Monthly Archives: January 2023

TVD Radar: The Podcast with Evan Toth, Episode 96: Esperanza Spalding

Modern music listeners enjoy creating personalized playlists containing their preferred musicians and genres, but there’s one thing lacking: the expertly guiding hand of a radio station’s program director—or, even better—a tasteful DJ behind the microphone who loves to share favorite tunes, but also introduces listeners to new music that is worthy of addition to your personal faves. But, current culture has sacrificed the serendipitous nature of the radio in favor of complete control over musical choices, or—even worse—the choices of a faceless corporate AI bot.

Bassist and composer, Esperanza Spalding understands the mystery and magic that a spin of your local radio dial can provide, and in 2012 she released an album paying homage to the spirit of radio. Produced by Esperanza and co-produced by A Tribe Called Quest’s Q-Tip, Radio Music Society showcased the breadth of Spalding’s musical aptitude and inhabited the rare musical landscape of being challenging, yet also a lot of fun to listen to.

It’s been 10 years and the Grammy award-winning album finds itself eligible for reissue by Craft Recordings and is given the full anniversary treatment featuring 2 LPs pressed on 180-gram vinyl at RTI. The title will also be reissued in hi-res digital audio. Esperanza and I discuss the continuing role of radio in her current life and she offers a unique and descriptive behind-the-scenes peek into her production and composing process. We also explore her complimentary role as an educator and, of course, delve into what makes vinyl special to her. So, let’s turn the radio dial and search for some serendipity.

Evan Toth is a songwriter, professional musician, educator, radio host, avid record collector, and hi-fi aficionado. Toth hosts and produces The Evan Toth Show and TVD Radar on WFDU, 89.1 FM. Follow him at the usual social media places and visit his website.

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Graded on a Curve:
Luke Haines,
New York in the ‘70s

Luke Haines is your classic English eccentric. Following the disbanding of his Britpop band The Auteurs and between a stint with Black Box Recorder, the notoriously irascible Haines has released numerous songs about musicians, artists and miscellaneous, and a series of concept albums. One, released in 1996 under the name Baader-Meinhof, brilliantly chronicles the history of the infamous German terrorist group, while another takes a headlock on British professional wrestling (2011’s remarkable 9 1/2 Psychedelic Meditations on British Wrestling of the 1970s & Early ’80s.) The man’s interests are Catholic, to say the least.

But the Haines concept LP with the broadest audience appeal is undoubtedly 2014’s New York in the ‘70s. On it Haines expresses his love for the NYC punk, literary and art scenes, and over the course of the album he name drops everyone from Suicide’s Alan Vega, the New York Dolls, the Ramones, Lou Reed, William Burroughs, Jim Carroll, Richard Hell, and I may have missed some. Conspicuous by their absence are Patti Smith (no big loss), Andy Warhol, Jayne County, Debbie Harry, Television, and the Talking Heads.

The LP opens with the slow “Alan Vega Says” (a tribute to Lou Reed’s “Candy Says” and “Lisa Says,” most likely). Haines is a one-man band on New York in the ‘70s, and on this one he uses keyboards and guitar to chronicle Vega’s days in the Chelsea Hotel. Vegas name drops Sharon Tate, Marilyn, and Elvis, and the song’s key line is “Alan Vegas says it’s going to be a great hit/If Alan says so it probably is.” And the following track, the bottom heavy and fuzzed-out “Drone” is a straight-up tribute to Vegas’ band Suicide and its unique sound.

The title track—which features a repetitive guitar riff, one spazzed-out synthesizer, and glam vocals—is a slow and simple tribute to a period we’ll never see the likes of again. When Haines isn’t repeating the title over and over again he tosses off lines like “American days become American nights/We’re going to have fun with the scary transvestites, oh!” and “Everybody’s gay or bisexual/A man called Jim getting experimental.” On the fast-paced “Jim Carroll” Haines goes downtown with the poet, rocker, and junkie who penned The Basketball Diaries and the super-bummer “People Who Died,” and over the course of the song Haines has Carroll say things like “Coke is just meth dressed up in drag” and “They put a man up in space/And I can’t even score in St. Mark’s Place.”

