“Vinyl has always been important to me as a means of a physical connection to music.”
“I grew up in the era of CDs. I have so many memories sitting on the bus on the way to and from school with a CD in my Discman, and looking through the CD booklet, holding the art in my hand as I listened through the entire album as it was intended. As I got older and the internet and downloaded music began to dominate, I craved the physical connection to music that I grew up with.
I put together a stereo setup with a turntable and an amplifier, and ‘permanently borrowed’ a large portion of my parents’ vinyl collection. I haven’t looked back since, and every album I buy is on the vinyl format now.
There is so much to be said for the act of physically placing an album down and placing the needle at the start—it is an affirmation that you are going to not only listen to music but to experience the album as it was intended by the artist, in its entirety. Couple that with the large format artwork you can hold and liner notes to read while listening, and it’s no wonder the vinyl resurgence has exploded in the last several years.
Record Labels Feel the COVID-19 Crunch: Established labels have been trying to keep business going during the pandemic. There is no shortage of harrowing stories that illustrate the pain inflicted by every aspect of the music industry at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Record labels, major and independent, aren’t exempt. As every scheduled tour, from stadiums to living rooms, has been postponed until later in the year (or outright canceled) and several anticipated albums shifting their release dates in kind, it’s certainly understandable to see the Chicken Little effect setting into the collective psyche of industry insiders. It’s scary out there, and stories like this harrowing depiction of the biz do very little to ease worried minds out there within the music business. Artists haven’t been exempt from the crunch either. Yet for more established labels, there are promising stories of hope as they bravely keep moving forward through 
Vancouver, CA | Have vinyl, will travel: Vancouver record stores forced to improvise due to COVID-19 pandemic: Selling records can hardly be considered an essential service to most people, but one retailer is doing what it can to satisfy vinyl lovers during this pandemic. “So, right now, we’re doing curbside pick-up, which means you basically get a hold of us, tell us what you’re looking for, and then we’ll do a safe handoff through our gate,” says Ben Frith, assistant manager of Neptoon Records, located at Main Street and East 20th Avenue. “We also do delivery within our neighbourhood. That’s kind of the radius I’m willing to walk. Certain exceptions will be made if it’s not too much further or if an order is big enough,” he adds. “We’ll also ship out to you if you’re a little bit further out or don’t feel comfortable leaving the house or having someone come to you.” Neptoon isn’t alone in offering home delivery. Audiopile and Red Cat Records are also offering 
Los Angeles, CA | Record stores go silent during what should have been a good month: April was supposed to bring new life and activity to record stores. Now almost everything has stopped. Record Store Day – an annual celebration and sales promotion of independently owned record stores – had originally been scheduled for April 18. Now it has been put off until June 20. Stores have had to close their brick-and-mortar operations. Businesses can only struggle to stay alive. “We’d been doing good,” said Brian Flores, one of the owners of Sick City Records on Sunset Boulevard. They had been in business for fifteen years, first in Silver Lake, then Echo Park, he said. “Then everything went to zero in the last three weeks.” It’s when the bars closed – that’s when the customers stopped coming, Flores said. And when Tom Hanks got sick. Now the store can only sell online, through Etsy, Instagram, Facebook – and even there, sales are very slow, Flores said. Yet his business still shows more life than Rockaway Records in Silver Lake – which temporarily closed not only the store, but 
Santa Cruz, CA | Streetlight Records Copes by Turning to Online Sales: Long before COVID-19, the friendly neighborhood independent record store had already had a lot of practice in dealing with seismic shifts in the marketplace, and even in facing an existential crisis or two. Still, the pandemic has dealt a swift, potentially crippling blow to indie record retailers like Streetlight Records, which has had to close its two stores in San Jose and Santa Cruz. We had the opportunity to visit with Paige Brodsky, who manages the San Jose shop and is also Streetlight’s marketing manager. “Well, it’s challenging, for sure. Our business has certainly seen its share of challenges over the years. But we try to be nimble and try to be able to catch those curveballs. We’re in a situation where probably about half of the total Streetlight staff has been fully furloughed. And little less than a half is working from five to 15 hours a week to fill online orders, and get more of our products listed on various online sites, just to try to get us through and keep the bills paid 
NEW RELEASE PICKS: Simon Fisher Turner & Edmund de Waal, A Quiet Corner In Time (Mute) A lot of the time, when I’m introduced to works composed to accompany art installations (which admittedly isn’t all that often), I can’t help shake that the sounds are impressing upon me that, y’know, I really should’ve been there. Similar to the vast majority of film scores (for every great one there are dozens that aren’t), they excel at enhancing the experience for which they were conceived but don’t exactly thrive when presented as a standalone work. There are exceptions of course, and this release, which offers what began as a sound work by composer Simon Fisher Turner for ceramicist and author Edmund de Waal’s architectural installation, – one way or other –, at the Schindler House in Los Angeles, is one of those.
