Monthly Archives: October 2022

Graded on a Curve:
This Kind of Punishment, This Kind of Punishment & A Beard of Bees

New Zealander Graeme Jefferies is noted for his work in the often terrific Cakekitchen, and his brother Peter has been rightfully praised for a handful of solo LPs, but in the early ’80s they were the main pillars in one of the finest if too seldom heard Kiwi outfits, the startlingly original This Kind of Punishment. To describe their self-titled 1983 debut and its ’84 follow-up A Beard of Bees as post-punk isn’t wrong, but it does feel more than a little reductive and in the global underground of that era, both albums’ contents rank high. 

I remain fond of classifying The Clean, The Chills, The Verlaines, and Tall Dwarfs as Flying Nun’s Big Four; this is in part due to persevering reputations, but it’s also because in the late ’80s, due to a licensing agreement between that crucial New Zealand label and Homestead Records, those acts were the easiest to hear in the US. And for a while, it wasn’t easy to hear much else, which only intensified the notion of the Flying Nun “sound” as melodic, catchy and guitar-based (with Tall Dwarfs only somewhat excepted, as that two-man unit, if psych-tinged and proto-lo-fi, also wielded a sharp pop sensibility).

However, time has reinforced that Flying Nun’s stylistic reach was much wider than many youthful Yanks once assumed. There was the moody post-punk of Pin Group, whose “Ambivalence” 45 was the label’s first release; there was the loud and heavy Gordons, who slowly morphed into Bailter Space; there was the artier pop-punk of Bill Direen and his group the Builders, whose Beatin Hearts was Flying Nun’s first LP; and of course, there was This Kind of Punishment.

Before Graeme and Peter emerged with TKP in 1983, they were part of Nocturnal Projections, a band formed in 1981 in the North Island municipality of Stratford. Today, their 7-inch and two 12-inch EPs go for major scratch, and even the out-of-print Nerve Ends in Power Lines comp CD from ’95 is rather pricey. This is a shame since the Joy Division-ish post-punk found in their grooves illuminates how the brothers Jefferies didn’t just conjure the excellence of TKP out of thin air.

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In rotation: 10/27/22

UK | What record shops can teach the high street: Our high streets are struggling, but the spirit of the independent record shop could point the way towards recovery, writes David Rudlin. Spillers Records lays claim to be the oldest record shop in the world. It was established in 1894 selling wax phonograph cylinders and shellac disks not long after these new technologies were invented. I love record shops and visit every time I’m in Cardiff. This I have been doing since the 1990s when much of the store was devoted to CDs although you could tell that their heart wasn’t really in it. In the 2000s Spillers was struggling, and it might have disappeared, were it not for a campaign organised by Owen John Thomas of the Welsh Assembly and the Manic Street Preachers. When I was last there in 2019, it was, once more thriving, riding the wave of the vinyl revival in new premises at the heart of the city’s arcades. The data we have gathered through our research on high streets shows that since 2017 there has been a modest revival in the number of record shops in the UK. This is remarkable when you consider that record shops have seen the almost complete transfer of their product on-line.

Athens, GA | Rock Nobster Sets Up Shop: Of all the dream addresses an Athens-area record dealer could score, proprietor Jimmy Bryant scored about the best one. His record store, Rock Nobster, is located at B, 52 N Main St. in Watkinsville, which can also be written as “52 North Main St., Suite B,” but I like the other way much better, and it’s a certainty Bryant does, too. Anyway, as the newest member of Athens’ record-dealing community, he deserves a shout out. Bryant is to-the-point and hilarious, to boot. In an email to me he said, “Rock Nobster sells vinyl records, CDs, DVDs, cassettes, VHS tapes, 8-tracks, turntables and lunch boxes. We do not sell vintage T-shirts. Please sell us your entire record collection… I have read 1,000 novels, I have seen 1,000 movies, I have been to 1,000 concerts, I have listened to 1,000 records. At least 5,000 works of auditory art are on sale in my store, and I hope you will visit soon.”