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In rotation: 1/27/23

St. John’s, UK | Record store and coffee shop opens second store: Even Flow, a record shop and coffee house, plans to build on the success of its store in St John’s and open a second shop in the town. Opening this weekend (January 28-29), at Ely Court on Camden Road, part of the Royal Victoria Place (RVP) shopping centre, the store will offer live music and discounts on records and drinks. The new shop will be serving hot coffees and home-made baked goods, along with a vast selection of second-hand records. Even Flow owner Matthew Lord said: “We want to create a music hub and hangout for the local community and visitors to our town. “We will give local musicians an opportunity to showcase their talent, and hopefully entice customers to enjoy a drink and listen to some cool tunes.” Some staff will move from the original shop to RVP, alongside some new hires, he said. “We have recruited some awesome new team members for both shops. We’ll have a total of 13 staff.

Portland, OR | Portland’s Music Millennium Leads The Pack In Keeping It Weird, Friendly & Freshly Stocked: The city of Portland is arguably the most misunderstood city in the United States. Much like a lot of major cities, locals and their small businesses are being priced out of their homes to make room for transplants and trendy new shops. There are a few and proud Portland originals who want to keep the city authentic and weird, Music Millennium is one of those shops. Since 1969, the good people over at the oldest record shop in the Pacific Northwest have made it their mission to introduce niche, exciting music to the city. Over 50 years and a few drastic changes to the city later, Music Millennium refuses to turn its backs on the city and still stands as a monument to the Portland they grew up loving. Glide had the pleasure of talking with Terry Currier, the current owner of Music Millennium to discuss the shop’s impact on the city, its humble beginnings, and much more.

Grand Forks, ND | A Night Filled With Live Music: With records to my right and comics to my left, my friend and I entered Ojata Records for the first time. It was smaller than I thought it would be with crates upon crates creating a narrow pathway from the hotdogs in the back to the stage in the front. The record store felt smaller than before with the two of us in the building. I felt that uncomfortable feeling of “do I belong?” whenever one enters a new place. We wandered the narrow shop looking for anything shiny to occupy us until the music started. A group of 30 to 40-year-olds sat chatting happily as we thumbed through the 25 cent records. Frank Sinatra smirked from his $64.99 album record as we examined the more modestly priced “Catholic Girls’ Choir” album. We did not mind as we were saving our money for something special.

Brighton, UK | The Murder Capital play live in Brighton record shop: Anybody walking past Kensington Gardens in the North Laine of Brighton on Sunday evening couldn’t miss the long queue forming outside Resident Records for The Murder Capital’s instore session. The Murder Capital released their second album ‘Gigi’s Recovery’ on 20th January and were promoting it with a record store tour and signing sessions around the UK and Ireland. Back in 2019 I saw The Murder Capital’s instore at Resident for their debut album ‘When I Have Fears’, which was a very lively affair. Singer James McGovern and one of the guitarists ended up performing standing on the counter at that session. Fast forward three and half years, Sunday’s session was much calmer. At 6:44pm The Murder Capital emerged from the back of the store to start their acoustic session.

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TVD Live Shots: Sleep Token at the Eventim Apollo, 1/22

Sleep Token is on a tear across the UK at the moment, selling out gigs left and right, playing their biggest headlining shows to date, and putting themselves on the map as the next big thing in metal—but is the hype real?

If you’ve been living under a proverbial heavy metal rock for the past year, it may seem that Sleep Token have seemingly come out of nowhere, but that’s not the case. They’ve been around since 2016 and have two critically acclaimed albums under their belt. You could say they’ve paid their dues and played the game exactly right, sticking to their guns, consistently releasing songs that one up the other, and patiently waiting for the moment when it all comes together. That moment is 2023.

Their music is often described as a blend of heavy metal and ethereal vocals, but that’s taking the easy way out. There’s much more to unpack here, starting with a vocalist who can hit some serious notes, taking his range in places that only a handful of other metal, or even pop, singers can go. Simply known as Vessel, his real identity is not publicly known. Of course, a ton of speculation and several Reddit threads go down this rabbit hole, which can be a fun read.

But the fact that he’s still “unknown” in this day and age may just be because the fans want and need that bit of mystery across a space where every single detail of everyday life is shared and amplified via social media. I would argue it also provides much more musical freedom in creativity and experimentation, as there is no face or excessive image for one to judge. (The band generally doesn’t do interviews or talk to the press.) That must be gratifying in itself.

