Glasgow, UK | Huge queues form outside record store in Glasgow for Scots singer: Huge queues have formed around the corner for a Scottish singer playing an intimate show in the city. Bellshill-born Rianne Downey took to the small stage in Assai Records in Glasgow around midday today, October 18, 2025. Having performed with Paul Heaton of The Beautiful South at TRNSMT in 2023, she has also opened up for The Courteeners and has sold out shows across the UK. Rianne has been up and coming on Glasgow’s music scene for the last few years after releasing tunes like Songbird and Home and Hard. After releasing her debut album, ’The Consequence of Love’, yesterday, she performed tracks from it for some lucky fans. Rianne spoke ahead of the album’s launch about one of the songs, Angel, she said: “Angel is one of those songs where I sat back and thought, ‘Did I just write that?’
New York, NY | Platters That Matter: James & Karla Murray’s Vinyl NYC: The new book by photographers Karla L. Murray and James T. Murray documents the unique character and colourful inner lives of New York’s finest—by which, of course, I mean its many and varied record shops. There are over 200 record shops in New York City. Some of them date back to the middle of the last century. In recent years, several much-beloved stores have closed down: Other Music, Deadly Dragon, Rebel Rebel, among others. James and Karla Murray are on a mission. The NYC-based husband-and-wife photographic team have spent a quarter-century documenting the unique topography of their home town, snapping its dive bars and bodegas, its candy stores and corner delis, its hi-fi shops and haberdasheries. Theirs is a New York of neon signs and art deco stylings, chipped tiles and ornate facades. For their latest book project, Vinyl NYC, they’ve refocused their lens on the city’s many record shops, crossing the five boroughs to scour through dusty stacks of used wax.
Portland, OR | Portland record store owner remembers over 30 years of friendship with KISS founding member Ace Frehley: Ace Frehley’s death has left record store owner Steven Cook, who first met Frehley as a teenager, mourning his loss and celebrating his iconic legacy. Ace Frehley, one of the founding members of the rock band KISS, died this week at the age of 74, leaving behind a legacy of iconic riffs and hits embraced by generations of fans. In St. Johns, one record store owner is mourning the loss of a rock idol he also called a friend. Steven Cook, owner of Vinyl Resting Place, met Frehley more than 30 years ago when he was still a teenager. He said the experience changed the course of his life. “I wouldn’t be here owning a record store today if it wasn’t for KISS and Ace Frehley,” Cook said.
Grass Valley, CA | Thomaston’s Clocktower Records spins vinyl revival into shop with 1,000s of LPs: Mellow strains of a John Coltrane sax drifted down an ancient wooden stairwell of the historic Clocktower building, growing in volume with each step up to a 2,500-square-foot space where Chris Carey and his daughter Sarah E. Carey stood, surrounded by thousands of vinyl LPs and 45s from bygone times. Chris Carey, owner of Clocktower Records, was auditioning the Coltrane LP to ensure it was marketable. Sarah Carey stood in the doorway of a room dedicated to 45s of rock ‘n’ roll, R&B, jazz and other genres. Behind her, a Seeburg jukebox from 1965 stood as a centerpiece, almost fully restored and capable of playing 100 records. “It’s been climbing,” Chris said of the resurgence of vinyl’s popularity.
Las Vegas, NV | Vino & Vinyl: A Las Vegas charity vinyl record art show & silent auction: Hey Las Vegas! Get ready to raise a glass and raise some money for a great cause! We’re thrilled to announce the return of our signature charity event, Vino & Vinyl, hosted by Studio 21 Tattoo! Mark your calendars for: Saturday, November 8th, 2025, 6 PM to 9 PM, Studio 21 Tattoo, Las Vegas, NV. This event is a visual spectacle and a Charity Silent Auction! Artists from across the country have been given complete artistic freedom to transform vinyl records into unique masterpieces—expect mind-blowing sculptures, detailed paintings, paper designs, and much more! 100% of the proceeds from the silent auction will benefit a crucial local non-profit: Noah’s Animal House. Starting Bid: Unique Art Records begin at just $50. Come down, sip on some wine, snag a one-of-a-kind art piece, and help us raise vital funds for this incredible Las Vegas non-profit!
Falmouth, MA | Cape Cod Record Fair Is Returning to Falmouth: The Cape Cod Record Fair will return to the Cape Symphony Falmouth Campus on Saturday, October 25, from 10 AM to 4 PM. Located at 60 Highfield Drive, this fall’s edition will feature an even larger vendor lineup—including Justin Cohen of Recordville fame—and a wide range of new sellers from across the Northeast. Event highlights will include thousands of vinyl records across all genres and decades, live, all-day vinyl-only DJ sets, a charity record table with proceeds benefiting Katie’s Cure, beer from Devil’s Purse Brewing Company and nonalcoholic beverages available for purchase. Presented by The Magic Message, a Falmouth-based vinyl-focused arts and event platform created by DJ and designer Jeffrey Bouchard—in collaboration with Cape Symphony Presents—the concert and community engagement division of Cape Symphony, the fair is designed to build community through music.
New York, NY | This NYC-based duo created a ‘third space’ for music lovers to bond over vinyl records: Building community is ‘pretty powerful.’ Here’s what it’s like to attend a Cue the Record vinyl listening session: Feet tapping, eyes closed, heads nodding to the beat, singing and dancing like no one is watching. For everyone in the room, it’s not just an event, it’s an experience. Cue the Record creates a space for people to bond over “a shared love of music and analog sound,” according to its site. Based in New York, the collective was founded by Mustafa Ali-Smith and Semaj “Sem” Davis, both 28-year-old, mid-Westerners from Chicago and Detroit respectively. The collective’s monthly vinyl listening sessions are the real draw. On Sunday evenings at 4:30 p.m., music lovers come together to listen to an album, in full, on vinyl and discuss its personal significance to them as individuals and its cultural contributions to music in general.
Bryan Ferry / Bête Noire reissue: Dylanesque also re-released. Bryan Ferry’s 1987 album Bête Noire will be reissued next month, alongside a release of his 2007 album Dylanesque. Bête Noire was the follow up to 1985’s Boys and Girls and was co-produced with Patrick Leonard (who had worked with Madonna on her True Blue album and would later co-produce 1989’s Like A Prayer). Johnny Marr was amongst the contributors to Bête Noire, whose singles were ‘The Right Stuff’, ‘Kiss and Tell’ and ‘Limbo’. Only ‘The Right Stuff’ troubled the UK top 40, peaking at No 37. For the 2025 reissue Bête Noire is released as a 2CD deluxe edition and on purple vinyl. The second disc of the 2CD set offers remixes and edits from the original singles. This appears to be mostly comprehensive, with the exception of a small number of ‘Limbo’ versions, and extra points go to BMG for putting together a ‘listenable’ running order (not grouping remixes of the same track together).
NZ | New Zealand’s first ever vinyl chart is here. What story does it tell? The last time our music charts were dominated by vinyl, David Lange was prime minister. Now a new chart tells the story of the shocking renaissance of vinyl in Aotearoa. Calculating the charts used to be the answer to a very simple question: what music sold last week? We had singles, we had albums – but that was it. With the arrival of the internet it would become more complex: how to weigh the sale of an mp3, versus a CD or LP? Or the popularity of illegally downloaded music? Then streaming and social came along and exploded all that for good. Now we have near-perfect realtime data on what people are listening to, from what amounts to the entire history of recorded music, along with a promotion platform which means a song from decades ago can be made wildly popular today. It means that people like Paul Kennedy, New Zealand’s chart guru, has to blend and weigh dozens of sources to come up with our modern charts.
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