Taylor Swift’s ‘Midnights’ becomes best selling record of 2022 so far: Taylor Swift’s latest album Midnights has become the best-selling record of 2022. The singer released her 10th studio album on Friday (21 October), which includes 13 songs telling stories of “sleepless nights” In a record breaking few days, Swift has sold over a million copies of the album in the US, according to Billboard. The last time this feat was achieved was five years ago by Swift herself, when she released her album Reputation. Swift’s vinyl sales are also nearing 500,000, making it the biggest-selling week for an album on the format since 1991 – when modern vinyl sales began to be tracked. The news comes shortly after the star broke streaming service Spotify’s record of most album streams in a day. In the 24 hours after Midnights was released, Spotify announced that it had already broken the record for most-streamed album in a single day.

Miamisburg, OH | New mural in downtown Miamisburg pays tribute to building’s record store past: A new mural in downtown Miamisburg that “took on a life of its own” is being celebrated this week. “The Last Record Shop in America” is an artwork that covers the side of the building at 72 S. Main St. It pays tribute to the building’s past when it was Kondoff’s Records, a shop that sold vinyl records and music publications in the 1950s and 1960s before it closed in 1970. The store sat untouched for years as a time capsule of rock ‘n’ roll, soul, country and gospel, so the mural depicts some of the era’s music legends: the Beatles, David Bowie, Johnny Cash, Bo Diddley, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Billie Holliday, Janis Joplin, Little Richard, Dolly Parton, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra. “I’m thrilled,” said Mike Fink, who along with his brother, Ted, commissioned the mural. “It just jumps out at you.”

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TVD Live Shots: Counting Crows at the Eventim Apollo, 10/20

1993, what a year for music. Back when albums still mattered, this was a pinnacle year with debuts from Tool, The Cranberries, Digable Planets, Radiohead, and The Verve. There were breakthrough sophomore efforts from Mazzy Star, Pearl Jam, Lenny Kravitz, Nirvana, Afghan Whigs, and Smashing Pumpkins, just to name a few.

I was in college and working at a record store when another band showed up in our weekly promo box from the record labels. Before I could crack the seal on the CD, people came in left and right looking for “Mr. Jones.” I looked at my record store colleagues, and we all had the same look on our faces; here we go again. What a time to be alive.

It was a mad rush to keep the band’s debut August and Everything After in stock for the next few months. We hadn’t seen anything like this before this. Hootie and the Blowfish, Coldplay, and Dave Matthews would hit the following year, but this one was different. There wasn’t a particular demographic that wanted this song; it was fucking everybody. It was universally appealing, yet it had substance. It was undeniably a hat tip to Van Morrison and REM, but it wasn’t fake nor a copy. This was going to be the year of the Counting Crows, and there was nothing that would stop it.

I saw the band live on that tour. To be honest, I was there for openers Sam Phillips and Buffalo Tom more than the headliner. Still, I remember staying until the end and thinking Counting Crows were pretty solid. Sam Phillips was breathtaking. Both artists shared the exquisite production skills of legend T Bone Burnett, and one was married to him.

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TVD Radar: Tubular Bells 50th Anniversary Tour: Live At The Royal Festival Hall Blu-ray/ DVD in stores 11/18

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells is one of the most iconic pieces of music ever created. Recorded when Oldfield was just 19 years old, the album was released on May 25, 1973, as the debut album from Virgin Records.

While initial sales were positive, the album became a worldwide phenomenon when the first track was used as part of the soundtrack for The Exorcist. Despite only being featured in a couple of scenes, Tubular Bells has become closely associated with the film, with many referring to it as “the theme of The Exorcist,” and the haunting sounds regularly earning a spot on horror playlists. In the fifty years since its release, the album’s popularity has not waned, racking up more than 17.5 million copies sold and 18 million streams.

Tubular Bells was also a staple of the 2012 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony. Academy Award-winner Danny Boyle, director of the opening, stated that he wanted to make the music the “cornerstone” of a 20-minute sequence of the ceremony. Tubular Bells has regularly appeared in advertisements, television shows, movies, and has been incorporated into live performance by Tori Amos.

