: Ask anyone who’s scoured through endless rows of vinyl in subterranean vaults during the 90s and they’ll be the first to tell you that independent record stores in Boston are a pale reflection of a once robust heyday. Second Coming Records? Dead. Pipeline Records? Dead. Mojo? Long dead. Newbury Comics? Thankfully flatlining. Even the venerable Skippy White’s—whose six-decade longevity is one of the more unique phenomena to occur during the fray of the “death of independent music retailer” ballyhoo—announced its imminent departure in December. … In Your Ear, Planet and Nuggets have collectively endured close to a century’s worth of changes in both shopping habits and the music industry. The aforementioned specialty shops like Armageddon and Deep Thoughts continue to thrive specifically because of their appeal to otherwise marginal tastes. It’s not about resurgence, but an enduring need for the tactile.

Pittsburgh, PA | Us: Turntable Doctor hopes to keep vinyl spinning: Both guys liked things that go round and round. But when the two friends parted ways as business partners 47 years ago, one landed a job with the Hubble Space Telescope, which goes round and round 340 miles above Earth, while the other continued making sure that record albums continue rotating 33⅓, 45 and 78 rpm on turntables. Today we’re focused on Vince Bomba, 63, of Mt. Lebanon, who still repairs turntables at Galaxie Electronics in Squirrel Hill, a Murray Avenue business that shares a second floor with Jerry’s Records (which sells the vinyl albums that Vince’s turntables play.) Walk up those steps and — Biff! Ping! Bam! — you’re in a time warp. Nowadays most turntable repairmen are fossils. From 1990 until 2007, turntables teetered on the brink of technological extinction that claimed cassettes, manual typewriters and pay phones. But like Alec Baldwin, vinyl has a knack for resurrection.

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Burlington, VT | Soundbites: Lacking Lacquer? This week, multiple music news outlets reported a catastrophic fire at Apollo Masters in Banning, Calif. The facility produces “the lacquer used in the production of master discs, from which commercial vinyl records are made, as well as the styli used in the pressing process,” according to Consequence of Sound. The blog went on to report that “the loss could lead to a major delay or reduction in the production of vinyl records on a worldwide scale.” That got me thinking: Will this calamity trickle down to our local Burlington Record Plant? The word from the plant’s owner Justin Crowther is: maybe, but probably not. “At this time, I’m not really concerned, considering our size, but it’s too early to know for sure,” he wrote in an email. He explained that, of the two main lacquer cutting engineers used by the plant, one sources exclusively through MDC Master Lacquers, a Japanese company. Crowther says they are taking orders as normal for the time being…

Redditch, UK | Happy birthday to ya! Vintage Trax to host day of music and much more: Redditch retro record shop Vintage Trax is celebrating its fifth anniversary this weekend – and everyone is invited to the party. The independent record shop grew out of two pop-up shops in the Kingfisher Shopping Centre before finding a home on Birchfield Road, Headless Cross near the birthplace of Led Zeppelin drummer and famous son John Bonham. Now customers come from far and wide as well as locally to browse the racks of records and cassettes as well as CDs. “It’s not been an easy year by any means with rising costs and increased competition from record fairs and online sellers but we are holding our own,” said owner Ros Sidaway. “There is no better experience than coming into a record shop and digging through the crates of albums and trays of 45s, and finding something you’ve been searching for.”

Ashville, NC | TODAY: A benefit event for Australia held at Static Age Records: “The art show starts at 7 p.m. At 9:30 p.m., performances from local bands will start. The line-up includes Moves, Daddy’s Credit card, 13ag H3ad, and Mouth Breathers. All of these bands are local and coming out to support the cause. Owner of Static Age Records, Jessie McSwane opened his store 12 years ago, events like these happen often at his store. “It seems like every few months we have some type of benefit event going on,” McSwane said. He is excited about this upcoming event and hopes that students and locals come and participate… Static age is first and foremost a record store. In recent years, the store has expanded to musical events and art events. Static Age has about 20 to 25 shows a month, the charitable work associated with the benefit was something McSwane was interested in. He hopes this event helps bring attention to the foundation itself as well as the cause.“It seemed like an organization we could get behind,” McSwane said. While the owner of Static Age often hosts events such as this, to him it’s only the beginning.

The New Rules of Music Snobbery: Hulu’s High Fidelity reboot captures the end of elitist condescension and the rise of fervent eclecticism. …A less perceptive reboot would simply have made Ed Sheeran the new sentimental, tacky crap, but Hulu has gone beyond grafting contemporary references onto Hornby’s tale of 30-somethings who are more adept at sequencing mixtapes than at maintaining healthy relationships. The series captures a fundamental reorientation in listening these days: Elitist condescension about musical preferences isn’t cool anymore, but maybe—die-hard fans fear—obsessing and connecting over music are no longer cool either. Barry-types once used their taste to prop themselves above the less erudite, mainstream-minded listeners they mocked. Cherise, by contrast, just wants to chat about a song—and the consumer, cozy in a private digital bubble, decidedly does not.

