A NOTE TO OUR READERS: We’ve suspended our regular content this week to afford our team time to readjust to a new normal. We’ll continue to publish regular morning news updates this week as to be a resource for the vinyl and record store community during the Coronavirus pandemic.
As we wrote last week, continue to share the status of your record shops’ mode of operating at this time and we’ll share from our platforms—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram—and you can also share within our Record Store Locator app under the “social” tab. We’ll return to our regular content on Monday, March 30, 2020.
Music community launches ‘Love Record Stores’ initiative: The music community is launching a high-profile, global initiative on Thursday (March 26) to help independent record stores during the current coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis. With many of these stores now experiencing a catastrophic drop-off in footfall or having already closed their doors there are fears that some may not survive if something is not done urgently to stimulate sales. With that in mind many music companies have already pledged their support for this new campaign which has been named #loverecordstores. Companies are coordinating ideas, resources and mobilizing the artists they represent to record messages of support for record stores that can be used across all forms of social media. Musicians, artists, actors and celebrity music fans around the world are being asked to film short video clips of themselves talking about, for example: what independent record stores mean to them, where their favourite store is, what records and artists those stores have helped them discover and most importantly to encourage their fans to continue to shop online with their favourite stores wherever possible.
COVID-19: Global music community launches campaign to support record stores: The initiative will run under the hashtag #LoveRecordStores and seeks to support independent record stores around the world that are experiencing a drop in sales due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The campaign is aimed at mitigating losses by garnering support and promoting online purchases from the stores. As part of the campaign, record labels are mobilising artists whom they represent to record messages of support for record stores on social media. Other celebrities, such as actors, are being asked to film short video clips of themselves talking about the significance of record stores in their lives, and to encourage their fans to continue to shop online. “Independent record stores have played a key role in supporting and developing artists and their music for decades, so now it is time for music companies and the artists they represent to step up and give something back,” Play It Again Sam managing director Jason Rackham, who is leading the campaign, said.
Can the Vinyl & CD Business Survive Coronavirus? Facing the COVID-19 pandemic, music shops are shuttering — and struggling to survive — and Amazon is focusing on household goods. What’s in store for physical retail? In the week ending March 19, Niall Horan sold 26,000 physical copies of his album Heartbreak Weather — which made it both the most popular physical album of the week and a sobering sign for the future of physical music. Stores are shutting down to stop the spread of the coronavirus, and in mid-March Amazon announced it would not re-stock records and CDs until at least early April. As CD sales continue to decline and the high-margin vinyl business faces manufacturing and distribution problems, can the physical business survive? Retailers were already having a rough year. Problems at Direct Shot Distributing have made it hard for stores to get releases promptly, and in February a fire destroyed the Apollo Masters plant, one of two facilities that make the lacquer plate needed to press vinyl. “It’s hard not to be a conspiracy theorist and wonder if the powers that be in the music industry are trying to get rid of physical music,” jokes one indie label owner.
Louisville, KY | Local record shops find ways to safely get you vinyl: It isn’t possible right now to walk into your neighborhood record store, comb through bin after bin and strike up conversations and arguments about all things music, but there are still ways to buy vinyl from those Louisville businesses. For example, Guestroom Records shut its doors to the public a week before the ordered closure of “nonessential” retail stores on Sunday, but the Frankfort Avenue shop has been selling albums through curbside pickup, delivery and shipping — options that are all currently still allowed. “I made the analogy that we are a very, very slow pizza place, with some of the most obscure toppings that you can ask for,” Guestroom Records co-owner Travis Searle said. “Bon Iver and Tame Impala, those are pepperoni. Art Blakey double LP audiophile jazz reissues, that’s artichoke skin that has been cured in Spanish olive oil, brined in the sun. You can call in your toppings and maybe we have them and maybe we don’t. Maybe we can get them and maybe we can’t.”
Austin, TX | Vinyl Saved My Life Tonight: Record Stores Deliver in a Crisis: Local media emporiums maintain online shipping during C-19 lockdown. When local schools shut down suddenly on Friday, March 13, my wife swiftly descended on H.E.B. – along with half of Austin. Personally, I’d already begun hoarding earlier in the week: Waterloo Records, Antone’s Records, Half Price Books. When I walked into Breakaway Records around 4pm that day, not a soul stood in the front room. Cascading forth as unto Howard Carter in Tutankhamun’s tomb, treasures long sought materialized as if sent by the gods: a near mint Powerslave – one never, ever, ever finds vintage Iron Maiden, let alone for $19.99 – not one but two near mint LPs of Pink Floyd’s Meddle, and the haul’s dark horse, a $1 near mint-vinyl (but slightly beat cover) copy of Paul Simon’s Still Crazy After All These Years. Its Simon & Garfunkel reunion, “My Little Town,” is a freakin’ chip off “Bridge Over Troubled Waters.” “…We’ve been adding things to Discogs and our site as fast as we can. 