In celebration of the album’s 50th anniversary, a live concert performance was held over three days at London’s Royal Festival Hall. The music was accompanied by dance and acrobatic feats by the Circa Contemporary Circus to create a beautiful and memorable experience that truly brings this masterpiece to life. This once-in-a-lifetime performance was captured in 4K and will be coming to home video in both a 2-disc Blu-ray and 2-disc DVD set. Home audiences will be able to experience the unique performance while being treated to a feature-length documentary on the history of the Tubular Bells.

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Graded on a Curve: Like a Rolling Stone: A Memoir by Jann S. Wenner

There was a moment during the Woodstock Music Festival of ’69, when its founder, the 24-year-old Michael Lang, was confronted with a generation-defining decision. People had started to climb the fences surrounding the stage and audience parameters in an attempt to gain entry. Lang had to make a call. Rather than tightening a hold on admittance, he decided in the moment to make Woodstock the free festival it was ultimately meant to be. Nearly half a million people was the ultimate headcount. Lang’s decision was an example of the greater good of enlightened ideas surpassing monetary interest and potential gain, something the hippie counterculture of the 1960s was all about. It is a spiritual-success story in an instance. 

Then there is Jann Wenner, founder of Rolling Stone, the publication created in 1967 that gave voice to the youth culture, the hippies, and leant them a stake in the Real World. The magazine invented a pre-internet meeting place where rock ‘n’ roll was given the reverence that it deserved, in which once could connect with likeminded music-mad people. Last month Jann published his memoir Like a Rolling Stone, a weighty tome surpassing five hundred pages. It came somewhat on the heels of the well-received and somewhat character-damning Sticky Fingers by Joe Hagan, Wenner’s biographer who he eventually parted ways with mid-project.  Like a Rolling Stone is Wenner by Wenner, period.

One of the most immediately identifiable characteristics in his book is his huge ego. In many ways it’s deserved. He was present through the second half of the twentieth century, lived with eyes wide open through the 1960s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, and from a privileged seat and ideal point-of-view. But solely and uniquely, he saw the need to give voice to this collective perspective, that it was worth a try to build a seat of power, and to garner recognition for it from the straight world at large. Rebellion against The Establishment is fantastic, and valid, and provides ample opportunity for creating a new world order—but what better way to rebel than by meeting the enemy on his own ground and forcing him to recognize a worthy adversary.

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TVD Radar: Jack Kerouac, Poetry for the Beat Generation and Blues and Haikus 100th birthday editions in stores 12/9

VIA PRESS RELEASE | The story behind this album, which marked Jack Kerouac’s debut as a recording artist, is almost as fascinating (but not quite) as the performances it contains. Kerouac had completely bombed in his first set during a 1957 engagement at the Village Vanguard when TV personality, comedian, and musician Steve Allen volunteered to accompany him on piano during the second.

The results were so impressive that legendary engineer Bob Thiele then brought the duo into the studio to record an album for Dot Records. In true, stream-of consciousness, Beat fashion, the entire album was cut in one session with one take for each track, Allen’s piano weaving in and out and occasionally commenting on Kerouac’s verbal riffs to great effect.

However, when Poetry for the Beat Generation was ready for release in March 1958, Randy Wood, the president of Dot Records, was appalled by the then-daring language and subject matter and canceled the release—but not before 100 promo copies got out. (And if you have one you’re set for life!)

Thiele then left the company over the dispute and got the master tape in the bargain, which he finally released on the Hanover label which he founded with Allen in June 1959. That release still stands as one of the most momentous spoken word albums not just of the ‘50s but of all time—and we at Real Gone Music are proud to bring it to you in a milky clear vinyl version in Jack Kerouac’s 100th birthday year!

