“I don’t have many records, as I don’t own a vinyl player yet…emphasis on the ‘yet.’ Of the small collection I do have, every single LP is one that I have listened to countless times on CD / streaming platforms and I know that when I eventually play them on my very own record player it will be a very special moment.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I have listened to many records on my parents’ record player, but I didn’t grow up with the nostalgic sound of the needle touching the vinyl and the record whispering as it played. We were always playing cassettes and CDs, whether that on the hi-fi, in the car, or through my very first Walkman!
I was only introduced to that famous vinyl sound when my dad started up his old sound system back in my childhood home and put on a few albums (one of which was Carole King’s Tapestry—mum’s copy) of which I have an original copy of my own, framed on my wall, waiting to be released onto that deck! I knew from that moment that one day I would be sieving through my parents old records (tucked away in the hi-fi cupboard) and giving them some fresh air on my very own hi-fi system. That day hasn’t yet come but the collection continues to grow.
Salina, KS | Ad Astra takes vinyl online: Like many events during the COVID-19 crisis, BYO Vinyl Night at Ad Astra Books and Coffee House has gone digital in order to continue meeting. The desire to maintain the spirit of a regular weekly gathering is part of what Ad Astra means to many people — community. “It’s called Quaranstream while we’re doing it online,” says DJ Justin Reed. He has been spinning vinyl record albums at Ad Astra for nine months. BYO Vinyl Night meets weekly on at 7 p.m. Wednesdays. Vinyl Night has been a regular program at Ad Astra since 2012. Ad Astra closed its doors on March 31, after a week of doing curbside-only service. Tammy Jarvis, owner of Ad Astra Books and Coffee House, said her business “makes money by allowing people to congregate and without a safe space to gather, 
Richmond, VA | Conflict on the web: For Richmond record store Vinyl Conflict, surviving the COVID-19 outbreak has meant taking their business online. When the coronavirus outbreak hit, Vinyl Conflict owners Bobby Egger and Melissa Mazula were out of the country. They’d had a buying trip to the UK scheduled for March 4 through 18, and as they traveled, things began to escalate. “When the travel ban went into effect, we were watching the news very carefully each day, trying to make a decision about how we would be returning,” said Egger. “We were quite far away from our return flight date, and on the other side of the country.” From another country, they had to make important decisions about what would happen with Vinyl Conflict’s retail store in Oregon Hill, which specializes in new and used punk, hardcore, and metal albums — on vinyl, of course — as well as related merchandise. And when they returned, they voluntarily put themselves 
NEW RELEASE PICKS: The Soft Pink Truth, Shall We Go on Sinning so That Grace May Increase? (Thrill Jockey) Conceived by Drew Daniel of Matmos, the latest release in this long-running if on-again-off-again project is a direct byproduct of the artist’s desire to respond emotionally and artistically to creeping global fascism, generally, and a certain narcissistic incompetent’s election to the US Presidency, more directly. He’s further stated that he didn’t want to make “angry white guy” music, which means this album (available digitally today and out on vinyl June 19, understandably delayed due to pressing plant safety issues related to Covid-19) isn’t an exercise in sloganeering or didacticism, a lack that’s appreciated but frankly not especially surprising, as Daniel isn’t a strong candidate for making like a pissed-off Caucasian on record, even as a portion of The Soft Pink Truth’s catalog is dedicated to interpretations of what many (not me) would dismiss as “angry white guy” music.
ONO, Red Summer (American Dreams) Now, Chicago’s ONO have been called a “gospel industrial band” and “punk-gospel-noise.” These may seem unusual juxtapositions, so here’s the statement of purpose from the group’s website: ONO is an “Experimental, Noise and Industrial Poetry Performance Band Exploring Gospel’s Darkest Conflicts, Tragedies and Premises.” Noise is amongst the most confrontational of musics; most find it something to abjure, while a smaller number welcome it as a presence to be reckoned with; it can’t exist as background, and resists being ignored. The industrial genre, in its earliest years, was in many ways an offshoot, or indeed, an early incarnation of noise music, which had yet to really be articulated as a form.