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New Release Section: Josephine Foster, “Pendulum”

VIA PRESS RELEASE | For her austere new album Domestic Sphere, Josephine Foster performs solely with her electric guitar and then subverts the usual range of her voice to embody other frequencies and sounds beyond the surface layer of the songs.

“Since first hearing it, I’ve been listening to Domestic Sphere on repeat. It cuts through every bad feeling I’ve been having and sends me into a place I want to live in always, which is art itself. Josephine Foster communes so completely with every sound on the record, with the past and the future, animals and insects and birds, those so tenderly dead, and those of us who are alive. I don’t say it lightly: listening to the record is a transcendent experience. It’s an exorcism, one that exorcises you.” —Amina Cain

Josephine Foster’s Domestic Sphere is an altar cloth of songs stitched together as liturgical music for a restless homestead, whose values insist simply that everything is music and that our daily life is a sacred, innately creative practice. In such a world creaking doors reveal natural orchestras with wailing cats in service of melodic collaborations with Tennessee songbirds, Foster’s world is an extra-sensory radio play in two acts, where songs overlay structures like creeping vines.

“Domestic Sphere is also a seance by song. Josephine channels sounds from her interior and exterior landscapes, whether integrating field recordings reflecting daily life in a Spanish village and other moments in her life as a nomadic musician, or, as in one tender cameo, the voice of her great-grandmother comes from the other side, framed in a union aided by her co-production with Daniel Blumberg. These songs are vigils, melodies sung intently, to be set aflame and sung off with the wind.”
Chris Davis

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TVD Radar: Fred Davis, Cleveland Blues in stores this Spring

VIA PRESS RELEASE | A letter from Eli “Paperboy” Reed: “Fred Davis was a legend, but only in my living room. My Dad told me about him. He could play like T-Bone Walker and sang in a high, keen voice like J.B. Lenoir. In the summer of 1969, while the Cuyahoga river fire burned, he worked alongside my Dad at Harco, the Cleveland factory where my grandfather was an executive. They became friends, bonding over the Bobby Bland records blaring from the AM radio on the factory floor.

Fred taught my Dad the rudiments of blues guitar, but his style. Fred could play up and down the neck and, even when he played and sang just by himself, he sounded like a full band. Or, at least, so the legend went. These were only foggy memories from thirty years previous, passed down from a father to a son.

But then we found the tape, a quarter inch reel in a plain white cardboard box. Recordings of Fred that my Dad had made in my grandparents living room more than 50 years ago. The idea was that maybe if there were some recordings of Fred that he could use them to get booked on the nascent college blues-revival circuit, but it wasn’t to be.

My Dad went on to college in Boston and Fred stayed in Cleveland, fronting his own band ‘Dave & The Blues Express’ until he met a tragic end: Shot and killed during a stickup at liquor store. If it weren’t for the tape, Fred ‘Dave’ Davis might be forgotten, but with its release, the legend can finally go behind the confines of my living room and, with any luck, to the whole world.”
Eli “Paperboy” Reed, Fall 2022

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Graded on a Curve: Sightless Pit,
Lockstep Bloodwar

Formerly a trio, Rhode Island’s experimental-industrial-electronic-metallic noise-niks Sightless Pit have scaled it down to the twosome of Lee Buford (The Body) and Dylan Walker (Full of Hell). But if reduced in membership, the duo’s approach has considerably expanded through the inclusion of numerous guests on their new full length Lockstep Bloodwar, which is out on limited edition clear with white and blue swirl vinyl, compact disc, and digital January 27 through Thrill Jockey. The collaborators include claire rousay, YoshimiO of Boredoms, Gangsta Boo (RIP) of Three 6 Mafia, Midwife, Lane Shi Otayonii of Elizabeth Colour Wheel, and Frukwan of Gravediggaz/Stetsasonic.

Sightless Pit’s Grave of a Dog came out in February of 2020, the handiwork of Lee Buford and Dylan Walker in consort with Kristin Hayter (Lingua Ignota). Frequently pummeling and abrasive, at other times textural, and with clearly defined passages of beauty in the equation, the record established Sightless Pit as far more than just unrelentingly harsh and thematically bleak.

