Macon, GA | ‘A bigger, better’ Fresh Produce Records moving to new downtown Macon location: Fresh Produce Records has found a fresh spot in downtown Macon, and vinyl fans can soon grab merchandise at a discount as the store relocates. They’re not going far — from 451 MLK Jr. Boulevard to 567 Cherry St. — but store staff said they’re getting more square footage. “I just want to let people know that we’re still the same record store that they always loved, just getting bigger and better and we are working to be everyone’s favorite local online record store,” said Fresh Produce Records manager William Rutledge. During the COVID shutdown, Rutledge said they focused on expanding the online business and built up inventory. “With all these operations really growing into something formidable, we needed a little more space and we had the opportunity to invest in some real estate downtown so we could grow in a bigger space and get some more foot traffic,” he said.
Boston, MA | Good Taste Records gears up for North End opening as surge in vinyl sales continue: According to industry analysts, the vinyl resurgence accelerated in 2021. For Coty Smith and his wife, Lindsey, it seemed like the perfect time to open their own shop. Day-to-day, Coty Smith operates primarily in a digital landscape. As a director of product management for a software company, he has spent more than a decade honing his e-commerce, digital marketing, and product marketing skills. But in the background, away from the glare of a computer screen, lies a deep passion for something more tangible — collecting, spinning, and listening to vinyl records in all their rich analog glory. “I’ve always just been a vinyl guy,” Smith said. …Now, the 35-year-old Kansas native is combining his professional expertise with a pastime that’s been a large part of his life for years. Next week, Smith and his wife, Lindsey, will open a brick-and-mortar record store, called Good Taste Records, in the North End neighborhood where they live.
Bristol, UK | A new record shop is opening on Bristol’s Gloucester Road: The new record shop, called Disk Frisk, is coming to Gloucester Road in Bristol. Run by local DJs Kane Orchard (aka Kayne the Hermit) and Corey Miller – otherwise known as Morey Cillar – Disk Frisk will specialise in second-hand vinyl from the 1970s through to the early 2000s. The shop is set to open toward the end of April or in early May. The pair, who also host an NTS show as Disk Frisk, started out selling digitally via their Instagram page and recently announced the plan to open a physical shop. The store will be housed in new creative space The Old Drumbank Studios. Following the announcement, they also held a pop-up record store at Bristol venue The Love Inn earlier this month. Sharing the news, Orchard and Millar said, “We want to thank all the people who have bought from us and supported the Instagram which has ultimately allowed us to get this far and make the jump to a physical space so soon!”
West Bend, WI | The Exclusive Company now the Beat Goes on Records & More: The owners of the Beat Goes on Records & More announced Thursday that as of April 6, The Exclusive Company will reopen under the new name. “Our goal is to keep serving the music lovers in this music-loving community, and continue the tradition of selection, quality and service we’ve all come to love and expect,” said owners Joe, Mary, Tommy and Lyla Zaremba in a social media post. “We also have some new ideas to engage the community more, and partner with our downtown neighbors and other organizations and businesses — all with the hope that we do our part to help make West Bend and Washington County a cool, music-relevant destination.” They also stated they have been customers of The Exclusive Company since the 1980s and have a passion for music. They thanked The Exclusive Company for their help during the transition. The store will open as the Beat Goes On & More on April 6.
Holmen, WI | Man turns late uncle’s home storing collection of 20,000 records into a shop: People collect all sorts of things throughout their life, but no one may have a collection quite like one Wisconsin man. It may not be a record-setting record collection, but it’s drumming up a lot of interest. “My Uncle George passed away in January, and I’m the administrator of the estate,” said Charlie Muller. Muller’s uncle, George Johnson, was a lover of music. That love could be measured in vinyl. “In the 80s, when records were kinda fading out, people said, ‘George, you want my records?’’ So, George took the records and made his own collection,” said Muller. That collection grew to 20,000 records. Muller decided to share that collection with everyone by turning his home into a record shop. “I’ve got the whole house set up as a record shop — the downstairs and the main level,” Muller said.
Austin, TX | Waterloo Records’ 40th-birthday gifts: first in-store shows in more than 2 years: Think back for a moment to April 1, 1982 (if you were alive then). In a small building just south of the river on Lamar Boulevard, a new record store opened in Austin that quickly had a significant impact on the city’s music culture. Waterloo Records wasn’t the first of its kind, but Austinites quickly acknowledged that it was the best, voting it the city’s top record store in the first-ever Austin Music Awards poll the following year. Waterloo has continued to win that award every year since then. It has become an institution: First a move north to its current location at Sixth and Lamar as CDs took off, then an expansion to take on space that would eventually become its vinyl room, finally persevering through music-industry downturns and the COVID-19 pandemic. Now it’s time to celebrate. To mark its 40th anniversary on April 1 (no foolin’!), Waterloo will host its first in-store performances in more than two years, with Ray Wylie Hubbard at 3 p.m. and Heartless Bastards at 5 p.m.
East Anglia, UK | Beccles record shop launch so successful it almost ran out of stock: A new record shop in Beccles has had such a successful first week that it almost ran out of stock. The shop, named A Discount Record Shop, opened on March 1 and has already been a huge success. It is operated by Asperger East Anglia, which works to offer assistance to people with Asperger’s syndrome and their carers. The store was originally a general shop but was rebranded by the charity. The charity manager, Thecla Fellas, said: “We opened the shop four years ago, as a discount shop for reduced items. For the first couple of years, we did OK, but then the pandemic hit. Once we reopened things were much slower, so we decided it was time to see how we could improve our income… As we had an abundance of records and musical equipment that had been donated we thought it would be a good idea to open as a record shop. It has dramatically improved business.”