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Graded on a Curve: Moondog, Moondog

A beautiful eccentric residing in mid-20th century NYC, Louis Thomas Hardin aka Moondog also possessed extraordinary musical vision. An associate of Leonard Bernstein, Arturo Toscanini, and Charlie Parker, a collaborator with Julie Andrews and the Brooklyn Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, a key influence on the minimalism of Philip Glass and Steve Reich, covered by Janis Joplin, Kronos Quartet, and Antony and the Johnsons; there was truly nobody else like him. After a handful of singles and EPs his long-playing debut arrived with 1956’s Moondog.

A simply fantastic photograph of Moondog is used for the jacket of the 2LP compilation The Viking of Sixth Avenue; it finds him on a ‘50s Gotham street corner standing in front of a lamppost and decked out in full regalia. He cuts quite an appealing figure, but what makes the snap such a kick is the older couple passing by on his left side.

For other than Dwight and Mamie, one would be hard-pressed to find a better, or perhaps I should say more stereotypical, representation of Eisenhower-era America. The contrast between Moondog and this strolling pair is so sharp that the cynic in me has occasionally suspected the pic was staged in an attempt to play-up the legendary composer’s unconventionality.

This is not to insinuate that Moondog’s image was some sort of con. To the contrary, the legit uniqueness of the man’s background rivals that of sui generis American boho-hobo Harry Partch. Born in 1916, Hardin lived in Kansas, Wyoming, Missouri, Iowa, Arkansas, and Tennessee, with exposure to Native American tribal ceremonies having a profound effect on his art. After moving to NYC in 1943 he lived as a street musician and sporadic recording artist until the early ‘70s.

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In rotation: 10/26/22

Vinyl now matters even more to the music industry: It is the final quarter of 2022 and almost time for Spotify Wrapped – that thrilling rush of data that knows more about your music listening habits than you do yourself. However, my Wrapped will be redundant this year, since at least half of my listening time has migrated to playing vinyl records on the turntable. Statistically, this is impossible to quantify, unless I am to keep a record by hand. Like many other music fans of all ages, vinyl has gripped me. The whole experience of dropping into my local record shops, chatting with the folks at the counter and on the shop floor, browsing the aisles, having a latte, and all the rest of it. Walking out of there on a Friday or Saturday with a couple of new albums tucked under my arm has become a highlight of this post-pandemic lifestyle.

Tucson, AZ | This Tucson record show will have thousands of albums for sale: Need proof that vinyl records are still red hot as collectibles? Talk to Bruce Smith, whose Tucson Record Show returns for its 17th year this Saturday, Oct. 29. Smith, owner of the online record business Cassidy Collectibles, said last year’s show was easily one of the best he’s ever had. Not only were the attendance numbers high, but “nearly all of the sellers I talked to were very pleased and anxious to come back,” he said. Smith is cautiously optimistic that this show will do just as well, with about 20 dealers from across Arizona set to offer tens of thousands of titles from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Fraternal Order of Police Hall, 3445 N. Dodge Blvd. Smith said a little bit of everything will be available: jazz, soul, hip-hop, country. But the most popular titles by far, year after year, are the classic rock albums.

Maplewood, NJ | Elusive Sounds Maplewood to Hold 5th Record Fair + Music Extravaganza Sunday, Nov. 13: Maplewood residents Charles Maggio and Jennifer Klein are hosting the 5th Maplewood Record Fair on Sunday, November 13 from 10AM-4PM at The Woodland. Around 40 vendors will sell items that are music, art, movie, and collectibles related. Patrons will find an eclectic assortment of vinyl records, music paraphernalia, collectibles, vintage clothing, comics, books, and more! Vegan and vegetarian treats available.

Fresno, CA | Fresno Record Show invites all to buy or sell records: The Fresno Record show held its event on Sunday, October 23rd. The event not only invites community members to buy records but also allows them to sell their own collection at the show. The record show is usually held 3-4 times a year but has been on pause for the past couple of years due to the pandemic. The event was held this year at Bentley’s Drum Shop in Fresno, which has been in business for 30 years. The owner, Dana Bentley, says the turnout keeps growing and that this year was the biggest yet now that records are making a big comeback. This is the 8th time the show has been held, and people of all ages were there to find some of their favorite records.

