Why you need to visit a vinyl store: …When walking down the street of your favorite city, you typically come across a beautiful rustic store that catches your eye. When you see it you notice that it is a super nice vinyl store that has all different types of music that will give you the organic sense of music you have been looking for. When walking around a vinyl record store you are immediately strock with the sensation that you are walking around in a music history wormhole. Nothing beats walking around a vinyl record store and hand picking the music that you have loved since you can remember as a young kid. Vinyl will immediately take you back into history and show you that a vinyl record player that was played way back in the 80s sounds like and how it still sounds the exact same as it did back 40 years ago. Yes, the vinyl record player might have gotten a lot more older but when it comes to how it sounds and flows throughout the air vinyl defies history itself.
Burlington, VT | Checking in with Burlington Records: In the past few weeks, I’ve been checking in with local record store proprietors to find out how the pandemic has been treating them. I was also particularly curious about what kinds of records have been moving, as a nod to Seven Days’ formerly weekly and long-retired inclusion of record store sales in this section. Even before I started doing this series, I’d asked record store owners in past conversations about their best sellers. I always presumed, somewhat facetiously, that they sold a lot of copies of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. Burlington Records’ Ian Doerner recently confirmed that, indeed, the classic 1977 album is his best-selling disc. “It’s annoying to say that, because if you asked a record store clerk that in 1981 and 1991 and 2001, it’s always gonna be the same goddamn answer,” Doerner said, noting that he sells, on average, one Rumours per day. “It’s just never ending.”
Vinyl records: they just mean more: There’s only a few things I like more than listening to live music. It’s one of those things you just have to see in person to keep your spirit fresh and renewed. It is an art piece unfolding before your eyes and ears that can be so many things, but at its core revolves around usually the same thing: a drum beat and a guitar. It is different for everyone, but it’s never left me going, “Eh, whatever.” Live bands, especially ones playing big venues, are curating their shows every night to be an experience that is best when consumed in full. There is a reason for the beginning, middle and end of a show, and how they order their songs. There are stories being told, emotions being brought to the forefront, skills being demonstrated, all for the sole purpose of creating an experience for the listener that brings an infusion of life.
Denver, CO | Angelo’s CD’s & More: Denver’s businesses respond with a sigh to new COVID-19 rules: Some will lose revenue. Others have been ready for this since the summer. …Despite visiting a dozen retail shops, we couldn’t get comment from most people working at them. For the most part, owners and managers weren’t in, leaving employees to say they couldn’t speak on the record. But we did find the general manager of Angelo’s CD’s & More on South Broadway in Overland. Sean Batz rolled his eyes at the new rules. “I stopped listening to the mayor in March,” he said. “I felt we have been on our own as a business.” When his shop reopened in May, just after Denver’s stay-at-home orders lifted, he decided he’d only allow ten customers in at a time. He’s not exactly sure what his maximum capacity is, but he’s confident he’s been operating below 25 percent for months. He even lowered his maximum allowance to just five customers for Record Store Day last weekend. His staff monitored a line snaking down the sidewalk outside as customers took their turns. He said he wanted to be sure everyone was safe, regardless of what it meant for business.
Record Store Recs: Sergio Acosta Of Zoé Shares Vinyl Gems From Austin & London: Their most recent album, 2018’s ‘Aztlán,’ earned the rock en Español heavyweights their first GRAMMY win, and the follow-up is on the way. …Nowadays, record shops are a fragile entity. Waterloo Records in Austin, Texas, no doubt is my favorite shop. It’s the perfect shop for me because it has a tight, wide and masterfully curated selection in a fairly small space. Curatorship is great at Waterloo. I can almost always find what I have in mind at Waterloo. Amoeba Hollywood, on the contrary, was almost as big as a Walmart, but packed with great music of all sorts of genres. Very well organized, and vast. High ceilings. Last I heard, it is moving out of its iconic temple that was a unique, massive place for music lovers for many, many years. I’m happy to know that it’s changing to a smaller location as the next step. And who can argue with Rough Trade Records in London? It is as fancy as London can be. They are always proposing new music, and curatorship is also impeccable. It is still a very special place.