Portland, OR | Our 10 Favorite Portland Record Stores: From Music Millennium to My Vinyl Underground, these are the prime vinyl spots in the city. In 2021, vinyl sales nearly doubled, and Portland—with its preponderance of music retailers—is well-suited to handle to the resurgence. If you haven’t already, now is the time to cop a record player and spin that vintage family vinyl, or begin a collection of your own. (Maybe you can start by nabbing a few titles from our list of the 50 essential Oregon albums.) Whatever your needs, whatever your setup, we’ve run down 10 of our favorite spots in the Rose City to pick up LPs—and, in some cases, a lot more.
Napa Valley, CA | Record store/ wine bar/ cafe/ radio station planned for Napa’s Third Street; other tenants sought for Young Building complex: …In December, Napans Faith Henschel-Ventrello and Steven Ventrello bought the one-story commercial condo space at 1226 Third St. from Keller. They paid $2.18 million. In addition to records and wine, Folklore will also include another unique element. Nonprofit public radio station, KCMU 103.3 FM, which Henschel-Ventrello started around 2017, will broadcast from the space. There’s a new sound of music in Napa, and it’s not coming from BottleRock, the Uptown or any other local stage. “It’s going to add a lot to the community,” she said of their new project, which is next to Billco’s Billiards and Darts. Henschel-Ventrello said she wants Folklore to feel like “the most comfortable space… that’s great for both visitors and locals.” And, “I want the music to sound amazing,” she added. “I have about 10,000 records already,” she said. “We’re going to have new vinyl, used vinyl,” and will buy used records as well. “The depth of our record collection is going to be great.” Napa already has a standalone record store, Right On!!! Records on California Boulevard, and Rebel Girl Records is located inside Antiques on Second on Second Street. Is there room for a third?
Salem, MA | Residency Records expands its catalog at new Salem location: When Residency Records’ new location closed at 6 p.m. this past Saturday, it’s the first time the Salem shop has been empty in hours. But not for long. Owner Breaux Silcio didn’t lock the front door. Even after the stylish neon purple “open” sign shuts off, a dozen more audiophiles snuck inside after hours, eager to see the new store at 7 1/2 Church St. After four years on Bridge Street, Silcio moved Resisdency Records to downtown Salem in late February, effectively quadrupling the size of his vinyl vault. More than five shoppers would be a tight squeeze at the the intimate Bridge Street location. A dozen customers would feel like sardines. Yet at the new Church Street store, it’s not uncommon to have at least a dozen milling around the store. “To be honest it’s been a little bit of a whirlwind,” Silcio tells Vanyaland. “We had thought we’d see a little bump due to the location, but thought for sure we’d have a little lead up time before the crowds started appearing, but nope.”
Edinburgh, UK | Edinburgh’s new flagship HMV store on Princes Street captured in fresh footage: The HMV on Princes Street opens nearly six years after they were forced to close their flagship store, before they were saved from liquidation after running into financial troubles. Stunning new footage offers a first glimpse of Edinburgh’s new HMV store. Almost six years after the closure of their flagship Edinburgh store, and 31 years since they first opened in the city, HMV is back in Edinburgh. The images released on TikTok show the top floor of the iconic brand’s new multi-storey shopping outlet. The open-plan space is filled with vinyl, with rows of records on show, and looks like heaven for music lovers. The new store opened last week on March 18 and is open Monday to Saturday from 9:30am to 6:30pm, and on Sundays from 11am to 5pm. HMV’s new Princes Street store, at the site of the former Gap building, opened as part of a relaunch to celebrate the brand’s centenary after being pulled out of administration in 2019 by Canadian firm Sunrise Records. The three-story outlet specialises in vinyl records and stocks more than 20,000 products, plus they allow customers to have items not available in-store to be delivered to their door.
Questlove: Collecting Is an Act of Devotion, and Creation: I have been collecting things for as long as I can remember. As a very young child, when I listened to music, read interviews or watched movies, they lingered in my memory, and I didn’t want them to leave me. Eventually, I got to thinking about the physical objects that brought me those experiences — vinyl records, print magazines. Collecting those items became a way to prevent the past from slipping away. A collection starts as a protest against the passage of time and ends as a celebration of it. My collection sprang up like seeds in a flower bed, and I can only guess at the first seeds based on the flowers I see now. Over time it has grown to include bins of magazines, including near-complete sets of Ebony and Rolling Stone. I have shelves and shelves of albums, eight-tracks and cassette tapes. The music they contain — from official studio releases to outtakes, bootlegs to live shows — matters to me. The formats themselves stir memories. But it’s the personal artifacts associated with artists who have shaped my own life and work that are the most meaningful to me.
Let’s get physical: here’s a store out here in the Southwest called Zia Records. They have locations in Vegas, Tucson, and Phoenix. I played a “show” there once with my drum teacher in high school, though I really can’t begin to recall let alone describe what that show consisted of. Playing along to tracks on a drum kit in the back of the room while people tried to browse, if I had to guess. What I do remember, very clearly, is the feeling I had when I walked into that store for the first time: I thought it was the dumbest place in the world. Racks and racks of CDs and vinyl, shelves stuffed with DVDs and used books, that humid smell of old paper and human breath. I missed the physical media indoctrination by a long shot. The closest you’d ever find me coming to fetishistic object worship was my iPod Classic, which I still stand by. Fast forward a decade: Vinyl sales are booming, available from the biggest artists in the world at your local Target. People are buying physical books again. CD sales are up for the first time in almost twenty years. Somehow, cassette tapes are still being made. The gloss and promise of a digital utopia has clearly worn off a bit.
