Wolverhampton, UK | Wolverhampton record shop to close tomorrow after more than 50 years selling music: A popular city centre record store is set to close its doors for the last time at the weekend. Oldies Unlimited in Wolverhampton will close its shop on Darlington Street on Saturday, December 4, marking the end of more than 50 years of record sales and band signings in the city. The shop was initially due to close on November 30, but is being kept open until the weekend when it will shut its doors for good. Owner Simon Malpas said the plan for the business going forwards was to run it online, shipping out records and posters through the Facebook page, as well as joining record fairs across Wolverhampton. Mr Malpas said it had been a difficult decision to close, but said the business would go on and thanked customers for their support. He said: “I just want to offer an immense thanks to everyone who has supported us over the last 50 years.
Tampa, FL | Seminole Heights record shop staple Microgroove celebrates 10-year anniversary this weekend: The dark lord of surf-rock, Mrenc plays the tunes. In the decade Microgroove has been open the Seminole Heights record shop—owned by New Granada label head Keith Ulrey—has been in a Buccaneers promo, hosted numerous shows including Xetas, Hand Out, Permanent Makeup, and, of course, struggled through an ongoing pandemic. The Best of the Bay-winning shop celebrates its tin year with a party featuring shoegaze-grunge act Mrenc plus live art and painting with Josh “Bump” Galletta. The party won’t be as raging as past years, but better than last year because the anniversary didn’t happen in 2020 (thanks to that son a bitch, COVID-19). Ulrey still is being extra-careful with the whole pandemic, so he said, “We’re keeping it light, a mini-party if you will, a truncated celebration.” There won’t be free beer and masks are required inside the store. But plan to do holiday shopping, everything is 10% off. And whatever you do, don’t park at Cappy’s.
Durango, CO | Toast Records and Tapes can help round out your vinyl collection: Shop will be open late for Noel Nite. For some music lovers, vinyl albums have never really gone away. And for a new generation of listeners who are just now discovering the warm sound, the cover art and yes, the smell (especially of old albums), there are plenty of records to be had. In fact, according to the Recording Industry Association of America’s Mid-Year 2021 RIAA Revenue Statistics report, consumers’ investment in vinyl records continues to climb, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. “Vinyl records continued a remarkable resurgence in the first half of 2021. Revenues from vinyl albums grew 94% to $467 million, though the comparison versus the prior year includes a period in which retail stores were significantly impacted by COVID-19, and Record Store Day 2020 was delayed and did not occur in the spring (as it did in 2021),” the report said. It’s not just older acts still pumping out vinyl – artists like Taylor Swift, Harry Styles and Adele have albums available on vinyl as well, drawing in younger listeners.
Birkenhead, UK | Birkenhead record shop receives rare John Lennon vinyl gift from Yoko Ono: A Birkenhead record shop has been the lucky recipient of a rare John Lennon release thanks to the former Beatle’s wife and son. Yoko Ono and Sean Ono Lennon have sent out 50 vinyl copies of Happy Xmas (War is Over) to charities and shops across the UK in the hope the record’s sale will generate funds. A note attached to the gifts urged the charities to use the limited edition 12-inch vinyl acetates to “sell, auction [and] raise money”. The one-sided acetate, featuring John and Yoko, was hand-cut on the lathe at the legendary Abbey Road Studios. Each edition is stickered and numbered out of 50 and includes a machine printed signature from Yoko, making them hugely collectable. The selected recipients, which include 25 charities and 25 independent record shops, were personally chosen by Yoko and Sean with a note reading: “Happy Xmas.”