Seattle, WA | Seattle’s Bop Street Records, once named one of the 5 best record stores in America, to close at the end of June: No one knows what the landscape for music lovers will look like in the post-COVID-19 era, but one longtime Seattle landmark is definitely going away. Bop Street Records, shuttered since the governor’s March 23 stay-at-home order, will close its doors permanently at the end of June. Bop Street has been a fixture on the Seattle music scene since 1979, and in 2011 was picked by The Wall Street Journal as one of the five best record stores in America. “I don’t want to say I’m being driven out of business,” said Dave Voorhees, who will continue to sell records from his home after his store closes. “But my lease expires at the end of June and because of the coronavirus, we decided to not extend the lease.” Voorhees, 70, had planned to retire in five years. He considers himself lucky that the pandemic hit just in time for him to change his mind. Much of his revenue comes from out-of-state and foreign buyers who depend on airline travel, which has dried up. “The timing was 
Northridge, CA | Keeping culture alive: Amoeba Music announces closure, new location opening in the fall: Records, posters and memorabilia decorating the walls from floor to ceiling — just one of the many characteristics music enthusiasts enjoyed when they walked into Amoeba Music in Hollywood. Located on Sunset Boulevard, Amoeba Music is considered the go-to record store in Los Angeles, with an array of records, CDs, DVDs, films, books and more, this music store has a little bit of everything. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Amoeba announced on Monday they will no longer reopen their current location this year and will focus on opening their new location at 6200 Hollywood Blvd., just a few blocks away from the original building. “We have to move in the fall and there are timelines and tasks involved in making that happen. That was set into motion long before COVID-19,” Amoeba said in a statement. “If we don’t focus on getting the new store ready for the fall opening, the hard reality is we may 
NEW RELEASE PICK: Damien Jurado, What’s New, Tomboy? (Mama Bird Recording Co. / Loose) I got into Jurado’s work pretty early on, shortly after his second album, 1999’s Rehearsals for Departure, came out on Sub Pop. I was pretty taken with that one and his follow-up from 2000, Ghost of David, enough so that I picked up a bunch of his subsequent stuff, which consisted of one more for Sub Pop and then a bunch for Secretly Canadian. And I can’t say I was let down by any of it; the guy’s consistency as a singer-songwriter in what I’ll succinctly call the post-Neil Young tradition is striking and a bit reminiscent of another guy I stumbled onto around the same time, Richard Buckner, not because they sound similar (they do, and yet they don’t), but because they were able to turn that tradition into something that was very much their own.
REISSUE/ARCHIVAL PICK: Sopwith Camel, The Miraculous Hump Returns from the Moon (Real Gone) As is the case with countless acts, maybe the least interesting thing about Sopwith Camel was their hit single, namely “Hello Hello,” which made it all the way to No. 26 in ’67. That might be overstating matters a bit, but it’s in aid of explaining how this San Francisco outfit’s long-delayed second album didn’t come completely out of nowhere. But still. Reformed with all the original members except one, the sound of Sopwith Camel circa ’73 had almost nothing to do with the Lovin’ Spoonful-Mamas & Papas neo-vaudeville pop of their earlier days, instead diving into a merger of funkiness, soft rock and spaciness, though a few songs on side two do reinforce a connection to what they sounded like before.
St. Catharines, ON | Shops seeing benefits now from Digital Main Street grants: Mindbomb Records can’t let customers browse through its vinyl in person right now, but it has made its online shopping experience a little more satisfying. The downtown St. Catharines store has been adding more content to the items on its formerly “bare bones” website, thanks to a Digital Main Street grant it received a month ago. The funding, which coincidentally came as COVID-19 shut down storefronts, has allowed the shop to boost its online presence at a time when it counts more than ever. “If you are a business that can benefit from doing online sales, it’s kind of a 
San Francisco, CA | Records in the time of Corona: Groove Merchant: In our ongoing series about record shops coping with this global pandemic called Records In The Time Of Corona, we got to sit down with the OG of the record game on the West Coast. Cool Chris Veltri from Groove Merchant. Everyone’s favorite San Francisco record store owner and purveyor of top notch vinyl and print media broke it down on how COVID-19 has affected this storied institution and how the game is changing right before our eyes. “As of March 15 the gates closed at the shop. Sales and income diminished quickly. The following two weeks were stressful and uncertain. I got pretty close to flat broke. San Francisco is a city that simply doesn’t allow error, so I had to get moving pretty quick. I ordered an Endicia home postage system 
