“Vinyl has always been so enchanting and mysterious to us in our musical journey.”
“My earliest memory with vinyl started with my brother David (singer) and our uncle Bruce. Bruce lives in Palo Alto, CA and grew up in the heart of the ’60s. Palo Alto was the birthplace of a lot of bands but most notably The Grateful Dead.
I went up there to visit one weekend when I was 15 (David must have been 10) and he sat me down from 2:00pm to 3:00am every day and showed me everything from early Miles Davis, Jaco Pastorius, Chambers Brothers, Marvin Gaye, to Harry Nilsson, Cream, King Crimson, and much more. Every genre. Honestly it was overwhelming but incredible.
As we got older David and I started collecting our own vinyl. We’d pick up our own and share it whenever able. Some of our early records were Parachutes by Coldplay, Led Zeppelin IV, U2’s The Joshua Tree, and many more.
Melbourne, AU | Melbourne’s Polyester Records to close after 37 years: Polyester Records, one of Melbourne’s most beloved and longest-running record stores, has announced it will cease operations this coming March. In a statement posted to its social media accounts yesterday (January 22), the store’s management noted there were “many mixed emotions” about their time coming to a close after nearly four decades of service. “Polyester has endured in its Fitzroy home for an extraordinary period since 1983,” it reads. The store goes on to note “fond memories of the celebration of a seemingly endless amount of incredible music,” brought to them care of “[a]rtists, labels and personalities which we have surrounded ourselves with and enjoyed involvement with from not only around the world, but – particularly important for 
Washington, DC | DC Is Getting a Hotel With a Record Store, a Rotating Lineup of DJs, and Food by the Timber Pizza Co. Team: Starting in March, the Wink Hotel in the West End will become Yours Truly. There’s a new hotel concept coming to DC that’s jockeying for a spot alongside places like the Line and Eaton, which aren’t just high-end spots to stay but also spaces for locals to grab a meal or take a yoga class. Launching in March, Yours Truly is the new concept replacing the existing Wink Hotel in the West End. And it has many of the traits that have almost become de-facto in boutique hotels these days: an open-concept “living room” instead of a lobby, popular local chefs manning the dining space, yoga classes in the courtyard and, yes, Insta-friendly plants. (It’s also pet-friendly.) …The open main floor will flow into Mercy Me, the all-day, South American-inspired restaurant and bar from the Timber Pizza and Call Your Mother team. Also in the “living room:” the first DC location of Uncle Tony’s Donut Shoppe, an Orlando used-and-new vinyl store. Visitors can 
REISSUE/ARCHIVAL PICKS: Breathless, The Glass Bead Game (1972) The band name derives from Jean-Luc Godard, the album title from a novel by Hermann Hesse, and the music is amongst the more underrated post-punk of the 1980s, with this their debut from 1986. Breathless singer-keyboardist Dominic Appleton is perhaps best known for his participation in This Mortal Coil, though if you recognize him through that contribution, it’s quite likely you know his work in tandem with bassist Ari Neufeld, guitarist Gary Mundi, and Tristram Latimer Sayer. They apparently sometimes get lumped in with The Sound and Comsat Angels, but the music here ultimately owes more to the precedent of The Cure and Joy Division. Unsurprisingly, Breathless fit in with the stronger 4AD work of the period.
