UK | “People with sinister motives will try to exploit demand and the love people have for the format”—an industry expert tells us how the vinyl revival is under threat from counterfeit records. You may have seen in the news recently that a vinyl pirate was jailed for three-and-a-half years after police seized the largest haul of counterfeit records ever found in the UK. The man made a whopping £2.7 million between 2017 and 2024 by selling knock-off versions of albums by Ed Sheeran, The Beatles and Taylor Swift, among others. The counterfeiter used four 70-year-old vinyl presses to copy legit records at the industrial unit in Acton, west London. Police also found 3000 metal stampers and thousands of sleeves and centre labels. In total, they seized 18 tonnes of evidence during the bust in 2024.
Casper, WY | Listening parties turn new releases into community building at Sonic Rainbow: Coming together to jam to the new releases has become the norm at Sonic Rainbow in downtown Casper, who have been regularly hosting pre-release listening parties for new records. “I see a lot of these record store listening parties, like on Instagram and stuff, and the Wyoming section. This is the only one that’s ever on there. So, it feels really special to be able to have it here,” said Hannah Scott, who attended a release party for Remi Wolf’s new album Mud Thursday evening. These pre-release listening parties, held in collaboration with the Record Store Day event, have fundamentally changed his business said Sonic Rainbow owner Jude Carino
Berlin, DE | Fundraiser launched for Berlin record store Pleasure Patterns following break-in: Store owners said that half of their equipment was stolen by burglars. A fundraiser has been launched to help financially support Berlin record store Pleasure Patterns after it was broken into last week. The shop, self-described as the “first dyke-led record store in Berlin”, revealed that it was subject to a burglary last Thursday, September 24. The team behind the store shared on Instagram: “We were broken into and half of our equipment is gone. Items that have been stolen were turntables, headphones, mixers.” They added that they could “use some support” from their community to recuperate losses, asking: “If you can make a donation, big or small, that would mean a lot for us.”
Vashon Island, WA | ‘A place where you can experiment’: King Tide Music opens. Last December, islander Ryan Gray approached Ballast bandmate Shawn Carkonen with a vision: a community space dedicated to all things music. He was tired of ordering equipment from online retailers like Amazon, Gray said, and wanted to carve a place for the island’s musicians to try out instruments, listen to records and geek out over music. Less than a year later, that vision has become King Tide Music, slated to open its doors to the island on Oct. 2. “We want to be the island staple for music for years to come,” Gray said. The name is inspired by king tides, when some of the year’s highest tides are followed by unusually low tides that expose wide stretches of beach. “It [king tides] uncovers things you didn’t know were there, that you’re surprised and delighted to find…”
Vinyl Collector Finally Tracks Down a Rare Techno Record He’d Wanted for Years as Years of Searching Finally Ended With the Perfect Long-Awaited Find: Some record hunts last a weekend. Others last years, and creator @ikedusk just closed out one of the longer ones. In a recent video, he sets a rare techno vinyl record spinning on his turntable, letting the track play while he explains, through the caption, exactly how long he’d been chasing this specific piece of music down. He’d loved the track itself for years, well before he ever learned the fuller story behind it, and only later discovered that it was tied to Steve Bicknell and Sheree Rashit’s early 1990s London party series, a piece of underground dance music history that gave the record a whole new layer of meaning once he finally understood where it came from.
Guiyang, CN | From film to vinyl: Inside China’s growing retro economy. Across the country, a fast-growing retro economy is reviving experiences that technology left behind. One afternoon, at a vintage digital-camera shop in Guiyang, Guizhou province, several young shoppers crowded around the counter, passing a row of old CCD cameras between them. They photographed one another, then compared the results for skin tones, colors and grain. They were modeling a movement for which cameras are only the most photogenic edge. Across China, the recently obsolete—old cameras, vinyl records, even entire streets—are being turned into a business. Li Shilan, a 19-year-old shop assistant, knows the differences between the cameras by heart. “Panasonic has a slightly cool, creamy tone,” she said. “It makes skin look clear and natural, almost like a soft-focus filter. Kodak colors are more vivid.”
New York, NY | Sonic Journey to Celebrate Thelonious Monk’s Legacy at Tokyo Record Bar: Curated by Monk’s grandchildren, the experience traces the jazz legend’s evolution across decades through 18 featured records and 36 individual selections. The Thelonious Monk Estate and Tokyo Record Bar are reuniting October 8-10 for Sonic Journey, a three-night celebration of Thelonious Monk’s 109th birthday that transforms the Estate’s family record collection into a living, participatory exploration of one of the most singular bodies of work in American music. Returning to Tokyo Record Bar following the Estate’s 2025 collaboration with the Greenwich Village listening room, this year’s residency expands the experience around a central idea: music as a journey through sound, history and family memory.
Saratoga Springs, NY | The Saratoga Springs Record Riot! Over 15,000 vinyl records for sale in ONE ROOM! Oct 18, 2026 at 10:00AM. The Saratoga Springs Record Riot! It’s a giant vinyl record sale in downtown Saratoga Springs! Over 15,000 vinyl records in ONE ROOM! Great music and amazing family fun. LPs, CDs and 45s. Dealers from far and wide converge for a giant music sale! All types of music from punk to funk to country to classic rock, hip hop, soul/jazz and more. Dust off that turntable and come on down. DOOR PRIZES TOO! Regular admission starts at 10 AM ($5) with early admission at 9 AM ($15). Don’t miss the BIG VINYL DIG!
EU | Indie music suffers collateral damage in EU war on waste: Online record store Bandcamp highlights unintended consequences of EU environment and trade policy. The global independent music sector is being undermined by a series of new European regulations, says Paul Langworthy, general manager of Bandcamp, an online platform where musicians sell songs and merchandise directly to fans. A giant amongst the minnows of the indie music industry, Bandcamp is sounding the alarm over a perfect storm of European regulations, which will impose a €3 levy on small parcels, a potential additional €2 levy on non-European parcels—and a new law designed to stem a rising tide of packaging waste. “The European Union needs to think about SMEs trading into and within the EU—particularly into the EU—in a way more holistic way than it does today,” Langworthy tells Rapporteur.
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