Victoria, BC | Lyle’s Place record store, a pillar of the Victoria music scene, to close after 40 years: Store that fostered friendships and community announced on Facebook it would be closing this fall. It’s the end of an era for the music scene in Victoria. Lyle’s Place, a beloved record store in the city’s downtown core, is closing its doors this fall after nearly 40 years in business. The shop on Yates Street announced the closure on social media, prompting dozens of customers from all over Canada to share their stories and express their sadness over the news. “So sad, spent a lot of my teen years going to that place,” wrote one follower. “I worked at Lyle’s Place around 97-98. Great memories working the buying table and going next door to buy chips for everyone,” wrote another. Janice Lyle, who runs the store with her husband Rod, told CHEK News, simply, “it’s time.”
Collingwood, ON | Keeping it vinyl: Mad Dog’s in Collingwood known for diverse selection of records: Shop sells everything from ABBA to Frank Zappa. More than three decades in the music business and Bob Madigan can still be shocked by the world of rock. The day after Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts died at the age of 80, Madigan was amazed by the longevity of two of the group’s other members, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, both of whom have a history of drug abuse. “How he’s dead and those other two survived, friggin’ kills me,” he said while sitting in Mad Dog’s Coffee and Vinyl Café on Hurontario Street. Madigan opened Mad Dog’s in 1991 during the CD revolution, but slid into vinyl after a trip to the U.K. in 1996. He said he sells everything ABBA to Frank Zappa. The big record companies are still producing vinyl albums, and now he’s known for his diverse selection and ability to track down albums for his customers, who are mostly women in their mid-30s.
Northamptonshire, UK | Visual Vinyl excites record fans with Daventry high street debut: Good news for music lovers in the town! A new record store has opened in Daventry high street. Visual Vinyl, a chain of record shops which hopes to nurture and celebrate the love of physical music in the streaming era has now come to the Northants town. Store owner Andy Johnson spoke to us after the grand opening. “Well obviously, we were really happy with the opening and we’re excited for more people in Daventry to see what we’re about,” Andy said. “We have several locations already across the East Midlands, but we really saw an opportunity in the town to provide a little bit of something that was missing on the high street.” Visual Vinyl has set up shop inside a bigger new shop called Emporio Amanda, and together hope to breathe more life into a high street which is visited by shoppers from all over the county.
Durango, CO | Vinyl revival: After three-year void, Durango now has a new record shop. It seems to me, that as of late, I’ve been complaining an inordinate amount. If you’ve been on the receiving end, I’m truly, mostly, sorry. It isn’t on purpose, and it certainly is not confined to a single topic. That said, it does tend to circle back toward the drastically shifting dynamics in the (no longer) sleepy southwestern town I’ve somewhat surprisingly called home for nearly 20 years. One of the many tendrils of frustration (along with the complete and utter absurdity surrounding the real estate market, local wage inequity and the incommensurate cost of living, the current maddening state of the pandemic, traveler vs. tourist, and on and on and on) was the absence of a real, proper brick-and-mortar record store. On July 14, 2018, Robert Stapleton and co. shuttered the doors on our beloved Southwest Sound, which had been more than a record store in Durango since 1977.
UK | Vinyl claims a record as it outstrips CDs at BMG: In news that will be music to the ears of vinyl lovers, one of the world’s biggest record labels has confirmed that sales of LPs outstripped CDs for the first time in its 13-year history. BMG, the world’s fourth-biggest music company, is the first to announce the tipping point in demand for physical music as the resurgence of vinyl continues despite the high street being hit by the pandemic. Internal BMG figures showed that revenue generated from vinyl was greater than CDs in the first six months of 2021, although CDs still outsold vinyl on volume. The company declined to disclose actual sales numbers but confirmed the trend. The Times understands that vinyl sales accounted for 54 per cent of BMG’s physical turnover…
AR | Crazy about vinyl: record fairs attract more and more fans: Like the children who open packages of figurines looking for the “nolas” or the collectors who arrive at Parque Centenario with the illusion of finding what makes them sleepless. “The adrenaline is the same. The excitement begins before buying what you are looking for. Because while you are going through records you do not know what you are going to find. That way you run into the difficult ‘figurine’. Or perhaps, with something that you never imagined existed “, says Juan Moffa, one of the exhibitors of the event in which now, Sunday at 17, dozens of people rummage through boxes of vinyl records. It is a new edition of the “Vinilos Mix” fair. The locations vary. This weekend it was organized in a bar in Palermo. The vinyl fan fairs They began between 2012 and 2013. And currently, only in the City of Buenos Aires there are a minimum of four per month. The phenomenon is not only from Buenos Aires. In Mendoza, for example, there is a monthly fair.
Miami, FL | Why do we collect things? Various members of the University of Miami community, as well as collectors, offer a myriad of reasons for the fascination with accumulating items of interest. It is one of our basic human instincts. We like to collect things. Baseball caps, coins, stones, posters, movies, seashells, toys, art, manuscripts, stamps, and coffee mugs are among the many collectible items. You name it. We collect it. Archeologists have found that as early as 105,000 years ago, humans collected crystals in the Kalahari region of southern Africa. They knew the crystals were brought there by humans because they did not exist naturally near the area where they were found, according to Forbes magazine. “We know our lives are inextricably entangled with things and the earliest archeological records show that ownership of objects is a universal phenomenon that has existed across time, cultures and people,” said Kiara Timpano, professor of psychology in the University of Miami College of Arts and Sciences. The reasons for collecting are numerous. Some do it for pleasure; others to learn more about the objects; others seek status or prestige; and many do it to show loyalty to their team, country, or hometown.
