Greenfield, WI | Greenfield Exclusive Co. will reopen Saturday as Volta Records: New Berlin’s Jennifer Young has bought the Exclusive Company in the Greenfield Place shopping center, 5026 S. 74th St., and will reopen it this weekend. New Berlin’s Jennifer Young has bought the Exclusive Company in the Greenfield Place shopping center, 5026 S. 74th St., and will reopen it this weekend as Volta Records. In early April, the Exclusive Company – founded 66 years ago by James “Mr. G” Giombetti in West Bend – announced that it would close all its locations due to the unexpected death of its founder in November. News emerged that some stores would remain open under new names and with new ownership, including its longstanding East Side Milwaukee location at 1669 N. Farwell Ave., which was purchased by a group of employees to reopen it as Lilliput Records. The Exclusive Company store in a Greenfield strip mall closed for business on Wednesday, June 29 and its replacement, Volta, will open on Saturday, July 2, according to a Facebook post. “So much appreciation and respect for the legacy that The Exclusive Company has built in the Greenfield location,” reads another post.
Sanborn, NY | Record store in Sanborn bringing the heat by adding hot sauce to selection: Ishman follows passion, adding hot sauce selection at shop. Dave Ishman gets the question all the time from people who walk into his Sanborn shop for the first time: How did vinyl and hot sauce get in the same retail space? For him, it makes perfect sense. The two combine his passions – music and food, specifically the sauce that helps bring extra flavor and heat to meals and snacks. When Ishman noticed he had excess space in his shop, formerly Niagara Records, he decided to create an area where he now sells a variety of hot sauces and similar products. The former chef offers more than 250 gourmet hot sauces, barbecue sauces, rubs and salsas and renamed his Ward Road shop Ishy’s Records & Hot Sauce Outlet. “I enjoy eating the hot stuff,” he said, joking, “but not as hot as I used to eat.” Ishman opened the record shop four years ago as a passion project after back problems forced him out of the restaurant industry. He had been a record collector for years and always thought about opening a shop with the more than 6,000 he owned. He also sells new and used turntables, cartridges and stereo equipment.
Jellyfish release video trailer for new vinyl box set: Colourful 90s rockers Jellyfish are to have a seven-disc vinyl box set released to celebrate the band’s singles releases throughout their impressive but short career. You can watch a video trailer above. When These Memories Fade will be limited to 1000 copies and will contain seven remastered multi coloured 7”s spanning the band’s original run of singles from the Bellybutton album, a bonus ‘covers’ single exclusive to the box set, a deluxe 64 page booklet featuring interviews alongside previously unseen photographs, memorabilia and for the Jellyfish completest, a 3D poster with custom Jellyfish glasses. Jellyfish originally formed in San Fransisco in 1989 out of the ashes of Beatnik Beach. The band released two albums, Bellybutton (1990) and Split Milk (1993) but ground to a seemingly ignominious halt in 1994 with drumming vocalist Andy Sturmer’s increasing discomfort with fame and subsequent withdrawal from the spotlight.
Bowling Green, OH | The music’s over for Greg Halamay as he seeks new owners for iconic downtown BG shop Finders Records: In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced Greg Halamay to shutter his business, the iconic downtown shop Finders Records. “I was home for two to three weeks and totally enjoyed it,” he said. “It was the first time I’d been on vacation for two weeks.” Benefiting from an early spring he spent time outside doing yard work. But after a bit, “guilt and conscience” brought him back to the shop. He’d lost all his “terrific staff,” he said, so for the next 14 months he ran the operation solo. The doors remained closed, except for slipping a bag of recordings out the door to customers who had ordered online. “Since I owned the property, I was able to play it safe,” he said. “I wasn’t about to gamble with my health.” After 14 months he reopened “and business just boomed.” Halamay said: “The pandemic has generated a tremendous community spirit on how important it is to support your local retailers and restaurants and everything that exists in your community.”