Fort Dodge, IA | Sweet Sound: At Greg’s Custom Shop, Hammen creates environment made for music. There’s a blue canvas chair that’s carefully situated in front of a turntable and in between two speakers at Greg’s Custom Shop, 2372 170th St. That blue chair is what owner Greg Hammen calls the sweet spot. That’s where the sound equilibrium exists. When the needle catches the groove of the black vinyl record, the music by “Heart” amplifies and fills the space. The guitar thumps, the drums kick. And Nancy Wilson’s voice carries. Cold late night so long ago. When I was not so strong you know — A pretty man came to me — never seen eyes so blue… It’s the closest thing Hammen can get to without actually being at a live concert. Move the chair a little bit to the left or to the right and you’ve lost the sweet spot. “I am introducing those frequencies into my real-time environment,” Hammen said. “If I’m listening to an album and I want to be totally taken in by it, the only way that can truly happen is if the sound engulfs you and takes you into that false environment and 
New York, NY | Rough Trade NYC temporarily shutting down online sales due to COVID-19: All branches of independent record store chain Rough Trade — UK and NYC — have been closed for over a week due to COVID-19 but all have still been doing online orders. The NYC store, however, is temporarily shutting down its online store too: “In response to Coronavirus, we have temporarily shut down all our operations in North America, including orders on our website. We will update again on or before April 6, 2020. Many thanks for your loyalty and patience. Although our NYC store is closed, please follow us @RoughTradeNYC on Instagram and Twitter, as will be sharing content from our artist community friends, and keeping you all informed of releases that are being postponed due to the virus. 
UK, AU | “I don’t know what will survive”: Australian record stores grapple with coronavirus: Business is bad for record stores around the country, and expected to get worse. All corners of the Australian music industry are suffering during the coronavirus crisis. On their part, record stores around the country tell NME Australia their sales are dropping, with business looking set to spiral down over the next few months. The impact of the coronavirus pandemic on Australia’s live industry is by this point well-documented; government bans on public gatherings have led to scores of concerts and festivals being cancelled or postponed, with millions of dollars of income and thousands of jobs affected. Record stores have also been hit, but by the more widespread pressure on the public to stay indoors and avoid crowds so as to cut the risk of coronavirus transmission. That has led to reduced foot traffic and sales for record stores. Nic Warnock and Damien Arkins, owners of Repressed Records in Sydney, closed their store indefinitely on March 17. They estimated takings were 
UK | ‘I’m trying to keep the panic down’ – the coronavirus impact on music: From singers to a record shop owner and a festival organiser: people in the music business on their struggles in a time of crisis. …We’ve been here 17 years. CDs have died, so it’s mostly vinyl. The cafe and records feed off each other. It’s such a small town that I need both for it to make enough money. Record Store Day being postponed until June was a massive relief. There was a suggestion that it could have gone partially online, which would have been a disaster: competing with Rough Trade, Resident, record shops with really good online facilities. RSD is basically a month’s worth of sales in one day, so if you’re doing it it has to work. We could probably last a month without me having to put some money in, and I don’t want to put money into a failing business. The shop can only survive with big financial help from the government. The difference between Boris and Macron’s responses was worlds apart. In France, they said no business will go under and we’ll put €45bn into supporting them. That’s the scale of what has to happen. And it 
New Orleans, LA | Louisiana Music Factory Closes Its Doors: The Louisiana Music Factory, after 28 years in business, is closing its doors due to the coronavirus pandemic. As a result of the increasing cases of the coronavirus in Louisiana, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell today called for non-essential businesses to close by Monday. Consequently, Barry Smith, the owner of the Louisiana Music Factory, announced that the bricks-and-mortar store, which has been a fixture at 421 Frenchmen Street since 2014, will shut down immediately. Smith said that he had laid off employees to comply with the city’s requirement and for his staff’s and customer’s safety. Smith noted that he only had two customers all day Friday and that Frenchmen Street was empty…The store will continue to service mail order sales, for the time being. “And 
Wilmington, NC | As ’Rona rages, Gravity Records plays on: The revered Wilmington record shop has added delivery and pick-up options to help maintain business during the coronavirus crisis. Owning a record store in 2020 was already a challenge. Then, the coronavirus hit. But if Matt Keen, who founded the Wilmington shop Gravity Records 16 years ago, wasn’t a survivor, he would’ve been gone long ago. He’s already lived through the death of CDs and the rise of digital. So, with the COVID-19 crisis threatening to wreck the entire economy and make things that much tougher for independent record stores, an idea “just popped into my head,” Keen said. “Whatever I can do to make a sale.” Gravity is now offering “porch drop offs” of the vinyl records that are its bread and butter, as well as curbside pick-up at its 612 Castle Street location and, of course, mail-order. (To place an order, call 910-343-1000.) “I’m trying not to allow people in the store,” he said. “But if someone wants to come in and look at the jazz records? We’re 