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TVD Radar: Type O Negative, The Origin Of The Feces 2LP, first US vinyl release in stores 11/25

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Type O Negative The Origin Of The Feces (Not Live At Brighton Beach) 30th Anniversary 2LP is Run Out Groove’s new pre-order title.

Type O’s second studio album was recorded in a studio but recorded to sound “live” by adding crowd noises, banter with a fake audience, and even an abrupt song stop because the venue supposedly had received a bomb threat. This was done to mimic the controversy the band faced during the European portion of their Slow, Deep and Hard tour.

This album was also the first time Type O Negative started to include cover songs performed in their distinct sound. The album includes covers of Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid” and Billy Roberts’ “Hey Joe,” which has been re-titled “Hey Pete” in homage to singer, Peter Steele. The reprise of “Kill You Tonight” has a sample of the closing piano strike from The Beatles’ “A Day in the Life.”

For the first stand-alone vinyl release in North America, ROG is reissuing the band’s sophomore effort for its 30h Anniversary. The 140g deluxe 2LP set is pressed on color vinyl, features the original “censored” sphincter cover art with a scratch n’ sniff surprise, deluxe packaging, and an exclusive poster of the famous 1498 woodcut by Albrecht Dürer, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. An extremely limited quantity of a dark green color variant will be available exclusively Run Out Groove and Type O’s webstore while supplies last. We expect to start shipping this title by November 25, 2022.

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TVD Radar: Pharoah Sanders, Karma audiophile vinyl reissue in stores 12/16

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Pharoah Sanders’ classic 1969 album Karma will be pressed on 180-gram black vinyl as part of Verve/UMe’s acclaimed audiophile vinyl reissue series, Acoustic Sounds.

Due for release December 16th, the album is being mastered by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound from the analog tapes and will come housed in a high-quality tip-on deluxe gatefold jacket. Like all Acoustic Sounds releases, production is being supervised by Chad Kassem, CEO of Acoustic Sounds, the world’s largest source for audiophile recordings, and will utilize the unsurpassed production craft of Quality Record Pressings. This reissue honors the late jazz legend who passed away in September at the age of 81 and concludes the series for 2022.

Released in May of 1969, Karma was the tenor saxophonist’s third Impulse! Records album and is now seen as a milestone of the Spiritual Jazz movement. A natural progression in the sonic exploration that Sanders, along with John Coltrane and Alice Coltrane, had spearheaded over the previous five years, the album features two tracks “The Creator Has A Master Plan,” and “Colors.” Filling the entire A-Side of the LP, “Creator” is as close as Spiritual Jazz comes to having its own anthem. Meanwhile, the lone B-side track, “Colors,” is no less transfixing.

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Graded on a Curve:
Helen Reddy,
Helen Reddy’s Greatest Hits (And More)

Remembering Helen Reddy, born on this day in 1941.Ed.

Friends, Romans, Vinyl District readers; I come to praise Helen Reddy, not to bury her in the insulting verbiage many use to unfairly deride her formidable talents. Many have nothing but snide things to say about her, but I do not count myself amongst them; her multitude of AM radio hits—they didn’t call Reddy the “Queen of ‘70s Pop” for nothing—brought me too much happiness in my youth, from the altogether uncanny “Angie Baby” to her landmark feminist anthem “I Am Woman.”

Australia’s Helen Maxine Lamond Reddy has been unfairly consigned to the easy-listening dustbin of history. There’s no denying Reddy generally stuck to the middle of the road. But to steal a phrase from Dylan Thomas, she sang in her chains like the sea. And a careful look at her discography reveals she brought a host of weirdly subversive bunch of songs to the party while she was at it. Lucky for us, they’re all to be found on 1990’s Helen Reddy’s Greatest Hits (And More).

Why buy this comp and not another? I’m glad you asked. First, it includes the funky electric piano-dominated version of “Angie Baby” I grew up listening to on the radio, and not the alternative version to be found on her other best of packages. Second, it includes the dance-floor friendly “I Can’t Hear You No More,” which you won’t find on most of her greatest hits albums. And the same goes for “Happy Girls,” her moving lament to “the lonely girls of the world.”

