Cleveland, OH | Cleveland Rocks aims to amplify music scene with campus in Waterloo Arts District: When Music Saves, the record store next to the Beachland Ballroom and Tavern, closed its doors in 2017, Cindy Barber had a plan to revive the space. “That sign: Music Saves. I just couldn’t let that sign come down. It feels like that is the motto of Waterloo for me,” said Barber, co-owner of Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland’s Waterloo Arts District and the executive director of the arts nonprofit, Cleveland Rocks: Past, Present and Future. Barber’s nonprofit bought the storefront in 2018, and after launching a fundraising campaign, is now turning it into a retail space for local music called Cleveland Rocks Shop. The space serves as part of a larger plan to turn Waterloo Arts District into a reimagined Northeast Ohio music arts development campus that includes the Beachland Ballroom and Tavern, an art gallery and the Cleveland Rocks shop.
Annapolis, MD | ‘Love and Vinyl’ to mix it up at KA-CHUNK!! Records in Annapolis: A music buff previews Bob Bartlett’s new rom-com about browsing for records and romance, performed in a local neighborhood record store. …What better way could a play engage you here and now while also strumming the strings of memory than by literally surrounding the experience with music, or at least its physical embodiment: albums. Music, after all, is something we feel both in the moment (often enough to physically move us) and as a link to the past — hear a song that you once blasted while driving with windows rolled down and singing at the top of your lungs, and you might feel the wind in your hair, picture the scenery blurring past, and hear the voices of everyone who was with you for that once-upon-a-drive. And if each song has that power to transport us, a space filled with not only songs but albums, many of them constructed as journeys themselves, must be reverberating with the potential for something special to occur.
Jakarta, ID | Inside the launch of PHR Pressing, the new pressing plant in Indonesia hoping to restart a vinyl renaissance: For the first time in decades, Indonesia has a vinyl pressing plant, operational and prominent in the market – one which touts affordable prices and unprecedented turnaround times, and is already aiming for regional impact. NME speaks to its co-founder Clement Arnold of Elevation Records to find out more. There’s one more new vinyl pressing plant in the world. In a time of unprecedented demand for vinyl records by both consumers and major labels, the arrival of PHR Pressing is most welcome – especially in its home base of Indonesia, which reportedly hasn’t had a pressing plant known to the public in nearly 50 years. “One thing we’re very sure about is that we love music and we love Indonesia,” Clement Arnold, co-founder of PHR Pressing, tells NME. Before PHR Pressing, Arnold was known within the country’s sprawling music scene as the head of Elevation Records, a modest record label with an affinity for rustic rock sounds and the enduring physical format—be it vinyl, CD or cassette tape.
Physical product manufacturing accounts for three quarters of record labels’ carbon emissions: IMPALA – the pan-European organisation for the independent music community – has published a new report tracking efforts to reduce the environmental impact of the sector, informed by labels using the Carbon Calculator the trade group launched last year. That tool is designed to help individual independent music companies – as well as the sector at large – track their carbon footprints and identify actions that can be taken to reduce the negative impact their operations have on climate and the environment. Crunching data submitted by labels already using the tool, the new report confirms that “manufacturing of physical products contributes the greatest proportion of emissions for reporting labels, representing 76% of emissions on average. Over three quarters of this figure is attributed to vinyl production.”
Dubai, UAE | There’s a free vinyl music event and after-party happening next week: You’ll be able to buy and listen to records. Vinyl collectors and music lovers, there will be a free vinyl event in Dubai next week. Taking place on Saturday June 24 at the 25hours Hotel One Central’s Nomad Day Bar, the event promotes analogue music. Run by Vinyl Souk, the occasion starts at 4pm. During the evening, there will be stalls of vinyl and cassettes for sale with collectors invited to bring along records to swap. DJ Okapi will be DJ-ing a set (on a turntable, of course) with a selection of his own records and some chosen by Nehal Shah. Along with vinyl record stalls, there will also be handmade jewellery from Sugarhigh Accessories and vintage-style T-shirts from Nocturma on sale. At 10pm, after the market stall event, there will be an after-party at Monkey Bar where DJs Okapi and Serge Volant will play throughout.
NME and Bose announce limited edition C23 vinyl giveaway at select UK and US record stores: NME and Bose have announced details of the limited edition, hand-numbered vinyl release of the ‘Bose x NME: C23’ mixtape. The mixtape was originally released on digital formats and cassette back in March, marking the first entry in the C-Series since 1996. C23 followed on from the tastemaking compilations C81 and C86, both of which altered the landscape of British music forever by launching the careers of such artists as Primal Scream. This year’s C23 mixtape featured 15 exclusive tracks by 15 of the world’s most exciting and innovative emerging artists, including Jockstrap, 070 Shake and Blu DeTiger. The release was further supported by a special one-off NME magazine and a live showcase at SXSW in Austin, Texas back in March. The C23 mixtape is now set to be released for free on limited edition, hand-numbered vinyl, which will be distributed through a select group of independent record stores across the UK and US. (Hey, there may be some left? —Ed.)
40 albums that honor Projekt Records’ 40 years of darkwave, goth and more: Founder Sam Rosenthal talks Goldmine through the pioneering label’s history, and then we pick 40 recommendations from the label’s 650-plus darkwave, goth, electronic/ambient recordings. Of the myriad 60th, 50th and counting down anniversaries that are celebrated this year, among the most worthy is one scarcely noted in mainstream circles, but — if we measure such things not only by sales and critical acclaim, but also by consistency and quality — it ranks as high as any. It was 40 years ago this year, in the summer of 1983, that south Florida-based electronic musician and Alternative Rhythms ‘zine editor Sam Rosenthal launched Projekt Records. He regarded it initially as a vehicle for his own solo music, released under the alias Projekt Electronic Amerika (PEA), but he also had an eye for the flourishing local scene. Indeed, the first ever Projekt release was the Projekt Electronic South Florida cassette compilation (a second volume followed shortly after).
Washington, DC | 6 analog trends that are good for the soul: Vinyl records. Last year, vinyl continued its decade-long comeback and outsold CDs for the first time since the 1980s. For millennials, streaming music was a welcome improvement on the age of burning CDs and illegal downloads. But for many, a physical record, a displayed turntable and a full album on deck hold appeal. You can cede control with a vinyl record; you don’t have to worry about queuing up the next song or constructing a perfect playlist. Diamond, a longtime devotee of vinyl records, says he used to “schlep crates of records” to various DJ gigs. “There’s this beautiful little pop, and you’re like, ‘Oh, there’s something real happening here,’” he said. “It’s still electronic, but it’s a little more simple. And I think at heart, we all crave simplicity.”
