Frederick, MD | Vinyl revival at Frederick record shops: Streaming is king, but audiophiles are still spinning. On an unseasonably warm Saturday afternoon in January, Mervin Reyz was shopping at Rock and Roll Graveyard in downtown Frederick. The 49-year-old Baltimore resident was perusing through the boxes of vinyl records to supplement a new Christmas gift: a turntable. “One of my good friends, he likes music, and we talk a lot about music turntables and vinyls and it just got me interested,” Reyz said, while already pulling Prince’s “1999” album for possible purchase. Montika Brown, of Frederick, was in the same store also flipping through a collection of LPs. She has built her collection to about 50 albums. “I’m looking for whatever catches my eye or most of the stuff I grew up listening to that was either lost or got messed up,” she said. “I look for a lot of that stuff and some new stuff. Things that may catch my eye that I haven’t seen before or heard before. Sometimes it’s even the cover art will catch my eye and I’ll be like, ‘Ohh, what’s this?”’
Seattle, WA | Dumb Shit Overheard in a Seattle Record Store: Anyone who’s worked in retail can tell you dozens of anecdotes about the boundless idiocy of the general public. Those who toil in record stores are no exception. In fact, the comments that customers in those establishments utter carry an extra frisson of unintentional comedy due to the shifting popularity of recording formats and the aesthetic properties of music itself. Back when I worked at Everyday Music circa 2003-2004, one gentleman asked with sincerity, “Do you carry CDs?” without even noticing the tens of thousands of them sprawled out before him. Yeah. Recently, a Seattle music retail employee shared with me a list titled “Dumb Shit,” which this person’s been compiling for several years. Read these remarks and ROFL, while also weeping for humanity.
Lansdale, PA | Liberty Vinyl Plans To Shut Down In Lansdale: Liberty Vinyl, the record shop located inside Liberty Vapor, is shutting down after they were told no one under 18 can enter. A bit of sad news emerged this week for fans of local music shops. Liberty Vinyl, the unique record store located inside Liberty Vapor, is shutting down after they were told no one under 18 can enter. The record store remains open for the time being, as the entire store is 30 percent off. That includes vinyl, record players, speakers, and clothing, owners announced in a statement issued on social media Monday. “We don’t feel that music should be restricted to adults,” the statement read, in part. “So the choice was made to close the record store.” As of Jan. 1, no one under 18 is allowed to enter due to regulations regarding products sold by Liberty Vapor. On Feb. 1, no one under 21 will be allowed in. An exact final closing date for Liberty Vinyl has not yet been announced.
Boston, MA | Iconic Boston record shop Skippy White’s will play its final tune: An iconic Boston record shop that has been open for 59 years will soon be closing its doors. Skippy White’s, located in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood, is going out of business. The shop’s owner and namesake, Skippy White, is a walking music history book with the kind of knowledge you can’t get online. He opened his first record store in 1961. His business survived a fire and decades of new styles of music, and outlasted eight-track tapes, cassettes and CDs. But it could not overcome the rise in streaming. “The record business is not what it used to be,” White said. White announced on Facebook that he will be going out of business, which was disappointing news for hundreds of his loyal customers. “I’ve had people in all day long (Friday), feeling that they love me,” White said. “It’s the rapport I have with people who come into the store.”
Sooke, BC | University of Victoria holds a collection of 20,000 LP records, even after massive auction: More than 5,000 records were auctioned off to make room for more media options. While the University of Victoria’s media collection is becoming modernized to meet the needs of 3D printing engineers and virtual reality programmers, one of its older collections is also growing in popularity. The UVic Library’s LP collection holds more than 20,000 records which have been gathered since the 1960s – and that’s after more than 5,900 records were recently auctioned off. In the past couple months music and media librarian Bill Blair pared down the collection in an effort to save space as the collection moves within the library. Last week, records were sold off in lots of 350 to 450 records through B.C. Auctions, with funds raised going back into the library. “What I didn’t want to keep would be mainly material that we had CD recordings of, or that we have access to on streaming databases such as Beethoven,” Blair said.
4 Reasons Vinyl Is The Best Way To Experience Music: …While some people say the “vinyl revival” is due to nostalgia, but this simply is not true. Most of the vinyl purchases are made by younger generations which means they would not have any personal connection to vinyl. However, this doesn’t mean that the historical significance is not one of the reasons to buy these records. Vinyl records changed not only the music industry but also how culture is exchanged as a whole. Early versions of the record player such as a phonograph have been compared to a printing press because of the way they changed how information and ideas have been exchanged. The music industry and our world would be a very different place without it. Therefore, being able to use and understand something that has impacted our culture that much is a really cool experience.
