London, UK | London’s Low Company Record Shop To Close For Good: The East London store says its plan to close in spring 2021 was brought forward by the COVID-19 pandemic. London record shop Low Company is closing for good as a physical and online store this Friday (August 21). The news was confirmed in a typically lengthy newsletter penned by Low Company founder, and previous Blackest Ever Black head honcho, Kiran Sande, who explained that the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the shop’s closure, which was originally planned for spring 2021. He adds that he considered moving the Hackney shop to a new location nearby, but decided to close the operation for good as the new location required taking out an eight-year lease. “We’re not disappearing off the face of the earth,” Sande’s letter says. “The eponymous label will continue. So will the manufacturing and distribution of a handful of other labels in our loose family (new releases from Bobby Would, Nkisi, Gewissen, Jane Arden). But the shop – as physical entity and as tragicomic group endeavour—is done.”
London, UK | Next Door Records Opens In West London: As record shops begin to recover after lockdown… It’s been a tough year so far, whether it be the queues outside Tesco, the endless quizzes on Zoom, Joe Wicks being your new alarm or the zig-zag runs. One of the biggest victims of this pandemic has been businesses, particularly local ones. They’ve had to trudge on with a series of major setbacks, whether it’s forcing their shops to close for safety precautions, or not being able to attract enough footfall to keep running. The impact has been so severe that sadly a lot of these local and independent businesses have been forced to close their doors for good, a sight none of us want to see. One of the worst impacted local businesses were records shops, where the magic of going in and having a dig for your favourite record was simply not viable, placing an immense financial strain on shops around the country. Yet, there has been a recent glimmer of hope for record shop owners, as the Government continues to ease its lockdown restrictions, more and more of the city is opening up for us all to enjoy once again. Record shops, a beloved part of London’s music community, are included among the sites allowed to welcome customers under these new guidelines.
Darien, CT | Looking for rare vinyl? Johnny’s Records in Darien to join Record Store Drop Day: Johnny’s Records, a beloved longtime record store in Darien, is participating in Record Store Drop Day, an event when vinyl fans and collectors can get one-of-a-kind titles. This is a redesigned format for Record Store Day, a twice-a-year event that celebrates Independent Record Stores. Originally, it was postponed from April to June due to COVID-19. “Like our customers, we will miss the joy and camaraderie of a bustling Record Store Day. But for the time being, we want to emphasis safety and consideration of our shoppers’ health,” said John Konrad of Johnny’s Records. Founded in 2008, it is usually held the third Saturday in April and the day after Thanksgiving. For these days, several hundred special records are issued and distributed through Indie record stores. The titles are not available on Amazon or in large box stores. …At Johnny’s, instead of forming a line outside the door, shoppers should wait in their cars. On a sheet at the door, each customer should sign up with their name and car model/license plate and return to their vehicle to wait. Customers should not gather outside the door.
Chicago, IL | How Chicago record stores are keeping the music alive and their lights on: Three local record store owners share their approach to reopening and the challenges their businesses face. For a certain type of music fan, nothing beats an afternoon spent digging through albums in a record store—an experience that’s been in short supply since mid-March when non-essential Chicago retailers closed their doors to customers. …Ahead of the first of three Record Store Day Drops that will provide independent shops with exclusive new releases, we spoke with three Chicago record store owners about their differing approaches to resuming business after being partially shut down for several months, from allowing in-person shopping to transitioning to an online-only model. They also touched on some of the challenges that have accompanied the pandemic, like increasingly unreliable shipping, mounting competition from online marketplaces and the real possibility that retailers will have to close their stores (again).
Rehoboth, DE | Dogfish Head honors Record Store Day with Galaxie 500: For this group of self-proclaimed beer geeks with a music problem, the words “Record Store Day is FINALLY here,” could not sound any sweeter! Dogfish Head, the Official Beer of Record Store Day, and legendary indie rock trio, Galaxie 500, are celebrating with a limited-edition beer and vinyl release slated for Saturday, August 29. For the first time on vinyl, Galaxie 500 will release its iconic 1987 live performance, Copenhagen. To complement Galaxie 500’s intense and melodic album, Dogfish Head will release Coping Haven, a Danish-style Rye Pilsner brewed from ingredients inspired by historical Danish brewing tradition, including floor-malted light golden pilsner malt, hearty malted rye and a blend of Moravian hops. The result is a characterful lager with floral and herbal hop aromas, a bready and gently spicy malt flavor, and a clean, dry finish. Priced at just $17 per 4pk/16oz cans, Coping Haven will be available for curbside pick-up – while supplies last – from Dogfish Head’s Rehoboth EmPOURium beginning August 29.