The beauty moves on their debut were most often tied to the voice of Hayter, and her exit might lead those familiar with Grave of a Dog to assume there’d be a heightening of the uncompromising nature of Sightless Pit’s sound. Like, for one example, the vocalizations, which are reminiscent of an incensed pack of demons freshly unleashed from the deepest crannies of hell.

There’s still plenty of that on Lockstep Bloodwar, indeed right away in opening track “Resin on a Knife,” but the interaction with the impressive cadre of guest contributors takes the record into some fruitfully unexpected regions. “Resin on a Knife” integrates the vocals of Midwife (aka Madeline Johnston) to a surprisingly pop-tinged result that productively contrasts with the cut’s streams of static, rhythmic thud and reverberating electro-bass.

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In rotation: 1/26/23

Newcastle, UK | A now-vanished Newcastle record store was getting ready to open its doors: The retailer was one of dozens, big and small, that would soon begin trading in Newcastle’s new giant shopping centre, Eldon Square. …It was February 27, 1976, and the staff at WH Smith were making last-minute preparations for the new store’s opening a week later. The retailer was one of dozens, big and small, that would soon begin trading in Newcastle’s giant pioneering shopping centre, Eldon Square. Opening on Thursday, March 4, the sprawling complex at once revolutionised the retail experience on Tyneside. Billing itself at “the most modern shopping centre in Europe – in the heart of Newcastle”, it brought the indoor American mall experience to North East England. …WH Smith would be situated on the left, just past the main Grey’s Monument entrance to Eldon Square. It sold newspapers, books and magazines on the ground floor – and there was also an in-store travel agent. Upstairs you would find records and cassettes – and countless thousands of us would flock there.

Frederick, MD | Record Exchange owner ready to play new tune; store to open Feb. 4: When the Record Exchange was damaged during a fire in August, owner Sam Lock said, he was ready to work at Home Depot. “I was like,‘You got to pay the mortgage in six days,’’’ he said. “’What are you going to do?’” But the Frederick community rallied behind him. Overnight, the GoFundMe page he started racked up $15,000, he said. With that money, Lock could rent out a new storefront at 410 N. Market St. He’s been fixing it up since September 2022. He said the new Record Exchange is scheduled to open Feb. 4, coinciding with the Fire in Ice First Saturday event. “There’s been so many kind gestures from every angle,” he said. “I couldn’t have done it without any of them.” On Aug. 24, 2022, a fire tore through a building in downtown Frederick, damaging apartments, the Record Exchange and Tiara Day, a store at the corner of North Market and West Second streets. The damage in the store was not from fire, but from water that seeped through the ceiling and poured into the store.

Empire Records Started With A True Story Told To Carol Heikkinen: Creative people can find inspiration from a wide variety of places. Stepping out of your comfort zone, nature, personal or physical obstacles, and the arts are just a few areas that could lead to your next great creation. But more often than not, you need not look further than the people and places around you to find your next story or characters. And that’s exactly what screenwriter Carol Heikkinen did when she wrote the script for “Empire Records.” The cult classic teen movie about a group of young people that work at a record store was based on her days as an employee at the Tower Records in Phoenix, Arizona’s Christown Mall. The first draft was written on spec over the course of a few weeks and was sold about a week after completion in a bidding war. But that version of the story was pretty different from the one that ended up onscreen. While it was still a character-driven teen dramedy, some of the film’s most memorable moments and themes didn’t come until the second draft.

Fort Wayne, IN | Jan. 25 – Smoky’s Fort Wayne record shop for sale: Cheri Toscos knows a diamond in the rough when she sees it. And last year she saw the potential in the late Charles “Smoky” Montgomery’s Smoky’s Records & Tours building on Wells Street. “When I went in, I felt a great vibe from the location,” Toscos, the owner of Toscos Properties, said. She bought the building at 1632 N. Wells St. in October 2021, much to the amazement of her contractor who saw the roughness of the inside of a building that sat vacant for over a decade. “I love the history,” the Fort Wayne native said. “I invest in a lot of different properties in downtown, so I bought it so I could renovate it and renovate the (upstairs 2-bedroom) apartment” for rental income. She owns several properties in the West Central area along with the Charles F. Muhler House at 604 W. Wayne St. …The sale listing includes vinyl records from the store. She currently has about 200. Several hundred more weren’t salvageable, with mildew on them or they were broken, she said. “Most of the records had been taken out prior to the sale,” she said.

