Asheville, NC | Record-pressing facility Citizen Vinyl opens in downtown Asheville: This year is proving a difficult time to run most businesses, let alone launch a new enterprise. But the team behind Citizen Vinyl — a collaboratively envisioned vinyl-pressing plant, performance space, record store, craft cocktail bar and eatery — is moving forward with plans to debut the facility on the ground floor and mezzanine of the Asheville Citizen Times building. Its opening is set for Thursday, Oct. 8. “I’m quite hopeful and excited about the opportunities [of] the project,” says local producer Gar Ragland, the company’s founder and CEO. The Citizen Vinyl team is “very interested to position ourselves to be a post-pandemic community resource. We can work closely with the independent musicians in town to give them some opportunities, when it’s responsible to do so: to perform, to get their records pressed and to partner with them to promote those recordings.”
Record Store Day: 10 of the best vinyl albums to tell someone you love them: Telling somebody you love them can be most daunting. Quickly you come to realise there’s only really one positive response, and you in particular are unlikely to hear it. Because, let’s face it, you’re no poet. You’ll probably mess the whole thing up and push them away, and then you’ll be alone like you always knew you would be. But there is music, the great communicator, conveying the grandest messages, often in the simplest terms. Sharing music is an exhibition of love in itself, a display of thought and understanding of the recipient, and channeling the verses of this planet’s finest lyricists can help us convey those emotions more readily. Here, we’ve made it so you don’t even have to go to the effort of finding that somebody else to express your affections on your behalf, by selecting ten albums with loving titles readily available to buy on vinyl. All you’re left to do is figure out whether in that case you ever really loved them at all.
UK | Idles Announce Intimate Record Store Tour For Spring: Idles have announced an intimate UK instore tour for spring. The Bristol band will head to small venues next April in association with record stores in the corresponding cities. The run kicks off on April 12 with a show presented by Vinilo Records at the 1865 in Southampton and wraps up with a brace of hometown performances at the Louisiana for Friendly Records. Tickets are on sale now, priced from £12. The announcement comes ahead of the release of Idles’ third LP, ‘Ultra Mono’, due out this Friday (September 25). The dates will precede the band’s massive UK and European summer tour, which includes four nights at London’s O2 Academy Brixton. Tickets for these dates are already on sale.
Empire Records Style Is Still So Relevant 25 Years Later: The cult classic might be over two decades old, but the style is all we want to wear this fall. What would ’90s nostalgia be without the beloved coming-of-age flick? From Clueless to Cruel Intentions, the decade informed wardrobes, triggered sexual awakenings, and catapulted the careers of Hollywood mainstays like Brittany Murphy and Reese Witherspoon—but few teen classics were well-received by critics. Empire Records was nothing short of a flop when it hit theaters in 1995 (exactly 25 years ago on September 22—feel old yet?), but it soon grew into a cult hit—and what the movie lacked in critical merit, it more than made up for in the costume department. Despite spanning just one day of teenage dirtbags’ misadventures working at an independent record store, the film’s sartorial influence has now spanned over two decades, with no signs of slowing.
Shanghai, CN | Exhibition all dressed up to be a success: An exhibition of film, Cheongsams and vinyl records opened in Xuhui District on Sunday as part of the 2020 Shanghai Tourism Festival. It offers visitors a glimpse of the elegance and charm of Haipai (Shanghai-style) culture. The exhibition in the Xujiahui area comprises four areas, displaying exquisite Cheongsams, and inviting visitors to hear vinyl records, and experience interactive installations related to films. Seven Cheongsams of the same types worn in films such as “Goddess” (1934), “Spring River Flows East” (1947) and “In the Mood for Love” (2000) by film stars like Ruan Lingyu, the most celebrated actress of Chinese cinema in the 1930s, and Hong Kong actress Maggie Cheung are on display. The dialogue of classic and fashion, old and new enables people to savor the glamour of Haipai (Shanghai-style) culture and classic Cheongsams, the exhibition’s organizer said. The Cheongsams are from the collection of the Shanghai Film Museum.
Wollongong, AU | Bruce Etheredge, ABC Illawarra newsreader and Wollongong record shop owner, dies aged 94: “This is 2WN, and the time is seven-thirty. Time for the latest news. I’m Bruce Etheredge.” The first words heard on ABC radio from its Wollongong studio, on March 6, 1959. The first voice on ABC radio in Wollongong, Bruce Etheredge, has died aged 94. Etheredge, a wine lover, avid tennis fan and former record store owner, died at Lawrence Hargrave Private Hospital. He was a devoted and always entertaining father and grandfather, his family said, known to his great-grandchildren as “GG” and to many others in the community as “Bronco”. “I was working at 2GB just before I joined the Air Force”. After his military service, Etheredge was transferred by the Macquarie Network to Wollongong’s 2WL, before he was offered the job at the new ABC Local Radio station 2WN. “It was the best thing that ever happened to me…”
Hasbro To Release G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero Vinyl Record: Amazon has listed (under Hasbro Label) a new vinyl record titled ‘80s TV Classics – Music From G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero [LP]‘. Previously, Hasbro released the same for the Transformers franchise. If the aforementioned Transformers album is any indication, Side 1 and 2 will featured G.I. Joe and Cobra logos respectively. Official Description: Music from iconic 80s animated series, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, will be available for the first time ever on vinyl. The first official release of the score in any format, it includes the instrumental version of the iconic theme song and over 40 minutes of unreleased music from the original composers, Robert J. Walsh and Johnny Douglas. The album features music from the first five-part G.I. JOE mini-series which debuted in 1983 and Season 1 of the animated series which premiered in 1985.