Blending together the budding Philly soul sound of the era, elements of Motown-ish psychedelia, a decidedly Family Stone-like tendency (a la organ and stinging rock guitar), and as the moniker indicates, a heaping helping of socially inclined themes, the record unwinds enjoyably enough, with the (possibly faux) sitar injections lending distinctiveness and the vocal harmonies strong throughout (Major Harris, later of the Delfonics, was a member).
New York, NY | A drive-by eulogy for New York City’s record stores: Just before lockdown, the indie-rock band Real Estate paid tribute to the now defunct record shops that nurtured its rise by performing a series of guerrilla-style concerts, or “out-stores,” in front of them. …The record store has been eulogized plenty, but, for anyone who came of age before the streaming era, it was a formative and necessary space. Now that music is a digital commodity, it’s easy to dismiss record collecting as a pretentious affectation, but the practice continues to hold a certain kind of outré allure. (“High Fidelity,” Nick Hornby’s 1995 novel about the romantic devastations of an obsessive record-store owner, was made into a film in 2000, and then adapted again this year, as a Hulu TV series, starring Zoë Kravitz.) New York still has excellent record stores—Record Shop, in Red Hook, or Academy Records Annex, in Greenpoint, or 2 Bridges Music Arts, in Chinatown—but they have come to feel like obscure specialty markets. Record Store Day, a holiday devised to celebrate brick-and-mortar shops, was postponed this spring, owing to covid-19, and is now being held on three dates, beginning on August 29th. One hopes that there will still be 
Lund, SE | A miniature record store for mice has popped up in Sweden: Ricotta Records is the latest work by art collective Anonymouse to turn heads in the city of Lund: Destiny’s Cheese. Rats Against the Machine. Lady Gouda. Rodents can stock up on all their favourites at the diminutive Ricotta Records, which is drawing many a quizzical look in the southern Swedish city of Lund. It’s the latest mouse-themed artwork by Swedish collective Anonymouse and follows the opening of the ‘Cicada Pharmacy’ on another street in the city in July. Of their latest work, which has records by the likes of Johnny Cashew and Minor Enemy in the window, the collective said: ‘We would like to thank the municipality of Lund for inviting us and encouraging really small business owners.’ Their first installation, the super-scaled-down façades of a French deli and an Italian restaurant, appeared in Malmö back in 2016, and since then they’ve produced everything from a gas station in the city of Borås to a jazz club in Bayonne, France. Because it’s actually quite hard to spot these things IRL (and they’re all very much temporary), here are some of Anonymouse’s most 
San Francisco, CA | Comic Shop Silver Sprocket Takes Over San Francisco Record Store: SFGate reported the closure of central San Francisco vinyl record store 1-2-3-4 Go! Records on Valencia Street, as a result of shutdowns, lockdowns and the general economic downturn that followed. …Silver Sprocket is a former record label-turned comic book publisher and comic book shop. Silver Sprocket has already had a presence in the record store, after renovations at their former store had forced them out. Now they have taken over the new location, replacing vinyl with comic books across the store. …SFGate reports that currently, Silver Sprocket is operating on weekends only, social distancing is observed, windows are left open and owner Avi Ehrlich isn’t forcing employees to return yet. “This is great for me, since I get to run my dream indie comic shop with the laziest commute, but it’s quite stressful to not know if or when we will be able to open or what’s safe. That could change at any time as case numbers change or new safety guidelines get announced. It still feels 
St. Cloud, MN | Vinyl is back: Vinyl swap in Sauk Rapids next Saturday: I remember being a kid, and the only thing available were vinyl records and cassette tapes. It was after the time of 8 tracks (never knew anyone with those) and before CDs. That came around in the mid-80s and I remember asking a friend “what is that?” And he, very matter-of-fact said “that… is a compact disc”. A few years later, vinyl disappeared. I thought it was a move in the right direction because vinyl was such a pain in the a**. And you could take the CDs with you and play them in your car, or on a disc-man or whatever device you had and it would sound as good as the vinyl without all of the pops. A few years later, everyone was downloading their music. I actually had an intern ask how I listen to music if I didn’t have some music app. Uhh… I listen to the radio. Now, in recent years, it seems that vinyl is making a comeback. And it’s easier to find a turntable to buy than it is to find a CD player to buy. A lot of people have some pretty amazing collections of vinyl albums. And this coming weekend, there is 
UFO’s 1977 Lights Out was certainly an odd choice for something to ask for, seeing as how I never much dug hard rock or metal and didn’t even like Led Zeppelin. The snooty teenage me looked down on metal, thought it was dumb, but my good taste has gone to shit over the years and good thing, seeing as how good taste (and this has been scientifically proven!) takes all the fun out of life. Shit, I didn’t even like Foghat, and what kinda way is that for a person to live?