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TVD Live Shots: The Disco Biscuits at the House of Blues, 1/18

“I heard from an inside source that tonight’s show is gonna be a banger,” I caught one fan saying to another shortly before the start of The Disco Biscuits’ first set at the House of Blues Cleveland. Turns out the fan’s source was legit, as there were no holdbacks for the kickoff of Bisco’s winter tour.

The dance floor was bouncing from the first note of “Mulberry’s Dream” and didn’t stop until the last note of “Story of the World.” In between they surprised the crowd with “Plan B,” which hadn’t been played for 103 shows, as well as a pretty epic version of “Shocked.”

Next up for the Philly quartet is a mini-east coast tour kicking off February 1st in Burlington, Vermont.

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TVD Radar: EELS
catalog vinyl reissues
in stores 3/17

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Critically acclaimed rock group, EELS is today announcing the limited-edition vinyl reissues of their earlier records, Hombre Lobo, End Times, and Tomorrow Morning which will be released via E Works/[PIAS] on March 17. Alongside the news, EELS is also sharing “Anything For Boo” (Unplugged – Gentle Souls 2021 KCRW Session).

EELS will hit the road this Spring for the long-awaited Lockdown Hurricane tour of Europe and North America, starting March 26 in Nottingham, UK. Available at the live shows only, EELS will be releasing two new very limited vinyl editions of two live sessions—Live at Largo (2019) and Gentle Souls: 2021 KCRW Session. These will be unique to the tour and not available anywhere else. The reissues and new live records follow EELS’ critically acclaimed 2022 record, Extreme Witchcraft which found praise at MOJO, NME, The New York Times, Stereogum, SPIN and more.

EELS have had one of the most consistently acclaimed careers in music. The ever-changing project of principal singer/songwriter E (Mark Oliver Everett), EELS have released 14 studio albums since their 1996 debut, Beautiful Freak. In 2008 E published his highly acclaimed book Things the Grandchildren Should Know and starred in the award-winning Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives documentary about the search to understand his quantum physicist father, Hugh Everett III.

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Graded on a Curve:
Joni Mitchell,
The Asylum Albums
1971–1975

It is fitting that Joni Mitchell – The Asylum Albums 1971-1975, a four-album box set, is being released at this time. Mitchell’s miraculous recovery from a series of life-threatening health scares and her return to performing at the Newport Folk Festival in July of 2022, have rekindled interest in her remarkable career. Tentative plans for possible multiple live dates have been rumored, as have possible new recordings.

For the past several years there have been a plethora of reissues, primarily previously unreleased live tracks and a host of demos and other releases, under the moniker of the Joni Mitchell Archive Series. This new box is very much a follow-up to the four-album The Reprise Albums 1968-1971 box released in 2021, that included her first four albums Song To A Seagull (1968), Clouds (1969), Ladies Of The Canyon (1970), and Blue (1971). Those four albums primarily represented Mitchell’s early folk-based recordings, that gradually became slightly more expansive, culminating in her iconic, quintessential singer-songwriter watershed Blue album.

This new box set picks up where Blue left off, but Mitchell’s shift to Asylum was significant. While Reprise was a home for artists like Mitchell, fellow Canadian Neil Young and others, Asylum, launched by David Geffen, was the kind of artist-centric boutique label that could offer Mitchell the creative space and special attention to her music that she craved. At the time, Asylum was the de-facto home of California singer-songwriter-based pop-rock and laid-back LA cool. Geffen signed the Eagles and Jackson Browne to his label and poached Linda Ronstadt from Capitol.

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TVD Radar: John Hicks Trio, I’ll Give You Something To Remember Me By first ever vinyl reissue in stores 2/24

VIA PRESS RELEASE | In the late 1980s, the renowned American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger John Hicks formed one of the most influential ensembles consisting out of musicians that had played music at the highest level all their lives and gained their status as both stand-alone artists and important sidemen.

