Bury, UK | Bury: Vibes Records making ‘pop-up’ return to town centre: A town centre vinyl store which closed its doors in 2011 will make a “pop-up” return this month at a new Bury bar and tavern. Vibes Records, which was a popular shop in the 80s and 90s, will make a return to the town centre, just one door down from its old location on Princess Parade. The store, which closed after problems stemming from the worldwide financial crisis in 2008, will return at The Marketside Tavern from 12pm to 5pm on Sunday, August 27. If the “pop-up” event is a success plans may move forward to bring Vibe back full time. Gordon Oakes, who became the owner of Vibes in 1985, said: “Vibes opened in 1977 and became incredibly busy in the 80s and 90s with people using it as a meet-up spot in the town centre. “Unfortunately, due to the financial crash, we had to close, and we missed the vinyl boom when more people started using records again.
Brooklyn, NY | Saint Vitus Vinyl Record Fair: Time Out says: Vinyl nerds won’t want to miss this market at Saint Vitus Bar in Brooklyn in celebration of National Vinyl Record Day. The market, running 12-4pm, will feature records, CDs, tapes, music memorabilia, photos and band merch from a dozen vendors including Bananamasher, For The Record, Healthy Dose Records, and Record Grouch. Stick around after the market for an afterparty show, running 7-10pm, featuring local label Healthy Dose Records and Pleasure Dome, Wax Girl, and Jacqui.
Manchester, UK | Rescuing records: Archiving the UK’s biggest South Asian vinyl collection: Faisal Hussain talks us through archiving 3000 records from Oriental Star Agencies. Having your pick of 3000 records in a dusty backroom is a crate-digger’s dream, and it’s one that Faisal Hussain has lived. The Birmingham artist is the director of the True Form Projects vinyl archive–the largest South Asian vinyl collection in the UK. Rescued by Hussain from Muhammad Ayub’s Oriental Star Agencies– a Birmingham-based store that imported Indian and Pakistani music until its closure in 2017–the collection has spent the last three years being archived by Hussain and a team of volunteers. Following the launch of the archive’s first exhibition at Manchester Museum this month, Kelly Doherty catches up with Hussain to find out more about the archive and how it came into his hands.
Ōrewa, NZ | Former world class athlete behind vinyl record table: Music enthusiasts browsing through vinyl records at the Hibiscus Coast Community House in Ōrewa or Silverdale’s Pioneer Village on any given weekend may be surprised to learn the identity of the vendor. The smiling 1.85 metre-tall woman who greets them with a South African-accented “mixed genres, A to Z, shout out if you need anything” was, not many years ago, at the pinnacle of global athletics. …Selling records on the Coast seems a world away from the peak of international competition. And that’s what she loves about it. Privacy and anonymity, she says, is something you crave when you’re in the spotlight. “In my case I needed to move countries to do that. I’m okay with not being recognised.”
The Top 20 Diamond-Certified Classic Rock albums, ranked: So many Diamond-Certified albums, so little time. Looking at it like that, here’s the Top 20 classic rock albums to make sure you own. Who doesn’t like an album that has been certified diamond, for sales of over 10 million copies in the U.S., confirmed as such by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)? We certainly marvel at records like that here around the Goldmine offices, and so in celebration of ZZ Top’s Eliminator reaching that plateau back in 1996 (official diamond certification wouldn’t arrive for another three years), I figured I’d get longtime Goldmine scribe Martin Popoff — he’s also the author of Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon 50 Years, celebrating a diamond classic — to list, boldly rank and review 20 of the very best.
Bonnie Tyler announces Faster Than The Speed Of Night 40th anniversary reissue: Released in 1983, the LP delivered hits such as Have You Ever Seen The Rain?, Straight From The Heart and the classic Total Eclipse Of The Heart. Available on limited edition red vinyl, it comes ahead of the release of her autobiography, ‘Straight From The Heart’, on September 28, which promises to be “a heartfelt and candid memoir that tells the story of how a shy, music-loving teenager morphed into an international superstar”, per a press release. Back in 1983, the Welsh superstar found herself at a crossroads and debated giving up on chart success and returning home to the local circuit. Fortunately, she gave it one more shot, signing with CBS and connecting with Steinman – who had already enjoyed numerous hits with Meat Loaf, a personal favourite of Bonnie’s. “[A&R man] Muff Winwood said to me, ‘Right, Bonnie, we’ve got you for five years, who would you like to work with?’ and I said, ‘Well, I’m so glad you asked me that, because I want to work with whoever writes and produces Meat Loaf’. And he looked at me like I was crackers…”
Will The Vinyl Record Revival last? Will the vinyl record revival last…for real? I will preface this article with some of my thoughts on the two formats in question; which include both a great digital and analog rig in my setup of which I enjoy both. Currently, I am in the middle of a review of the Darlington Moving Coil step-up head amp as I write this post. Not having a distinct dog in this fight, I see each format as a capable one that has its distinct place within this hobby. What I am much more concerned with is the in-studio mixing and mastering for this in itself can yield the best-sounding results whether it be analog or digital as your choice of playback formats. (Glad to get that off my chest!) Nostalgia is a hell of a thing. Through the years people have spent millions of dollars on things just to bring back a certain time in life. Over the last few decades, I have seen absurd amounts of money paid for classic cars or rock-in-roll items like guitars played by a certain musician. Are these items better than their contemporary counterparts? Not a chance but for the people buying them they don’t care.
County Donegal, IE | Opinion: The great 21st century vinyl revival – long may it live: How ‘old’ technology is turning the tables on digital music platforms. I was in Golden Discs in Sligo recently and it was as if I had entered a time warp. There was shelf upon shelf of records – hundreds of vinyls in all their glory. My kids were with me and they were browsing enthusiastically through classics from the sixties, seventies and eighties which sat comfortably alongside modern offerings that will go on to become the remembered masterpieces of this generation. Ok, it wasn’t quite the same as being in a record shop 40 years ago. For example, there was no singles section, no record player stylus stand, no cork board display of button badges depicting the pop and rock icons of the day. There were some other quite nice items though, like tote bags printed with iconic album covers – Abbey Road, Dark Side of the Moon, and more. And there was also a decent selection of turntables for all budgets. I love that vinyl has come back into the mainstream, so much so that HMV which closed its last stores in Ireland in 2016 has now re-entered the Irish market, citing the demand for vinyl records as the reason for its return.
