VIA PRESS RELEASE | Following their acclaimed project with Travis Scott and fashion house Saint Laurent, 12on12 announce their latest collaboration with cultural icons and hip-hop legends RUN DMC. The pioneering New York group have curated an exclusive limited edition 12″ vinyl only compilation with bespoke artwork by rising LA artist Reena Tolentino, aka ‘RT’.
The 12on12 deluxe, double disc package is limited to 500 hand-numbered editions and embodies the story of RUN-DMC’s legacy within the handpicked iconic track-listing, featuring songs that inspired, affected and changed the ground-breaking group’s music. The first release in celebration of the 35th anniversary of seminal 1986 album Raising Hell, RUN DMC pay tribute to their late bandmate Jam Master Jay and dedicate this project in his honour.
The release offers a fascinating insight into RUN DMC, one of the most influential groups of all time. Alongside tracks by early rap trailblazers The Sugarhill Gang and Afrika Bambaataa, the group have also highlighted songs that helped form the sonic foundations of the nascent hip hop sound as it emerged and evolved in New York in the early 1980s, including the breaks-goldmine of MFSB’s Love Is The Message and Kraftwerk’s game-changing Trans-Europe Express, a song rarely licensed for any compilation.
The unique work of art for the record has been designed by one of the most exciting names on the LA art scene, Reena Tolentino. A visual artist and actor, RT’s work rose to prominence after her acclaimed mural of late basketball icon Kobe Bryant. In addition to providing artwork and portraits of RUN DMC for the project she has also reinterpreted one of the most iconic hip-hop logos of all time with a rework of the classic RUN DMC logo.
UK | Love Record Stores campaign launches Independent Albums Of The Year initiative: The Love Record Stores campaign has announced the launch of the inaugural Independent Albums Of The Year list. The new #loverecordstores campaign, which was set up earlier this year to raise awareness of the challenges faced by record stores during the Covid-19 pandemic, is aimed primarily at the UK’s wider independent music sector. The list features releases from independent labels voted for by a cross section of notable independent record stores including Drift, Resident, Rough Trade, Normans, Piccadilly, Bear Tree, Assai, Banquet, Stranger Than Paradise, Bleep and Monorail, and will be unveiled on Thursday, December 3. Jason Rackham, UK MD of PIAS and co-founder of #loverecordstores said: “As we head into the winter months it is clear that record stores face a challenging end to the year. We hope and believe that this celebration of the year’s best independent music will help to support the record stores and remind people to continue to support this 
‘People in their 40s were crying’: the sad final days of New York’s coolest record store: Other Music fuelled New York’s 00s indie boom, boasting Vampire Weekend and Animal Collective among its fans. Then it closed. A new documentary tells the story of the store’s tragic demise – and its ‘terrifying’ staff. A lot of skulking went on at Other Music, the celebrated New York record store. It was an odd kind of dance: nervous customers, hiding behind CD racks or LP sleeves, trying to conjure up a question that wouldn’t result in utter humiliation. The staff there had quite a reputation, after all. The experience is relived in a surprisingly moving new documentary about the shop, also called Other Music. Notable fans Regina Spektor and Jason Schwartzman still sound daunted by Other’s intense atmosphere. “If I’m completely honest, I was never just ‘chill’ in there,” confides Spektor, to camera. “I always got that first-day-of-school feeling, like: OK, 
Louisville, KY | Would ear X-tacy Survive in Today’s Vinyl Revolution? For music lovers in Louisville, it’s almost a citywide shared memory: You carve out some time, head to ear X-tacy in The Highlands and get lost for the next two hours checking out new music on the many listening stations scattered around the store. The hope was you’d hear that next band or artist that you were about to fall in love with and listen to incessantly, as the thrill of “discovering” that new favorite band is something that cannot be explained, only experienced. The iconic store opened Aug. 1, 1985, at 4264 Poplar Level Road, moved to a space next door to Great Escape where it did business for three years, then to the 1534 Bardstown Road location that became its long-time home. It ultimately landed in a smaller spot down the street, at Douglass Loop, before closing for good in late 2011. The classic Bardstown Road space then became a Panera restaurant, adding insult to injury. Ear X-tacy’s legacy would spark the 2012 documentary “Brick and Mortar and Love,” and many remain wistful for those days of browsing through albums and CDs and soaking in the quirky atmosphere of 
San Diego, CA | Folk Arts and Jupiter join forces: “When you own your own store it’s the real education.” Brendan Boyle began his vinyl education while working at a record shop in Sacramento. Following that, he went solo and spent about ten years selling vinyl online. The combined experiences gave him a 20-year education when it came to buying and selling records, but he claims that it wasn’t until he purchased Lou Curtiss’s Folk Arts Rare Records that he entered the uppermost realms of vinyl expertise. “When you own your own store it’s the real education,” he explained. “What you’re learning is on a whole other level than anything else. So, the biggest education I’ve had is the last six years.” Boyle’s El Cajon Boulevard Folk Arts location had been chugging along fine since it opened in 2014, but about four years into that run he decided to open Jupiter, a second record shop. It wasn’t so much a stab at increased profits as his inner soothsayer predicting bad days on the horizon. “I built Jupiter in 2018 partially as a fallback plan,” he explained. “It was a fallback plan for a potential Great American Shitshow. I was worried about Donald Trump not being the greatest president and some kind of shitshow happening — and 