“Happy Girls” joins a triumvirate of empathetic portraits of woman who are, depending on your point of view, either mad or society’s outcasts. The countrified and gospel-inflected “Delta Dawn” tells the story of a Brownsville woman who wanders the streets wearing “a faded rose from days gone by” looking for a “mysterious brown-haired man” who is going to take her to his “mansion in the sky.” The touched protagonist of the funky and horn-fueled “Leave Me Alone (Ruby Red Dress)” also wanders the town, talking to herself and telling everybody who approaches her to, well, leave her alone.

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UK Artist of the Week: Ch’Lu

This week’s Artist of the Week is London-based artist Ch’Lu—aka Camilla Mathias. Her latest single “I’m Not The Type To Sit & Swipe” is a highly relatable song about the trials and tribulations of online dating.

Ch’Lu has previously been praised by none other than Kate Bush herself, someone whose sound you can clearly hear in Camilla’s work. “I’m Not The Type To Sit & Swipe” combines art-pop and folktronic elements creating a sound that is undeniably enchanting.

Ch’lu is is a classical guitarist, singer, and actress. Her self-produced upcoming album is due for release in 2023 and is funded by Arts Council of England.

“I’m Not The Type To Sit & Swipe” is out now.

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Graded on a Curve: Four from New Land Records

It’s swell when a new jazz reissue label’s choices are inspired rather than predictable. Such is the case with New Land of the UK, which has an expanded 2LP edition of A Modern Jazz Symposium of Music and Poetry with Charlie Mingus coming out October 28. It follows three albums released back in August: Howard McGhee’s Dusty Blue, Gerry Mulligan’s Night Lights, and a self-titled effort by Blue Mitchell. All four are reviewed below, with extra emphasis on the upcoming Mingus set.

It’s just an assumption, and quite possibly wrong, that the New Land label takes its name from Lee Morgan’s masterwork of 1964, Search for the New Land. The reasoning is that Morgan’s album, which sat on the shelf for two years as Blue Note tried to squeeze out a follow-up to Morgan’s 1964 instrumental hit “The Sidewinder.”

Featuring a unimpeachable sextet (trumpeter-composer Morgan, tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter, pianist Herbie Hancock, guitarist Grant Green, bassist Reggie Workman, and drummer Billy Higgins, Search for the New Land is a highwater mark in modern jazz, but more to the point, it was a record that came into existence without the expectations of a masterpiece attached, as its reputation has grown over the years.

It’s easy to speculate that the four records reissued by New Land benefitted from a similar lack of pressure in their making, even as Dusty Blue, originally issued by Bethlehem in 1961, was something of a comeback for the crucial Bop-era trumpeter Howard McGhee, whose return to the recording studio after a decade struggling with drug addiction found him in top-notch company: Tommy Flanagan on piano, Roland Alexander on tenor sax and flute, Pepper Adams on baritone sax, Bennie Green on trombone, Ron Carter on bass, and Walter Bolden on drums.

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In rotation: 10/25/22

Medicine Hat, AB | Sound Lovers holding grand opening at new location: Sound Lovers Audio Video has a new location with a grand opening coming up next week on Oct. 28 and 29. Manufacturer representatives will be at the store to answer questions and talk to people, and refreshments from King Bagel will be available. For owner, John Foubert, the grand opening is more about where the store is currently at. “I started out at home and then moved to the lower level of the Arcade Plaza,” he said. One record store left and the other, along with Foubert, left a short time later. His new location used to be Adam’s Jewellers, and Audio Excellence was two doors down. “It’s a good location, people remember it.” Foubert says he bought some comfortable chairs for customers to sit in and the walls have absorbent panels and wooden diffusers on them. About 30 per cent of the wall should be covered and it’s trial and error to find a happy balance.