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Barrow, UK | Barrow’s TNT records nominated for another award: A Barrow shop has been shortlisted amongst a host of superstars for one of the most prestigious prizes in the music industry. TNT Records is one of eight finalists in the Independent Retailer category at this year’s Music Week Awards , which recognises the best in the business. The star-studded award ceremony in London on May 6, 2020, will see the management team from the Duke Street shop rubbing shoulders with world-renowned names, with nominees in other categories including the likes of Coldplay, Stormzy and Glastonbury Festival. The nomination in this prestigious award follows in the wake of some similar recognition for TNT Records , when it was recently named UK Record Shop of the Year. Owner and founder Dave Turner said he was stunned when he read that they had made the shortlist for the Music Week Awards 2020. “The Music Week Awards are the biggest awards in the industry, so to see TNT Records shortlisted is beyond my wildest dreams.”

Tokyo, JP | Disk Shop Zero founder Naoki E-Jima has died: The Tokyo record store owner, who passionately promoted the sound of Bristol bass in Japan, passed away yesterday. Naoki E-Jima, the founder and operator of Japanese record store Disk Shop Zero, died yesterday after a bout of illness. Since opening his shop in Ekoda, Tokyo back in 1993, E-Jima—real name Naoki Iijima—championed bass music coming out of Bristol, forging a strong link between the two cities’ scenes. That vision continued when he and a group of friends started their BS0 party in 2015 (they refer to BS0 as a made-up Bristol postcode) and released a series of records on a label of the same name shortly after. In addition to running his shop, Iijima also worked as a music writer. Disk Shop Zero has been intermittently shut since the beginning of the year, after Iijima complained of discomfort in his right thigh last November. The final post on his store’s website indicates he was due to return to hospital on January 21st, which led to emergency hospitalisation and surgery on the 28th.

Tulsa, OK | Vinyl Records Resurrected At Local Record Stores: For the first time in 35 years, vinyl records are expected to outsell CDs in the US. Despite the rise in vinyl sales, streaming music is still the major source of income for the music industry. New numbers this year show vinyl brings in about 4% of the industry’s total revenue while streaming dominates with a whopping 62%. Record store owner Paul Epstein said he thought vinyl had seen its day more than 20 years ago. “Ten or 12 years ago, vinyl started slowly picking up. Then probably five or six years ago, it started at breakneck,” said Epstein. “It has wildly passed CDs.” Written off for dead in 1986, vinyl records are back and poised to outsell CDs nationwide. But why? “You can say I have 50,000 songs that sit in a little box in my underwear drawer, but it’s not the same as saying, ‘look at my records!'” said Epstein.

Franklin, TN | Antique collector inspires a new generation of musicians: Nothing’s ever out of style for long, at least that’s the philosophy of an antique collector in Franklin. “We bought a barn sight on scene in Bowling Green, Kentucky.” Will Jordan is a picker. He picks through stuff that some would call junk, and what he finds often ends up for sale at Carpe Diem. “Seize the day. I mean there’s a lot of days in this place right here, and I think it fits the vibe,” said Jordan. The vibe has a good feel from the time you step inside. “We got all kinds of collectibles in here from in every age group. From a 5-year-old kid to an 85-year-old grandfather,” said Jordan. The most popular by far is Jordan’s collection of vintage vinyl records numbering in the thousands, each with a feeling of nostalgia attached to the cover.

Carlsbad, CA | A record return: Records are managing to remain relevant – in their own sphere of influence. Thomas Edison’s phonograph – his favorite invention – designed to play back audio from one needle, then amplify the sound back to the listener through a flaring horn, was the one to begin the music recording art. Originally, the sound came from wax cylinders that were coated in tin foil, but the technology quickly evolved to the vinyl record and vinyl player, which has since become a staple of the retro, slow dance American period. The phonograph’s distinct trumpet-like horn has amazingly transitioned as a staple first of tall and elegant ballrooms to the average American working-class home. And there, the record player remained stuck; a staple of the past as CDs and newer inventions outpaced sales of vinyl records in the late ’80s for the first time since Edison created the phonograph in the mid 1870s. Vinyl fans were bound to still exist – no trend ever fully dies this quick. And yet, more than just Frank Sinatra devotees are going to the store (the online store really) to pick up vinyl and vinyl players, and the most novel crowd is now becoming vinyl’s biggest supporter: high schoolers.