Saginaw, MI | Audiogazing sells music of the past: A music lover in Saginaw is turning back the clock with his record shop. Joseph Weber opened Audiogazing on Michigan Avenue in Saginaw. He says the name comes from just sitting back and drifting off into space is where the name comes from. Weber has always had a passion for music. “It goes all the way back to when I was the kid on the bus with the boom box,” says Weber. “I was the school DJ going to school every morning on the bus.” He calls himself a “record store rat,” saying he hung out at the turntable as much as he could growing up. After retiring from the automotive industry, he decided to take a leap of faith. “I just happened to be glancing through one day, and there was an article that said vinyl would be making a resurgence,” he explains. Weber opened up a booth at the SVRC marketplace in Saginaw in 2018. The space quickly got used up in about eight months.
New York, NY | Vinyl makes a comeback, record store experiences increased demand: Jamal Annasr has been on Bleeker street in Greenwich Village selling records for more than 30 years, and he’s seen the items in his shop go in and out of demand. “There is a big demand for what you call vintage. Came back to life definitely,” Annasr said. He tells FOX 5 as his gets older he finds the customers dropping getting younger and younger demanding records older than the store itself. “Really people miss that vintage look on the physical copy of vinyl. Buying a vinyl you buy a whole idea. The lyrics’ artwork sound, the whole idea which is great,” said Annasr. It’s not just vinyl records making a comeback. “I feel like vintage in general is coming back. A lot of denim a lot of distressing, a lot of grinding dirty revisited things are coming back,” one shopper shared.
“It has a legacy without parallel”: Inside the new book charting the history of Island Records: Author and Island Records former head of press Neil Storey has promised his new book tracing the illustrious history of Island Records is as “definitive as can be.” Hitting shelves this month, the first volume of the Island Book Of Records documents every album released on the label between 1959 and the end of 1968, with insight coming from a host of names including the legendary Chris Blackwell. Very much an essential for vinyl lovers—not least because the hardback book is vinyl-sized—each Island release is fully illustrated to include labels, booklets, die-cut covers and foreign editions as well as “scheduled but ultimately unreleased LPs”. This is on top of a 20-plus page illustrated discography of 45s and EPs, subsidiary label LP releases, gig adverts, record release flyers, magazine covers, concert tickets, Island’s LP adverts and much more.
UK | Scottish vinyl pressing plant Seabass Vinyl to begin production in December: “…We’ve had massive support from everybody, it’s been so good. The independent record shops have been amazing, Assai Records (Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee), Orange Moon (North Berwick), Green Cat (Dunbar), Monorail Music, (Glasgow) they have been spreading the word and been so supportive on our journey from the very beginning. We put posts up across social media and we’ve had a lot of traction there as well. People have been contacting us and sending us messages of support, including from some labels. Overall, the support has been tremendous from everybody from all over the place, but specifically from within Scotland. We have the partnership with the SAY awards as well (Scottish Album of the Year). Seabass Vinyl is sponsoring the Sound of Young Scotland award and we are pressing the winner’s first album as a prize. That has helped to increase the buzz in Scotland specifically, which is great…”
Long live vinyl: Drum corps audio makes a return to a classic medium: For much of the late 20th century, music was consumed on vinyl. Marching music was no exception. During the earliest years of Drum Corps International — and well before — scores of drum corps performances were widely-distributed on vinyl records. At a time when listening to music on an iPod or a phone would have been something out of a science fiction movie, records were the way drum corps performances were experienced and remembered. “When the Squires started showing up on records, it was a thrill beyond belief. We were ‘recording artists!’” said DCI Hall of Fame member Steve Rondinaro who was a former member and director of the Watkins Glen, New York corps. “The thing about vinyl is who were you paired with on side A or side B? Was it a corps you liked … or not so much? Who else was on the album? You knew you’d wear the grooves out on your corps but it would be nice to enjoy your album mates too.”
ML | Malaysian senior turns passion for making vinyl sleeves into thriving business: Eight years ago, music enthusiast Rusli Hashim was sifting through his old vinyl collection and realised some of the album covers of singers like P. Ramlee, Saloma and Kartina Dahari were damaged. This led him to a creative solution – restoring and creating new covers. “Back then, my daughter was a graphic (design) undergrad at Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) in Shah Alam, and I asked her to do the artwork, which I got printed,” says Rusli, 68, during an interview in Subang Jaya, Selangor, recently. Little did the former advertising and marketing manager know that his foray into creating album covers was the beginning of a unique venture. “Making record covers was never intended to be a business, but some of my newfound record-listening friends saw the covers and were impressed. Nobody else was doing it,” says the father of three.
Partisan Records to reissue DJ Rashad’s Double Cup: News of the iconic footwork album’s 10th-anniversary edition comes with a lost track and a music video. DJ Rashad’s beloved album Double Cup is getting a 10th-anniversary reissue via Partisan Records. The new version of the classic LP, due out December 8, will feature new artwork by the illustrator and photographer Ashes57 — a longtime friend of Rashad — and a limited-edition gold vinyl pressing. The news of Double Cup’s re-release comes with a video for “Last Winter,” a digital exclusive track that was previously only available on out-of-print CD versions of the album. The track — a lively but nostalgia-tinged cut based on a longing vocal sample — is accompanied here by archival footage of Rashad’s shows and studio sessions, some of which had never been been publicly shared before today (October 25).
British rock and roller, Dave Edmunds, gets two amazing reissues by 7a Records: The rising U.K. powerhouse independent label, 7a Records, releases two prolific remastered/reissued albums by this underrated Welsh rocker. …With the 1972 launch of his debut, Rockpile, Dave Edmunds would carry out the most prolific era of his career, and record five full-length studio albums through to the end of the 1970’s. His sophomore effort would be a move away from EMI to the fledgling label, Rockfield, owned and operated by the recording studio of the same name, famous for recording iconic line-up’s over the years, such as Queen, Paul Weller, and even Oasis. His most magnificent move came when, in 1977, he’d release his third solo effort via the Led Zeppelin-owned Swan Swan record label and would continue with the label for many subsequent years, including his two following and most notable solo albums, 1978’s Tracks On Wax 4, and 1979’s Repeat When Necessary.
