Dallas, TX | Beloved Dallas record store owner dies weeks after being paralyzed from a fall, family says: The historic Dallas record store announced Penn’s death in a post on social media Thursday. Chris Penn, a beloved fixture of the Dallas music scene for decades and owner of Good Records, died weeks after being paralyzed from a fall, the store announced Thursday. In a post on social media, Penn’s wife, Jenn Penn, said his injuries were too great for him to continue on. He passed away on Wednesday. “My kids have lost their father, I lost my partner of 21 years, his brother has lost his hero, many have lost a dear friend and Dallas has lost a treasure,” she wrote. She described Penn as an incredible force of nature with a heart that always seemed to have room for more connection, love and friendship. “That is who Chris was,” she wrote. “That will be his legacy for our kids.” …”The ways in which our community has shown up over the last six weeks is a testament of the person he was,” she wrote.
Chicago, IL | Chicago independent record stores spin back in an era of streaming: “Fascination” by David Bowie reverberates through the room as customers wander through the aisles of the downtown Evanston store Animal Records, sifting through vinyl records from artists like Janet Jackson to the Grateful Dead. The walls of the room are adorned in pink and yellow stripes with stuffed animals perched everywhere the eye can see. Animal Records owner Greg Allen waves to people as they enter his store, greeting regulars every so often with a casual, “How you doing?” “We’re just trying to keep it a happy, positive place,” he said. “If some people are interested in records, that’s great. But we don’t really care if somebody comes in, even if they don’t buy anything. If they just want to come in and hang out and talk, that’s good too.” Record stores, once a fixture of the past, have had a resurgence in the greater Chicago area in recent years. Not only are these stores a place to shop, but also a place of community for music lovers.
New York, NY | See inside the huge new record store that just opened at Rock Center: The second Rough Trade location inside of Rockefeller Center is officially open! Vinyl lovers, rejoice! Rough Trade has officially doubled down on Rockefeller Center. The beloved indie record shop just opened Rough Trade Below, a 4,000-square-foot subterranean haven for music nerds, merch collectors and anyone who loves a good in-store gig. Located one level down from its existing Rough Trade Above store on Sixth Avenue (yes, they’re calling it that now), this new expansion is all about vibes. There are deep crates of used vinyl, limited-edition CDs, band tees, hi-fi audio gear, Blu-rays, and collectibles galore, alongside a photobooth with a “special twist,” though we’re sworn to secrecy on what that means. But the real headline? The new destination has room for hundreds of fans at a time for intimate, all-ages live performances, building on Rough Trade’s reputation for bringing big names into small spaces.
Beaverdale, IA | Beaverdale record store Vinyl Cup is moving. Here’s where it’s going: Beaverdale’s Vinyl Cup Records has been a hidden gem, but not for much longer. Currently located on the upper floor of the building that houses GoodSons Food & Spirits just north of the Beaver Avenue/Urbandale Avenue intersection, the vinyl records specialty shop will move to a street-level storefront on Beaver Avenue in downtown Beaverdale that was vacated when longtime outdoors outfitter Back Country recently closed. Loved by its patrons but admittedly hard to find, Vinyl Cup originally opened in 2017 in an even more obscure spot: owner Luke Dickens’ basement. He later moved it to a former yoga studio on the second floor at 2815 Beaver Ave. Dickens said that when Back Country owner Jay Kozel announced in February the store at 2702 Beaver Ave. would close after 41 years in Beaverdale he began considering the move. He finally got in touch with the building’s owner to work it out.
No one has ever accused Cleveland’s 
Canberra, AU | Where have all the records gone? Canberra’s secondhand vinyl market in freefall. The secondhand vinyl record market in Canberra has taken a bizarre twist, with almost all of the main stores closing down at the same time. While cost-of-living is an overarching issue, storeowners gave various reasons for shutting shop, some completely while others seek to embrace different business models. Interestingly, the new vinyl market remains relatively strong, as the long queues outside Landspeed on the recent Record Store Day can attest. Landspeed in Garema Place, Civic, continues as Canberra’s premier record shop, with Songland on the southside in Cooleman Court, Weston, also popular with record-buyers. Both stores dabble in secondhand records, but it’s the new release and reissues on vinyl that are attracting most buyers. So 
Stansbury, AU | Yorke Peninsula’s new hidden gem sells vinyl records and books: Tucked away in Stansbury on the Yorke Peninsula and only open on select days, Peninsula Records and Books offers an eclectic mix of Australian authors and global vinyl. “We just wanted to provide a place where people could come and buy a brand-new or second-hand book or a record, because there wasn’t really anything like that in the area,” owner Kate explains. The idea grew from the online store, which was already gaining traction for Aussie authors before the couple decided to open a physical location. “We had it online for a while, and it was doing quite well. Then we thought, why don’t we open it up down in Stansbury since we had the space?” says Kate. 
Leigh-on-Sea, UK | Leigh Broadway Fives Records set to shut—readers react: A much-loved fixture of Leigh’s Broadway will soon play its final track, as Fives Records prepares to close its doors after nearly half a century in business. The independent record shop, which first opened in 1977, has long been a treasure trove for music lovers and vinyl collectors, known for its personal service, rare finds, and a deep love of music shared by owners Sandra Bennett and her father Peter Driscoll. But after 47 years serving generations of customers, the owners have made the difficult decision to close the store for good. They cite rising rent, increased production costs, and the long-term decline in vinyl sales as factors that have made it increasingly difficult to stay afloat. The announcement has prompted an outpouring of sadness and nostalgia from the community, with Echo readers sharing their memories of the iconic store and 
Brooklyn, NY | 5 Brooklyn record stores hiding in plain sight: Like your favorite bar, restaurant, or after-hours spot, some of the best record stores in Brooklyn might just miss you at first glance. If you’ve followed these pages over the years, you already know Record Store Day is every damn day, and Brooklyn’s selection of record shops is so extensive it is effectively unmatched. But some of those excavation sites require a bit more digging than others to unearth, which is a loving labor, honestly, not entirely unlike the art of crate-crashing itself. So for this year’s run at the stacks, we’re aiding your pursuit of those gorgeous, glossy acetates by pointing you toward some of the spots keeping low profiles and well-stocked inventory. Some present as barbershops, natural wine bars, salons, or high-end apartments. But all are easily amongst the best record shops currently in Brooklyn—the type you’d be perfectly justified to gatekeep protect from 
Please forgive me if I’ve fallen egregiously behind the times, but I continue to perceive the goal of education as more than a factory churning out highly efficient producers brandishing economically useful skills, a mass of graduates left to dodge underemployment in hopes of spending decades in the modern workplace’s existential ditch. But maybe I’m just frightfully naive in considering higher learning as the valiant endeavoring to intellectually engage with generations of individuals, hopefully leaving them at least somewhat prepared for the ups and downs of existence, and potentially armed in adulthood with the knowledge to utilize portions of history’s immense landscape to their advantage.