Each of them had participated in many of jazz’s great moments and all shared the ability, documented on many albums, to inspire their fellow musicians to even greater heights. The “John Hicks Trio” had several line-up changes over the years that included greats such as Clifford Barbaro (Strata East, Blue Note, Sun Ra Arkestra, Charles Tolliver), Clint Houston (Prestige, Nina Simone, Roy Ayers, Azar Lawrence), Ray Drummond (Freddie Hubbard, Art Blakey, Lalo Schifrin), Marcus McLaurine (Muse, Verve, Weldon Irvine, Kool & The Gang), and Victor Lewis (Steve Grossman, Stan Getz, Charles Mingus, Cedar Walton, Chet Baker).

On the album we are presenting you today, I’ll Give You Something To Remember Me By from 1988 the trio consists out of some of the biggest and best players in the jazz, funk and soul scenes: On piano we have the Atlanta based trio’s bandleader John Hicks (1941-2006). He served as a leader on more than 30 albums and played as a sideman on more than 300 other recordings.

After being taught piano by his mother, Hicks went on to study at Lincoln University of Missouri, Berklee College of Music, and the Julliard School. After playing with a number of different artists during the early ’60s (including Oliver Nelson and being part of Pharoah Sanders’s first band) he joined Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers in 1964. In the early ’70s he taught jazz history and improvisation at Southern Illinois University before resuming his career as a recording artist. Next to his many solo recordings for labels such as Strata East and Concord, Hicks would collaborate with all the big names in the scene, including Archie Shepp, Mingus and Alvin Queen. In 2014 & 2015, J Dilla paid homage to John Hicks by sampling two of his songs.

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Graded on a Curve:
Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis with Shirley Scott, Cookin’ with Jaws and the Queen

Credited to tenor saxophonist Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis with organist Shirley Scott, Craft Recordings’ 4LP/4CD/digital set Cookin’ with Jaws and the Queen: The Legendary Prestige Cookbook Albums offers 23 tracks cut during three 1958 sessions recorded by Rudy Van Gelder and first released as three separate Cookbook volumes and the Smokin’ LP between ’58–’64. The 180 gram vinyl is limited to 5,000 copies with the records housed in individual jackets replicating those original sleeves. The CD edition has three bonus tracks from the same sessions. The music is early soul jazz personified, in stores February 3.

A curious jazz newbie might be wondering if this set is an overabundance of goodness. To which I will retort that Cookin’ with Jaws and the Queen offers thorough documentation of a sharp as brass tacks quintet from inside a concise timeframe; the first session occurred on June 20, the second on September 12, and the third on December 5 of 1958, with Davis and Scott joined by Jerome Richardson on flute, tenor, and baritone sax, George Duvivier on bass, and Arthur Edgehill on drums.

For this reissue, Davis and Scott are given equal credit, and deservedly so, but on initial release it was the saxophonist who received top billing, which is also understandable, as Scott was relatively new on the scene while Davis had been a member of Count Basie’s orchestra twice, along with cutting a string of records as leader or co-leader, as was the case with The Battle of Birdland with fellow tenor Sonny Stitt, issued in 1955 by the Roost label.

But in fact, Scott was indeed given a “Featuring” credit on two prior albums with Davis’s trio (with Duvivier and Edgehill), one released by Roost and the other by Roulette, both in ’58. What this imparts is how the addition of Richardson deepened a core that was already rock solid through experience. This is vitally important, as the group knocked out 26 tracks in three days spaced out over half a year.

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In rotation: 1/25/23

Bribie Island, AU | Beloved Vinyl Store Closes: Jason and family at Surfside Wax Records on Bribie Island announced the store’s sad closure. Surfside Wax Records closed its doors for good this weekend after 26 years of selling vinyl on Bribie Island, QLD. Business owner Jason Broomham made the announcement on Facebook about the beloved store, writing, “To all of you that have been customers, friends and colleagues I would like to thank you all for your support, your friendship and being apart of something that I have loved doing so much. As I always said the hardest part of my day was choosing what music to play, I loved what I did and all of you are the reason why I did.” Broomham added that all stock and electronics have been sold to Marty at Revived Audio, who “runs a market stall at Carseldine Markets on Saturday’s and Caboolture Markets on Sunday’s.” The owner also noted that Marty is “a great person to deal with” and “very passionate about vinyl and hi fi equipment.”

