In rotation: 6/10/22

Fresno, CA | Vinyl collectors behold: Fresno record store expanding to River Park: To many in the Valley, vinyl records bring back feelings of nostalgia, remembering a time when gas prices were low, morale was high, and the most pressing social issues revolved around what brand of hairspray best held your Motley Crue look. Paul Cruikshank, owner of Ragin Records in Tower District, hopes the opening of a second location will bring those feelings back to music lovers, old and new alike. The current location of Ragin’ Records, on 1118 N. Fulton St., next to Veni Vidi Vici, has been open since November 2019, and after surviving the pandemic, Cruikshank is opening a new store in the River Park Shopping Center this July, hoping for a grand opening to coincide with the Fourth of July holiday. …“These guys out at River Park really want us there,” Cruikshank said, adding that the opening of the new location was mainly driven by the need for more space. “We couldn’t really find another bigger spot in the right part of town, and I figured why not hit another part of town where maybe they’ve never heard of us.”

Macon, GA | Mercer freshman opens record store in Mercer Village: This summer, Noah Silver is embarking on two new adventures: one as a college student and the other as a business owner. The Macon native’s record store opens in Mercer Village on June 10, and he will begin his studies at Mercer as a freshman in August. Silver has always been interested in owning a store and took on his first business pursuits early in high school. He sold soaps and candles at the Mulberry Market in Tattnall Square Park and later online on TikTok. He eventually began selling clothing on the Depop website. Through Vertigo Vinyl, he was able to combine his interests in business and music. Silver — the son of Mercer English professors Dr. Andrew Silver and the late Dr. Anya Silver — discovered a passion for music as a teenager and began playing guitar and listening to anything he could get his hands on. After discovering some albums in his mother’s closet, he fell in love with records.

Shropshire, UK | Ladder for Shropshire: Record store seeks apprentice to boost online presence: Market Drayton-based Queen Street Records wants to train an apprentice to focus on digital marketing to boost online trading. Established in 2021, the business specialises in new and quality used vinyl records. It also deals with a wide range of instrument accessories, other music merchandise and memorabilia. Responding to the resurgence of interest in vinyl, the business is now booming having developed a significant online trade and hopes the new apprentice can grow that side of the business further. The apprentice will promote products and services through social media, continue to develop the website, deal with customers electronically through various social media platforms as well as face-to-face and over the telephone. The apprentice will follow the digital marketing level three standard supported by SBC Training and also gain qualifications in marketing business principles, principles of coding, online and offline marketing, and Google Analytics.

London, UK | Despicable Discs opening in honour of Minions: Rise of Gru: The latest installment of the animated franchise will see the super villain (Steve Carell) and his loveable yellow sidekicks head to the psychedelic 1970s, and to celebrate the movie, Despicable Discs is opening in Soho on 18 June. Visitors will be encouraged to exchange their record relics for gems from the 1950s-70s, with all the discs donated to the pop-up store sent on to Oxfam, where they will be sold to raise funds for the charity. And that’s not all as guests will be invited to explore hidden rooms and take part in daily challenges and shareable photo opportunities. DJs will be on hand to keep the atmosphere lively, and a Swizzels Wheel of Fortune will ensure every guest leaves with a bag of sweet surprises. …The site lists the full opening schedule as well as information on how to book your visit and full terms and conditions. A limited number of walk-ins will be allowed each day.

St. Pete, FL | Tampa hardcore band Dead Mirrors plays record store set in St. Pete this weekend: This year on Record Store Day, when people walked into the retail location of St. Pete’s Bananas Music–located on 22nd Avenue–the most glorious thing to be seen upon entry was not the shelves of vinyl: It was the fact that the stage that has contained audio equipment, holiday albums, and CDs in recent years, had musicians standing on it again. It appears Bananas, like cross-bay colleague Microgroove, is easing back into being both a record shop and a mini concert venue because on Saturday, June 11, Dead Mirrors, which sounds like late-’90s metalcore takes the stage along with Spanish Needles and Knife Rituals, both from Tampa Bay.

To make new vinyl records, they had to preserve the past: Before Robyn Raymond could learn to cut records, she would need to get a lathe—a specialized turntable for making discs, one that cuts grooves instead of playing them. A lathe can be used to cut lacquer masters—which, in turn, are used to create metal stampers for record pressing plants—or they can be used to cut direct to vinyl, one record at a time. The technology hasn’t changed much in the past century, which is why one type of lathe in particular had caught Raymond’s eye. It wasn’t vintage equipment, like many of the lathes still in use, but a modern design, and one of the few still being made new today. The catch? In order to buy the lathe—a Vinyl Recorder T560—she would have to travel to Germany for a crash course from the inventor himself. But Raymond, who lived in Calgary at the time, was unfazed—and, in fact, jumped at the opportunity. “I needed someone to take me by the hand and show me how to do it,” says Raymond, who had no prior experience cutting records but an eagerness to learn. “If the person that built the thing is willing to teach you how to use the thing, do that.”

In the analog groove, Phonocut spirals inward: The vinyl record, arguably the most iconic analog sound storage media, has made a remarkable comeback in recent years. With a single push of a button, Phonocut allows you to record your vinyl records. An average music listener consumes up to 5 hours of music each day, the majority of which is via streaming services on electronic devices such as smartphones and laptops. The digitalization of music has decreased the materiality of records to ever-lower numbers while also giving analog forms like vinyl a unique and distinctive value. Other art forms, such as photography, have seen the same phenomenon, with the film being almost fully supplanted by digital formats, whether via digital cameras or smartphones. The vinyl format has made an unexpected comeback in recent years, but record production has remained limited to high-volume production, and a user-friendly quality disc recorder has never been effectively developed.

Forbes: 8 Record Players That Combine Modern Functionality With Nostalgic Flair: If you’re in the Generation X age group, you probably listened to music using a record player as a child, upgraded to cassettes in your early teen years and then graduated to compact discs. As an adult, you likely now stream your music from the Internet or play digital versions of your favorite songs and albums on your computer, smart speaker or mobile device. Despite this evolution in how many of us listen to music, there are plenty of people who have returned to enjoying music distributed on vinyl albums that are played on a traditional record player (or turntable). In fact, many of the best record players available today have a lot of modern technology built into them, combining nostalgia with practicality. These updated machines still offer the timeless experience of placing a record onto a turntable to listen to an album.

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