Nap Eyes, Snapshot of a Beginner (Jagjaguwar) Nap Eyes’ prior long player I’m Bad Now served as my introduction to the band, a solid batch of songs that, through the singing of Nigel Chapman, reminded me a bit of Dan Behar (he of Destroyer). That was cool, but this new record brought this similarity to mind very seldom as the overall approach, which combines the best qualities of singer-songwriter-styled indie rock (think Bill Callahan and Purple Mountains) with ’80s Brit/ Aussie guitar-pop at its most richly elevated, comes into sharper focus. Chapman, the lyricist here on all the songs but one, continues to hone a sensibility that’s poetic without drifting into the eccentric the way Berman, Callahan, and Behar can. Instead, Nap Eyes register as fruit from the same fertile tree that gifted us with the Go-Betweens, Jazz Butcher, Felt, and even East River Pipe. A surprising and excellent record. A
Roedelius, Selbstportrait Wahre Liebe (Bureau B) In the annals of kosmische and Krautrock, composer and multi-instrumentalist Hans-Joachim Roedelius is a figure of deserved esteem, most prominently for his work as a co-founder of Kluster/ Cluster and then Harmonia, plus a handful of collabs with Brian Eno, though the largest portion of his work has been solo. One of the earliest of his own was Selbstportrait in ’79, his third solo LP overall, which kicked off an on-again off-again series of self-portraits (the literal translation of the title) that have intertwined through a solo discography that now numbers into the dozens. Here’s the latest installment, initiated at the suggestion of Gunther Buskies, the founder of Bureau B, as that label’s been reissuing a fair portion of his work over the last decade.
Vinyl documentary online release to benefit local record stores: A documentary about vinyl will get a special internet release to benefit local record stores across the country during this work stoppage. Many of my friends have hobbies like golfing, fishing, hunting, bowling, gambling, motorcycles, or classic cars to name a few. For me, I’m all about Rock music. I like to go to live shows. My idea of a fun Saturday is hitting a bunch of local record stores. The good thing about being “sheltered at home,” I’ve pulled out my vinyl collection and been jamming tunes in the basement like back in high school. Music fans like me are very lucky in Rockford. We have some great record stores including Culture Shock, Toad Hall, and CD Source. By the way, you can still support these places while they are temporarily closed because of COVID-19. You can make online orders and have them shipped to you. Might as well spend the extra time listening to good music. I know it’s a financially hard time right now for many businesses, 
The Sword to release two career spanning compilations in June; unreleased live version of “Freya” streaming: It’s been two years since the Austin, Texas heavy rockers decided to take a break, but The Sword are unsheathed once more: Two career-spanning collections will be released simultaneously, both showcasing the technically dazzling, riff-heavy and far-reaching metal that the band has been known for since forming 15 years ago. Conquest Of Kingdoms, an explosive three-disc vinyl collection of rarities and oddities, offers 30 tracks (16 previously unreleased) and is housed in a triple-gatefold package, including B-sides, remixes and live recordings of fan favourites like “Freya,” “Iron Swan” and “Fire Lances Of The Ancient Hyperzephyrians,” as well as cover versions of “Immigrant Song” (Led Zeppelin), “Nasty Dogs and Funky Kings” (ZZ Top), “She” (KISS), “Forever My Queen” (Pentagram) and more. In addition to the standard vinyl release, a limited-edition colour variant (1,000 pressings worldwide) will also be available exclusively via TheSwordOfficial.com, CraftRecordings.com, as well as 
The Cool Quarantine (001): Henry shares Ian MacKaye bootlegs, Led Zeppelin stories and more: Hello, wonderful KCRW listener. Here is a brief description of what we’ll be checking out on this, our first broadcast of the Cool Quarantine! This is a show free of the constraints you might be accustomed to on regular terrestrial radio. One of my favorite things about music is that often, there’s a good story about any one album or song. I specifically put tracks into this show so I could tell you the story before we play the song. A couple of examples from this show would include a live Cramps track from 1979 that was recorded by Ian MacKaye and also, the first cassette I ever copied. Another would be a live Led Zeppelin track from the time Ian and I saw them play. We will be playing different songs from different bands of course but we’ll also be listening to entire albums, EPs, and singles. At four hours, this is 