Larchmont, NY | NY orthodontist opens record store for charity: ‘This is a passion’ Sometimes in life, people wear a couple of different hats. Dr. Garrett Weston is an orthodontist in Larchmont, New York. He’s also a music lover and a record collector. His grandfather set him on that path. His father too. “He was like one of those Maxell commercials from back in the ’70s where he’d be sitting in that chair between speakers as big as I was when I was a kid and put things on the turntable, and he had a massive collection of jazz and classical and rock,” he said. Weston was laser focused. “Every summer I would try to get a job at the local record stores,” he added. “And every summer they’d say like, ‘dude so many kids want to work in the record store, I’ll call you,’ and they never did.” Life moved on. Weston started fixing smiles, but the love of music lingered. “That old idea of working in a record store, having a record store, and just seeing how vinyl was starting to make a resurgence and being really excited about the fact that that was happening and wanting to be a part of it, and thinking, Larchmont needs a record store, and I’ve got the space,” Weston said.

Westmeath, IE | Local Lives: Chance visit to record shop led Gerry to life in music: Originally from Crosshaven in Cork, Gerry Crowley has lived in Mullingar on and off since the 1990s. Two chance encounters in two different record stores would dramatically alter the course of his life. The first happened in 1977 when Gerry was 18 years old, had just finished his Leaving Cert, and was planning to study business in college. “One day I went into a record shop in Cork, and I just got chatting to the guy who owned the shop and he said, ‘Do you want a part-time job?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, ok,’… So I never bothered going to college… I just loved the whole buzz of a record shop.” Back then, “record shops were meeting points for people and they’d come in and chat… have a cup of coffee at the counter and have a cigarette.” The part-time job became full-time “almost immediately” and Gerry stayed there for three years. He is still in touch with one of the owners, Ursula, who was “great fun.”

SG | Vinyl record collecting is having a resurgence in Singapore – what does ‘stan culture’ have to do with it? From Teresa Teng to Billie Eilish, record collecting is enjoying a renaissance in Singapore. We asked the folks at Roxy Records, Wildflower Wax Co and Vinyl Kakis – who’s buying them and, more importantly, why? When he was 20, Tan E-Reng bought his first vinyl record, Pet Shop Boys’ Disco. It was meant to be a gift for his father but “funnily enough, the vinyl renaissance bug never caught my dad”, he recalled. “So I ended up being the one listening to the record more.” Four years later, he boasts a collection of 121 records, ranging from classics such as “the odd The Police record” to rarities such as vaporwave classic Floral Shoppe. “I have always just felt an affinity with having a physical copy of something, be it with books, music or art,” explained the 24-year-old music student, who added that he’s been funding his vinyl collecting bug with his part-time job as a music production teacher. And he’s far from the only one who’s been amassing records in Singapore – just a quick Google search and a scroll through listicles of cool things to do here reveals an abundance of record stores.

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New Release Section: Josh Ritter, “Sawgrass” and “For Your Soul”

VIA PRESS RELEASE | “I think it’s important for us to share some of our most basic and common experiences with each other, however we can. That’s what we really, really need right now. I know we have common experiences, and it’s important to telegraph those back because they don’t have to be lonely experiences.”Josh Ritter

Renowned singer, songwriter, musician, artist and best-selling author Josh Ritter will release his anticipated new album, Spectral Lines, April 28 via Thirty Tigers—pre-order here. In advance of the release, two album tracks are debuting today: “Sawgrass” and “For Your Soul.” Watch a video for both songs, created by flatspot and filmed in Alaska and Brooklyn below.

Produced by Ritter’s longtime collaborator Sam Kassirer (Lake Street Dive, Langhorne Slim), Spectral Lines finds Ritter expanding beyond the bounds of his previous work to create a record both atmospheric and profound. Dedicated to the memory of his mother, Ritter searches for commonality across these ten seamless tracks by exploring life’s most universal ideas—love, devotion and what it means to be connected, to both each other and to ourselves.

One of today’s most thoughtful and prolific voices, Ritter has released ten studio albums including 2019’s widely acclaimed, Fever Breaks, of which NPR Music praised, “He remains a hydrant of ideas while embodying an endless capacity for empathy and indignation, often within a single song.”

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