Kutztown, PA | ‘One of those artists that lives on’: Kutztown record store reflects on Beach Boys legend Brian Wilson. Inside Young Ones Record Store, one name is on everyone’s mind: Brian Wilson. The genius behind the Beach Boys, known for timeless hits like “California Girls” and “Good Vibrations,” has died at the age of 82. For those who’ve lived and breathed music, the loss is deeply personal. “Shocking, because it’s just like another one of the long lines of these legendary people that have passed,” said Ross Adam, manager at Young Ones. “For decades, they weren’t just influential for their time.” Adam has worked at the Kutztown store since high school. Now a manager, he says Wilson’s impact is still felt in every corner of the shop. “Just between ’65 to ’67, the huge leap pop music made, from being kind of fun, jingle-jangle love songs, to deeper, more meaningful things happening in the late ’60s… the Beach Boys broke that ground,” Adam said.
Chattanooga, TN | Chattanooga’s newest record store hosting grand opening on Market Street: The corner of Main and Market streets will get a musical infusion when Dallos Vinyl Love hosts its grand opening Saturday as Chattanooga’s newest record store. Dallos is the passion project of owner Marlo White, who moved to Chattanooga from the St. Louis area in 2020 when he married his wife, Dalya. The store’s name is a combination of their first names and a reference to White’s lifelong love for music. “Vinyl love is simply my love for vinyl,” White said in an interview at the shop. “Vinyl never goes away. History has a habit of repeating itself, and vinyl keeps coming back. People love just the act of digging for vinyl.” The popular pastime led White to create the store’s motto, “Everybody loves digging in our crates.” The motto hangs in neon on the wall beside a gallery of music posters.
Charlotte, NC | Charlotte record store expands with a new South End location: Hardy Boys Records, a locally owned vinyl shop, is expanding with a second location set to open in a few months at 1616 Camden Road, in the former 704 Shop next to the rail trail. Why it matters: While we are living in a streaming world, demand for vinyl has been climbing for years, and locally owned record stores like Hardy Boys are working to meet that demand. Flashback: Husband-and-wife team Dean and Tiffany Hardy started Hardy Boys in 2018 as a small vinyl reseller. Through online sales and pop-up events over the years, Hardy Boys saw enough demand to open its first brick-and-mortar spot at Camp North End in 2023. “Camp North End has been really gracious to us and we’ve seen sales there explode and do amazingly well. If we do close to how we did at Camp North End, we are going to flourish in South End,” Dean Hardy tells Axios.
Huntsville, AL | MidCity Huntsville announces city’s first vinyl bar, other new retailers: A first in the market vinyl bar, fitness center, spice shop and nail salon are among the new retailers joining the offerings in the MidCity District, RCP Companies announced Wednesday. Perseus Sound Bar…be Huntsville’s first true vinyl listening lounge—a Hi-Fi hideaway with a mid-century modern soul, according RCP. “Mornings begin with craft coffee and calm, while evenings give way to Mediterranean-style tapas, refined cocktails, and an immersive music program built around analog sound,” the company said in a news release. “The space is intimate, transportive, and designed for people who appreciate ambiance as much as quality. It’s a lifestyle bar grounded in precision and atmosphere—an entirely new cultural anchor for MidCity.” …There will be coffee pop ups in collaboration with Vertical House Records and tvg at the Lumberyard this month to introduce the city to the concept of a vinyl bar.
Marquette, MI | Vinyl, merch sale set at Ore Dock: From noon on Thursday, July 3 through Sunday, July 6, a four-day vinyl record show will be held in the second floor community room of Ore Dock Brewing Company, at 114 W. Spring St., in downtown Marquette. Thousands of new and used vinyl records, CDs, posters, cassettes, books and t-shirts will be available. Sunday’s events include a movie screening and six rounds of popular culture trivia. Talk with Jon and Geoff about trading old records and tapes for new favorites, or finding an unused media collection a new home. For more information, call 906-373-6183 or visit the Facebook Event Page
Orlando, FL | Orlando Record Show set for June 22: The show will take place from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, June 22, at the Central Florida Fairgrounds, 4603 W. Colonial Drive, Orlando. If you’re looking for some vintage vinyl, make sure to attend the Orlando Record Show. The show will take place from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, June 22, at the Central Florida Fairgrounds, 4603 W. Colonial Drive, Orlando. Billed as the largest vinyl record show in Florida, this show will feature 85 tables of vinyl, CDs and memorabilia. For more, visit Orlando Record Show’s website.
Vee-Jay: The Black-owned record label that brought The Beatles to America: …One of the more egregious examples of a Beatle gristmill victim, though, is the Vee-Jay Record Company, a groundbreaking and highly successful Chicago indie label owned and operated by Vivian Carter and her husband Jimmy Bracken. Founded in 1953, Vee-Jay pre-dated Motown by six years, becoming one of the first African-American-owned record labels putting out mainstream pop and R&B records. The fact that it was also established by a woman—Vivian Carter was a record shop owner and radio disc jockey before deciding to start recording artists herself—makes Vee-Jay an even more unique story.
Democracy Forward Announces Double Vinyl Album With Best Selling Artists: On Tuesday, Democracy Forward, in partnership with The Bitter Southerner, launched the pre-sale for an exclusive double album featuring songs from best selling artists Michael Stipe and Big Red Machine, Tyler Childers, Brandi Carlile, Brittany Howard, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, John Prine and more. The album will be released on vinyl the week of July 3. Proceeds for the album will benefit Democracy Forward’s work, including the legal representation it provides free of charge for people and communities to defend their rights under the Constitution. Since Inauguration, Democracy Forward has emerged as a critical bulwark against the unconstitutional actions that we are seeing the new administration take. The organization has filed more than 70 legal actions and launched 90 investigations, securing multiple significant victories that directly protect Americans from harmful policies.
Barbara Holdridge, a pioneer for spoken-word recordings, dies at 95: In 1952, she and her friend Marianne Mantell founded Caedmon Records, putting out LP records of poets and authors reading their work. Barbara Holdridge, who helped pave the way for the billion-dollar audiobook industry as a co-founder of Caedmon Records — a women-owned label that created a treasury of spoken-word recordings by writers including W.H. Auden, T.S. Eliot, William Faulkner and Lorraine Hansberry — died June 9 at her home in Baltimore. She was 95. Her daughter Eleanor Holdridge, a theater director, confirmed the death but did not cite a specific cause. Ms. Holdridge was only 22 when she and her friend Marianne Mantell started Caedmon, the first commercially viable spoken-word record company. Launched in New York City in 1952, the label had a hit with its first release, an LP of poet Dylan Thomas reading five poems and “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” an idyllic prose piece that evoked yuletide snowball fights and family gatherings around the fire.
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