Belmar, NJ | Lofidelic Records hosts groovy shows and offers lo-fi, vintage vinyl: “We love having this shop because we’ve got to meet a whole bunch of people who are into the same hobby that we are,” David Hernandez owner. Whether it’s a vinyl record spinning or an up-and-coming band jamming, when you walk by Lofidelic Records on Main Street you’ll be sure to hear some groovy music coming from the shop. Lofidelic Records, named after lo-fi music quality and ‘delic,’ referring to psychedelic and funkadelic, is a vinyl shop located at 904 Main Street that offers thousands of both new and vintage vinyl records. …David Hernandez, the shop’s owner, said he’d decided to start selling vinyl records after he was fired from his corporate job in 2017. “To be honest I never liked selling records, I had a huge collection in my basement… I only liked buying records,” Hernandez said. “Once I was fired from my job, I was looking around my basement and I started to get the idea of ‘What if I started selling these records?’ And that idea kind of planted the seed and I researched it and researched it, and it took off from there.”

Detroit, MI | Go retro at this record store: Shop in Royal Oak sells vinyl, cassette tapes and more. Albums, 45s, CDs, cassettes, DVDs, VHS tapes and more… If it’s old school, retro media, you are going to find it at Solo Records, a gem of a shop on Woodward Ave. in Royal Oak. Solo Records has been in business for 41 years, according to the shop’s owner Lorna Kuschel. When you walk into the store, you’ll find vintage t-shirts and notice art and posters on the wall, but it’s the music that will catch your eyes and ears. You can rummage through rows of albums and look for vintage finds. Solo Records manager Heath Craig described the shop as having a little bit of everything. The music ranges from The Beatles to Archie Bell & The Drells, Alice Cooper, George Benson, Dave Brubeck, Ella Fitzgerald, and many others. While appearing on “Live In The D”, Solo Records also showcased an original copy of “Steamin’ with the Miles Davis Quintet.” One customer, Eric, calls Solo Records a “unique place” and always finds something different when he visits.

New York, NY | Razor-n-Tape’s flagship shop opens in Greenpoint: Greenpoint’s music scene is growing yet again — this weekend, Razor-N-Tape is opening at 110 Meserole Ave. This opening marks the first brick-and-mortar space for Razor-N-Tape, a prolific and Brooklyn-rooted dance music label that was founded in 2012 by Jason Kriv and Aaron Dae and features a worldwide roster of artists. The space will be open Fridays through Sundays for buying vinyl, merch, DJ accessories, and more, and will serve as a home base for Razor-N-Tape operations throughout the rest of the week. Starting today, October 21, the shop will feature a weekend of opening events and live music at their boutique DJ booth in-store from 12 to 8 p.m. daily. Jason Kriv, co-owner of Razor-N-Tape and co-founder of Hot Honey Sundays, describes the birth of the new flagship location as something akin to the kind of fate that only seems to happen in Brooklyn.

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The Fall 2022 DC Record Fair in Photos

PHOTOS: RACHEL LANGE | The DC Record Fair returned to Eaton DC on October 16th, 2022. The usual attractions—drinks, DJs, and the best of the waxmongers from all around the DMV—took over the second-floor exhibition space, with a special preview of what’s to come at next month’s Capital Audiofest, which runs from November 11–13th at the Twinbrook Hilton in Rockville.

The District always brings out a strong showing of hip-hop, blues, soul, funk, and punk, and a few hours’ crate-digging doubles as a crash course in the sonic history of the city. However, the 2022 turnout skewed younger and more diverse than ever before, and sellers came prepared with a healthy inventory of alternative, indie, pop, and new releases.

It’s a snapshot of the vinyl resurgence in action, veteran collectors bumping elbows—literally—with teens and twentysomething neophytes on the hunt for the freshest pressing of their favorite artist. But classic acts and albums are finding a new audience, too. A young couple on my left is delighted to find one of the two dozen copies of Bridge Over Troubled Water floating around, while a redhead with a nose ring on my right wants the Replacements and only the Replacements.

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  • SUPPORTING YOUR LOCAL INDIE SHOPS SINCE 2007


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