Dallas, TX | 60 Cool Women-Owned Businesses You Can Support in Dallas: Red Zeppelin Records 206 E. Louisiana St., McKinney Owner Katie Scott hit the ground running with her female-run, genre-inclusive vinyl haven, which opened in McKinney last year. Before long, she rolled out her own indie label and brought home a Dallas Observer Music Award for the best record store. Clearly, the people have spoken: Don’t snooze on this north-of-Dallas gem.
Wichita Falls, TX | Why open a record shop? Warbonnet Records owner says he’s ‘in it for the music’ There’s no way to do market research to see if a record store is going to work, said Johnny Robertson, owner of Warbonnet Records since opening the shop December 1, 2020. “You have to do a quick soul search,” Robertson said, “and ask what’s the worst that can happen and then go ahead and be able to take that pill. The worst thing that can happen is that nobody buys any records, but you have fun every day. So that’s not that bad. You can do that for a year,” he said with a laugh… “I didn’t want to work in Dallas and live in Wichita Falls,” he said, so the artist/designer considered his options, and recalled one of his favorite jobs, working at a Sound Warehouse record shop in Lubbock in the ‘80s, when he began art school at Texas Tech. “It was a good time to be in music,” he said. Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA,” Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” and Prince’s “Purple Rain” and so many others. He worked at the record store for years, as the vinyl era began to end with CD’s beginning to take over.
San Antonio, TX | Accelerator: My son’s turntable rekindled vinyl magic: A few weeks ago, our 16-year-old son, Casey, brought home a brand-new turntable. The sleek machine — black with a brushed gold tonearm and switches — is the first working record player ever to grace our home. A hand-crank Columbia Grafanola that belonged to my spouse’s great grandmother stands near our front door. The dark wood behemoth doesn’t work but serves as an excellent dust collector and place to set keys, wallets and face masks. Casey’s purchase surprised me because he hadn’t said anything about being interested in vinyl outside of buying a handful of ’50’s and ’60’s albums from an Arizona thrift store last summer because “they looked cool.” The old technology-turned-new mesmerized me as he dropped the needle on the random LPs – Golden Hits of the ’50s, Boots Randolph and Herbie Mann. After years of playing flawless and sterile MP3 music, I’d forgotten about vinyl’s personality. The crack, pop and hiss — that warm sound — and seeing the miracle with each revolution.
Christchurch, NZ | New exhibition explores vinyl forged in the foothills of the Southern Alps: Hundreds of vinyl records made in the foothills of the Southern Alps will be celebrated in a forthcoming exhibition at the Centre of Contemporary Art (CoCA) in Christchurch. The exhibition, A Short Run, will feature unique vinyl records and cover art made in New Zealand from the 1980s to now. Many of the records were made by Peter King, who manufactured vinyl records in his small workshop in Geraldine and later Mt Somers using a unique piece of salvaged and archaic machinery. His lathe cut records used a special needle that could carve music into a plastic surface, differing from mass-produced records that were made using a large press and molten vinyl. The cheaper process meant indie bands could afford to commission a run of about 50 records and create handmade, bespoke cover art. Exhibition curator and University of Canterbury lecturer Luke Wood said he had always been fascinated with vinyl records and cover art.
Richmond, VA | Family Record: A Richmonder rediscovers his family’s musical legacy through a lost Nat King Cole song. Zak Young is a collector. He mainly collects records; that much I knew before we sat down for an interview in the sunny, second-floor home office that houses his turntables, an iMac and the vinyl library he samples to create hip-hop beats. Known in the producer community as DJ Mentos, Young has become an indispensable member of the Richmond music scene since his 2014 move from New York. He has released a pair of well-received LPs in collaboration with standout rapper Noah-O, as well as beat tapes that have bent ears as high up the hip-hop food chain as Bandcamp Daily and SiriusXM host Sway Calloway. But Young also collects memories – ashtrays and matchbooks from his family’s bygone Washington businesses, including the Roumanian Inn restaurant, its associated Romany Room nightclub and his grandfather’s Paul Young’s restaurant.
Arvada, CO | These Women are Changing Stereotypes in Olde Town Arvada: Electric Cherry. “…I try to work with as many local artists as possible and promote social good,” Skiba said. She creates unique gallery walls with themes surrounding nature, music and feminism and even includes some of her own artwork. “I love creating joy through nature,” she said of her photography, “Now that I have the shop, I write free verse poetry to stay creative.” The unique, vintage feel of the shop and large collection of vinyl records gives you the sense that she has an old soul — and she does. Her love of music comes from her grandfather, who used to press manually for 30 years after World War II and is currently the oldest remaining employee of Specialty Records at the age of 96. “Vinyl is the heartbeat of the shop and music is a big part of my life,” Skiba explained. During the warmer months, she even made appearances at the Bluegrass Lounge down the street for “Turntable Tuesdays” where she would play records on the front patio.
