Inside Tokyo Record Bar, the Manhattan Homage to Japan’s Vinyl Lounges: In Tokyo, a specific style of bar has become increasingly popular: tiny, beautiful places that play records on vinyl and serve fine Japanese whisky. This type of establishment (see: JBS, Bar Martha, Track) considers what you hear as important as what you eat, and though it can feel a little austere, it’s undeniably appealing. Ariel Arce wants to make it clear that Tokyo Record Bar, her underground space on Macdougal Street that opens on August 31, is not that. “As a Jewish woman opening a Japanese-style space, I have to reiterate, this is an homage,” she says. “It’s a place where you can go and bask in the glory of someone’s obsessive appreciation of music. It’s our take on things that we find to be really tasty and fun.”
Consumers turning in their droves to tried and true format: Nick Mally of Pacific Records in Mona Vale said most of his customers were men aged between 40 and 60 trying to rebuild their collections after giving them away. “But there are also teenagers who buy from the three-for-$10 bins,” he said. “They are listening to some really weird stuff that I even think I’m too young for”…“It’s the whole thing — rather than just plugging in a USB or an iPod dock,” he said. “There is a process in playing an LP, and an experience you feel, that is more than just pressing a button — and away it goes in the background.”
Blank City Records revives vinyl art of pressing music on vintage medical X-rays: New LA-based record label Blank City Records are reviving the vintage art of pressing music on medical x-rays, paying tribute to the Soviet hipsters in the 1940’s who struggled to smuggle music into Soviet Union during the 1940s-1950s…In 1946 Boris Taigin and Ruslan Bugaslovski invented a record cutting machine sourced from scavenged tool parts, using a method of using discarded X-rays and pressing grooves onto thick, soft plastic, making a secret record. “They would cut the X-ray into a crude circle with manicure scissors and use a cigarette to burn a hole,” says author Anya von Bremzen. “You’d have Elvis on the lungs, Duke Ellington on Aunt Masha’s brain scan — forbidden Western music captured on the interiors of Soviet citizens.”
With Amoeba Records’ Hollywood location in limbo, what’s the fate of music retail on Sunset? If Amoeba is forced to move, it won’t be the first time that Sunset Boulevard has lost a major music retailer. But depending on where Amoeba lands, it could mark the first time in more than 75 years that the boulevard won’t be home to a music superstore. Before Amoeba, West Hollywood’s Tower Records reigned supreme. Until it shuttered in 2006, Tower served as the go-to spot for fans, artists and the music industry during the LP, cassette and CD eras. Prior to Tower’s arrival in the early 1970s, another massive enterprise, Wallichs Music City, owned by one of the founders of Capitol Records, occupied the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street that now houses a Walgreens.
Paul Oakenfold: My six best albums – Marvin Gaye, NWA and more: NWA: Straight Outta Compton (EMI) I worked a lot in the realm of hip-hop but this album moved the dial for me. I loved how they made tracks out of samples and rhythms. You could sense their anger and, strangely, I could relate to that because when we started the rave movement, life was tough and we were trying to find our voice.