Go Hirano, Corridor of Daylights (Black Editions) This 2004 set is the third of three records Japanese musician Hirano cut for the P.S.F. label starting in 1993, though he was also in psych rock band White Heaven. This music is aptly described as home field recordings with piano at the fore. It also features melodica, wind chimes, the ambience of Hirano’s surroundings, even a little vocalizing, and in “Coral,” some treated guitar from Roderick Zalameda. The whole is gentle and captivating as it naturally differs quite a bit from White Heaven and is further distinguished from the too-often predictable bright buoyancy of neo-classical piano stuff. This is the only one of Hirano’s P.S.F. releases not originally on vinyl, debuting on the format here. Next month it is bundled with a cassette of unissued material. A 
Tangerine Dream, Sorcerer Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Waxwork) Director William Friedkin’s Sorcerer, released to theaters in 1977, was a commercial flop and for a long time was also considered an artistic dud. Its bad reputation endured partly because it wasn’t easy to see in the years after its initial run was over, and if one could locate a copy or a screening, it would likely not be the uncut version in the proper aspect ratio. Well, Friedkin’s cut has since been restored to considerable critical reevaluation, and this soundtrack, notably the first for a Hollywood film from the Krautrock-affiliated Tangerine Dream, is sorta the icing on the cake. It features a short liner text by the director detailing the collaboration. Where much of the Dream’s later stuff doesn’t thrill me, this one satisfies nicely. A-
Mankato, MN | Music Man: Carl Nordmeier gives customers more than music, he gives them an experience. On the corner of Rock Street and Riverfront Drive in Old Town Mankato sits the only shop in town dedicated to selling vinyl records. TuneTown’s owner, Carl Nordmeier, is a veteran of the music sales business, working in the music department at Target for years before the birth of the record store in his home town of Faribault, Minnesota, in 1993. It was his passion for music that inspired the now-26-year-old business. As many Americans do, Nordmeier saw an opportunity in the area and seized it. “What got me into the business, growing up in that area, there really wasn’t anything available for record stores,” says Nordmeier. “We had to go up to the Twin Cities if I wanted to go to 
Bronx, NY | This Bronx Restaurant Pays Tribute to Hip-Hop & the Black and Latino Kids Who Created the Genre: When you first open the door at 135 Alexander Ave., you seemingly find yourself in a vinyl record shop. Filled with posters of Bob Marley, LL Cool J and Wu Tang Clan as well as a Casio keyboard with a missing key, it’s not unlike other record stores. But when you get to the tall red velvet curtain directly across the entrance, the muffled music playing behind it invites you to cross the threshold. Four MTV Cribs-esque chandeliers shed light on the scene: A crowd forms as the DJ dances to a Migos song. Beside them, a group of friends laughs hysterically as they pour a glass of mouth-watering sangria, reminiscing about the good old days while sharing plates of crispy chicken, perfectly melted mac ‘n’ cheese,locrio and tres golpes. This is Beatstro – the 
The release that has thus far thrown the brightest spotlight onto Black and Wyatt Records’ nascent activities is the outlier in the discography, “Steady Girl” by The Heathens, a group of five teenagers enrolled in Memphis’ East High School who cut two takes of their sole song at Memphis Recording Service (a.k.a. Sun Studio) four days after the Presley-Perkins-Lewis-Cash Million Dollar Quartet session (which dates from Dec. 8, 1956).
Shawnee, KS | Review: Brothers Music KC: With the vinyl industry seemingly being resurrected from the dead after not doing much since the late ‘70s, it is important to know where to go when looking for records. After getting my very own record player, I had no idea where to look to find some records at a decent price. It just so happened that just down the street from where I work was Brothers Music KC. This store is located in the heart of downtown Mission, Kansas right on Johnson Drive which is an easy drive for students living in the Mill Valley area. When looking for a record store, you really must take into consideration how is the store laid out because it needs to be easy to 
Wrexham, UK | Wrexham film and music shop will be ‘sorely missed’ say shoppers and residents: Readers say a ‘great store’ will be ‘sorely missed’ after a long-standing Wrexham trader announced plans to close his shop. The Leader reported last week how Alun Hughes, owner of the popular Alun Hughes Film, Music and Nostalgia shop on Bank Street, will be closing his business at the end of February. Social media users shared their views on the Leader’s Facebook page. Robert Fell said: “Good luck Alun, with what ever you do. “Always put your heart and soul into things. Top man.” Ian Purviss posted: “A great store that will be sorely missed. I remember buying Guns N’ Roses cassette single from you all them years ago when it was Phase One – the most 