Northampton, UK | Christmas shopping: Iconic Northampton record store reveals secret behind 21-year success and the ‘desirability’ of vinyl: “A 12″ record sleeve is like a piece of art, a lot of people put them up on their walls. There’s a desirability about them.” An iconic Northampton record store which has been in business for more than two decades is calling on residents to support the High Street this Christmas. In the run up to Christmas, the Chronicle and Echo is celebrating and promoting the best of local businesses in a bid to get more people out shopping locally. The second shop in our coverage is Spun Out record store in Gold Street, which is owned by Chris Kent and has been in business for 21 years now. Chris said: “We started in 2000. We realised there was nothing on the street for young people’s interest, so we started up as a clothing and record shop to have 
Corpus Christi, TX | Back to Business: Why Hybrid Records is more than music, it’s about community: Owner Carlos Cooper’s vision for his business was for it to become a staple of Corpus Christi. Growing up in the Sparkling City by the Sea, he wanted a record store where people could congregate to discuss music, art and the community. With no business background, Cooper took a risk and opened up his small shop and figured things out as he went. “If I sat too long and thought about it, I’d talk myself out of it at some point,” Cooper said. Knowing his regulars on a first-name basis, he is able to make that connection with the community and help people discover new music they might not have found on their own. “…Hybrid Records. It’s a record store first and then a cultural community hub second. We hope to create an environment where people can gather and discuss all types of art. Plus support 
NEW RELEASE PICKS: Beauty Pill, “Instant Night” (Northern Spy) The title track of this 4-song EP came out digitally last year. In his notes accompanying this physical expansion (clear vinyl in a transparent plastic sleeve and a clear CD with a silver center in a transparent jewel case), Beauty Pill’s singer-guitarist-producer-chief songwriter Chad Clark describes the song’s political-protest genesis, it’s poetical (rather than polemical) sensibility, and it’s unexpectedly quick finish via socially distanced recording (on a rooftop), so that the cut was rush released by Northern Spy in hopes of inspiring citizens to vote in the Presidential election in November of 2020. The track is also noteworthy for its lack of drums and for highlighting Beauty Pill’s woodwind quartet. Clark says it sounds like Phillip Glass music, which is detectable but not blatantly. The main thing is that the song is built to last rather than carrying the rapid-fire datedness of so much political music. The drums roll back into the picture on the other cuts, and the horns stick around for the swank “You Need a Better Mind,” which gets a nifty remix. A-
Robert Ashley, eL / Aficionado (2021) (Lovely Music, Ltd.) Per the title, this is a 2021 recording of an opera by the late avant-gardist Ashley, a work that premiered in 1987 with many performances following over the next seven years and a prior recording released by Lovely Music in ’94. Until October 21-23 of this year at Roulette in NYC, the opera was last performed in 1995. This CD, released on 10/22, features the cast of the 2021 production, with mezzo soprano Kayleigh Butcher stepping into the role formerly played by baritone Thomas Buckner. eL / Aficionado offers a series of conversations between an “agent” (Butcher) and her three interrogators (Brian McCorkle, Interrogator No. 1; Bonnie Lander, Interrogator No. 2; Paul Pinto, Interrogator No. 3). Espionage and intrigue are essential components in the work, but Ashley’s intent wasn’t to construct a spy story, not even a post-modern/ nonlinear example of such. Instead, the unwinding complexity seems focused upon the friction between public personas and private-inner lives. Tom Hamilton’s orchestration, recording, and mixing are essential. A- 
REISSUE/ARCHIVAL PICKS: Robert Ashley, Foreign Experiences (Lovely Music, Ltd.) For this 1995 recording of Foreign Experiences, an opera that’s part of Ashley’s early 1990s tetralogy, with Perfect Lives and Atalanta (Acts of God) to follow, Sam Ashley is Don and Jacqueline Humbert is Linda, characters familiar from Improvement (Don Leaves Linda), which preceded Foreign Experiences in said tetralogy, first recorded for Nonesuch in 1991 (a new recording of Improvement (Don Leaves Linda) was released on CD in 2019 by Lovely Music, featuring a new group dedicated to realizing Ashley’s work). For this release of Foreign Experiences, the ensemble consists of Robert Ashley himself along with Thomas Buckner, Margareta Cordero, Joan La Barbara, and Amy X Neuburg, this group having interpreted Ashley’s work from 1992-2012. Here, they are recorded by Tom Hamilton and Cas Boumans, with the release mixed and edited by Hamilton. Even at this relatively early point, the “band” is in prime form, and the prose is some of Ashley’s very greatest. He was an absolute master of language. A+