Los Angeles, CA | Curbside Pickup at Amoeba Hollywood Available Through March 22: In response to the ongoing COVID-19 concerns, Amoeba Hollywood is now offering curbside pickup! Call the store and ask to do a phone order for curbside pickup. Our staff will pull your order for you and bring it out to your car! Curbside pickup will be available 11am – 6pm through Sunday, March 22. 1. Call us at 323-245-6400 and ask to do a curbside pickup. 2. Pay over the phone by credit card. We accept Visa, Mastercard & Discover. Store credit, gift certificates, and coupons may not be applied to curbside pickup purchases. 3. When you arrive, park on the Ivar side of the store at a meter. If none available, park in front of the Ivar loading dock entrance. Call the store and let us know you are ready for pickup. 4. Items must be 
REISSUE/ARCHIVAL PICKS: Jon Hassell, Vernal Equinox (Ndeya) & Jon Hassell/Farafina, Flash of the Spirit (Tak:Til/Glitterbeat) First issued by Lovely Music, Ltd. in 1977, Vernal Equinox is the debut album from Hassell, the master of smeared trumpet and a true groundbreaker in ambient music; additionally, it carries the distinction of laying the foundation for what’s now long-established as Fourth World Music. Subsequent examples include Hassell’s follow-up Earthquake Island and a handful of records by Brian Eno, with Fourth World, Vol. 1: Possible Musics a collab featuring Eno and Hassell; it’s a record the trumpeter hasn’t always been particularly fond of. I’m guessing he feels differently about Vernal Equinox, and well he should, as it remains a healthy dose of calmly unfurling oddness and beauty.
He didn’t do it alone, as the contributors to the album (which is available on vinyl for the first time in 42 years) include Naná Vasconcelos on percussion, David Rosenbloom on synth, and William Winant on kanjira. Jumping forward a little over a decade leads us to Flash of the Spirit, a co-billed collab with the Burkina Faso group Farafina, originally on the Intuition label (and Capitol in the US). The album is less gentle than Vernal Equinox, at times far less so, and the overall thrust isn’t as strange. Therefore, I don’t rate it as highly, though I am impressed by how well its intersection with the then burgeoning World Music genre holds up (particularly as it was produced by Eno and Daniel Lanois fresh off The Joshua Tree). But expanded to 2LP (no extra stuff, though), it still offers its share of worthy moments. A/ A-
Game Theory, Across The Barrier Of Sound: PostScript (Omnivore) My enthusiasm for the work of the late Scott Miller is well documented. Game Theory was Miller’s band, one of them anyway, and arguably the outfit for which he’s most remembered (might depend on whether you’re an ’80s or ’90s child; Miller went on to form The Loud Family). Omnivore has done a bang-up job in reissuing Game Theory’s stuff, and now here are the band’s final sessions, cut with the last lineup, which toured but never released a proper album. The personnel here includes Michael Quercio from the then recently broken up Three O’Clock and Jozef Becker, formerly of True West, Thin White Rope, and Miller’s prior band Alternate Learning, so it was far from a case of Miller scrounging up a bunch of scrubs for a tour.
Bandcamp Will Forfeit Its Share Of Sales Friday, Urges Direct Support Of Musicians: Bandcamp, the digital storefront and streaming music platform used by hundreds of thousands of artists and thousands of record labels, will forgo collecting its share of revenue from sales on the site made this Friday, March 20, the company announced on Tuesday. The initiative will be active from 12:00 a.m. to 11:59 p.m Pacific time. The global coronavirus outbreak has put many musicians in a state of extreme financial precarity as their main source of income, live performance, has been suspended while the world struggles to contain the pandemic. “For many artists, a single day of boosted sales can mean the difference between being able to pay rent or not,” Ethan Diamond, the CEO and co-founder of Bandcamp, writes. “Still, we consider this just a starting point. Musicians will continue to feel the effects of lost touring income for many months to come, so we’re also sharing some ideas below on how fans can support the artists they love and how artists can give fans new, 
The lost art of deep listening: Choose an album. Lose the phone. Close your eyes. What’s your favorite album? When was the last time you listened — actually listened — to it from start to finish? With intention, like you were watching a movie or reading a novel. Clear your schedule for the next three hours. Choose three full albums, whether from your collection or your streaming service of choice. Put them in an ordered queue as though you were programming a triple feature. Because, listen: Musicians spend years making their albums. They struggle over syllables, melodies, bridges and rhythms with the same intensity with which you compare notes on the “Forensic Files” reboot, loot corpses in “Fortnite” or pound Cabernet during pandemics. But 