Vinyl Record Manufacturing Association Elects First Executive Board: Board members for new professional trade organization include president Dustin Blocker of Hand Drawn Pressing, vice president Yoli Mara of Welcome to 1979 and several others. The Vinyl Record Manufacturing Association (VRMA), a new professional trade association of independent businesses committed to the continued advancement of vinyl record manufacturing through collaboration, advocacy, standardization, and education, has announced the members of its first executive board members were elected during the founder’s meeting held after the recent Making Vinyl Conference in Nashville. Board members include president Dustin Blocker of Hand Drawn Pressing; vice president Yoli Mara of Welcome to 1979; treasurer Michael Greig Thomas of Echo Base; secretary Greg Schoener of ADS Group/Copy Cats; and board members Chris Jackson of Blue Sprocket Pressing, Alex Cushing of Hand Drawn Pressing, Vincent Slusarz of Gotta Groove Records, Chuck Gorman of MonoStereo Label Service, Don McInnis of Record Technology Inc. (RTI), Broc Barnes of Third Man Records, and Scott Lemasters of Vinyl Lab. In addition, Bryan Ekus, the co-founder of Making Vinyl, has been appointed to serve as the VRMA’s first managing director.
Best Vintage Turntables in 2022: Break out your vinyl. Interest in vintage turntables has risen steadily in recent years despite streaming’s reign as the medium of choice for listening to music. The trend follows the resurgence of vinyl records, which reached a new high in 2021 when vinyl outsold compact discs for the first time since 1991. Clearly, consumers still place a high value on the listening experience, especially at home where audiophiles can build their ultimate sound systems. And it all begins with high-fidelity reproduction at the source. Vintage turntables are the key to unlocking that magical vinyl sound. But tracking down the best audio quality for the best value in turntables can be less a labor of love and more an endless errand of spec sheets and shady online sellers. We’ve all been there. For this guide, we looked at the most in-demand turntables on the vintage market and sized them up for you. Get ready to spin the black circle in style with the best vintage turntables.
The biggest gimmicks from the music industry: Record Store Day. In a list full of tactics that the music industry has used to try and get your hard-earned dollars, it’s nice to occasionally stumble across something with genuinely-good intent. Record Store Day was created in 2007 as a way to gin up traffic to local record stores just as CD sales were collapsing. The idea was that rare, hard-to-find, and unique albums would be released for that day and that day only to the indie shops with loyal fanbases and a true love for all things music. While it’s super cool to pick up an out-of-print soundtrack or one-off EP by a beloved artist, the unqualified success of the event has led to some drawbacks, including hot releases getting scooped up only to be turned around for immediate sticker-shock resale online. Additionally, as the years have rolled by, RSD is now hosting a glut of inferior products, as it’s hard to imagine why the soundtrack to the television show “The Blacklist” required a vinyl release, much less one exclusively tied out to Record Store Day. While the intentions are noble and have already generated much goodwill, Record Store Day will need to continue to evolve if it hopes to reap benefits for independent music retailers.
Why Are CDs Trending In 2022? Nearly two decades since their peak popularity, CDs are having a moment, but how long will it last? Compact Discs are back (not that they ever went anywhere). According to data from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), shipments of compact discs rose from 31.6 million in 2020 to 46.6 million in 2021 – a rise of 47%. Revenue also increased from $483.2 million to $584.2 million. The last time sales of CDs were on the up was in 2004. These figures may seem small compared to CDs’ 2004 peak when nearly a billion discs shipped in the US alone. But it seems possible that compact discs may soon follow vinyl’s footsteps by having a revival moment. In 2021, 39.7 million vinyl records were sold in the US, generating nearly $1 billion, a noticeably higher return than CD revenue. The true sales figures for compact discs are likely higher than the RIAA report estimates. Many independent artists sell a large portion of CDs to fans at live shows or through online merch stores and never report sales.