Calvin Keys, Proceed With Caution (Black Jazz – Real Gone) Keys got his start in the ’60s backing up a slew of soul jazz organ heavyweights, and on Shawn-Neeq, his debut as leader from 1971 (reissued early in 2021 as part of Real Gone’s Black Jazz reissue program and already sold out at the source), it’s not hard to tell, as he has a crisp, lithe, clean approach that’s occasionally reminiscent of Grant Green. Keys notably nixed the organ for Shawn-Neeq, electing instead for the electric piano of Larry Nash, a decision retained for Proceed With Caution, though the pianist this time is Kirk Lightsey. Those allergic to Fusion need read no further, but ears open to the style should understand that while Shawn-Neeq is a solid effort, its follow-up is an all-around improvement; the scope is broader both instrumentally and compositionally, there’s plenty of heat and edge, and nary a trace of smoothness. The year was 1974. Had this been released by one of the major labels in the mid-’70s, say Columbia or Warner Brothers, my guess is it would be perennially in print rather than getting its first-time vinyl reissue in 2021. A–
Paris, FR | Paris 18th: the Dizonord record store organizes a large vinyl clearance sale in a loft: Notice to all diggers and vinyl hunters, a rather exceptional event will take place on the weekends of December 4 and 12. Dizonord, record store emeritus of the 18th arrondissement, organizes with the distributor Topplers a large clearance sale of 50,000 vinyl records of electronic music at declining prices. …The place was still kept secret until now. Finally, a loft close to the store was chosen to host this great event. Specialist in experimental music, the northern Parisian record store Dizonord celebrates all musical genres, even those you have probably never heard of before. Suffice to say that we can find nuggets among the tens of thousands of records put on sale for the occasion. And for once, we can combine 
New York, NY | NYC’s First-Ever Vinyl Record Craft Beer Bar Survives Pandemic and Readies for Expansion: Who would have thought a business that combined craft beers and vinyl records would be a winning concept? It’s been working for NYC-based Chris Maestro, who opened BierWax in late 2017 in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. And now, having survived the pandemic, he is opening a second location in the borough of Queens. BierWax was on a business boom just before the pandemic. The business was turning a profit right before the pandemic, making about half a million dollars a year, The Gothamist reported. The 45-year-old former city public school teacher combined two of his passions: 
Seattle, WA | Meet the record store aspiring to be the U-District’s newest creative space: In January, vinyl collector and business owner Ken Tomkins moved into a space on the north end of the Ave that would soon become Seattle Records, a store specializing in vinyl and multilingual books. With only a fraction of students living on campus during the 2020-21 school year and the continued digitization of so many aspects of life, businesses in the U-District were hurting. However, aided by the recent vinyl revival and a massive collection of inventory, Tomkins took to the Ave in search of a space that would spur community gathering. Prior to opening the storefront, Tomkins sold records and books online via e-commerce sites like Amazon. Among his concerns were the isolation and high fees associated with online sales. After six years, Tomkins made the transition to a physical store, hoping to create a space that could serve as a meeting place instead of just a retail shop. “It’s good to have physical places,” Tomkins said. “
Melbourne, AU | Soundmerch launches record store in Melbourne: Independent Australian music merchandise company Soundmerch has launched a new record and merchandise store in Melbourne. Open now, the store can be found on Oxford St, Collingwood and is open every day. The store is set to host in-house performances, exclusive merchandise drops, album signings and more. …“When Covid hit…..touring died off, and we found a massive increase with our online sales. The business flipped on its head overnight,” he said. “The online store went insane and became the main part of what we do. Artists were pushing their merch online, for many it became their main source of income. We were the facilitator between bands and their fans. “Previously we were all about the production of merch for touring. Then it turned and was all about the production of merch for online. With that came a massive uptake and demand for vinyl records. So we started stocking more and more titles. To the point where we could (and did) open 
