Salisbury, UK | Boiler Room Records comes to Salisbury: Music and vinyl fans in Salisbury can celebrate as Boiler Room Records has opened up at the Cross Keys Shopping Centre in collaboration with Vinyl Collectors and Sellers. Boiler Room Records has relocated its Poole store at Kingland Crescent to its new home in Salisbury to introduce a London-style record shop to the city, offering new and collectable vinyl, CDs, and accessories. The founder of Vinyl Collectors and Sellers Paul Smith, who will turn 60 in June, stepped away from the business to spend more time with his family. Paul expressed his delight in finding a buyer who will maintain the shop as a record store, preserving the rich musical heritage of Salisbury. Paul said: “We are really excited to be welcoming Boiler Room Records to our established shop in Salisbury in what is going to be a collaboration of two successful businesses in music sales with a combined trading history of 66 years.”
Portland, OR | A record store/pub gives Sellwood a community hub: A wall in the corner of Sellwood’s The Record Pub contains a chalkboard neatly divided into equal squares. Within those squares sit entries in The TRP Top 3, which change regularly depending on that week’s theme. In early July, the theme was “best food and drink songs,” per the July 4 holiday. It’s, on several levels, an open slate. The TRP Top 3 is just one of the many compelling parts about The Record Pub, which, as it approaches its second anniversary on July 20, already seems inextricably molded into the Iron Horse building that hosted the same-named beloved restaurant for three-plus decades. “…People will pick out a record, pay for it and leave. Here, they hang for a while listening to music, they’ll go back and talk to some people they don’t know about music, they’ll talk about the board” containing TRP 3 selections. Added co-founder Chris Metz, “So many friendships have developed here.”
New Orleans, LA | Free beer and cocktails every Friday at New Orleans record shop, Peaches Records: Every Friday evening this summer, local record shop Peaches Records will be hosting happy hour parties with free beer and cocktails to bring the neighborhood together. “The city is one of the most beautiful and magical cities and I’m deeply in love with it,” Owner of Peaches Records Shirani Rea also known as “Mama Peaches,” said. Rea wants to share the love with the city she loves. “We’ll have beer and cocktails, totally free. It’s the cheapest date you’re going to get,” she said. She said she wants to do this especially because last summer was very difficult with no one going out because of the heat. “We didn’t do well as a business in this community last summer so instead of playing my little violin, I decided to do something proactive to help the community out,” she said.
Austin, TX | Qmmunity: Spinning Right Round: Queer Vinyl Collective rules the record roost with new vinyl livestream the Studio. When the mind conjures a DJ set, primary imagery includes a club and people all up in each other’s business on a dance floor. But the real deal music lovers know that the new place to enjoy every song the disc jockey slings ya is online: livestream style. In fact, as I write this very column, I’m pumping the Studio livestream featuring DJ Dana Scully, aka Dana Brown – the first in a new series from Queer Vinyl Collective that’ll be dropping every Monday at 8pm on their Twitch channel. Comprising two bodies, Brown considers QVC to be made by and for both its rotating resident DJs and local vinyl enthusiasts. These parties together form a community created to “carve [out] more equitable space and opportunity for DJs and vinyl-loving folks in this town,” Brown says. “We exist to create more space for queer/ally DJs to show their craft,” she adds about the two-year-old collective, “and hone their skills together.”
Salt Lake City, UT | Utah man opens record store after working to break a different kind of record: David Sherwood first began selling vinyl records at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic when he said he had 15,000 records sitting at home. It started with him holding live auctions on Facebook to sell vinyl records during the pandemic, but it didn’t stop there. “Over the past four years, it’s grown and expanded to the point where we now needed our physical record store,” Sherwood told ABC4.com. Now, Sherwood is celebrating two major accomplishments: The grand opening of his brick-and-mortar record store (called Daybreak Records, located in Sandy), and a submission to the Guinness Book of World Records for visiting the most record stores in a day. “Records, to me, embody this kind of nostalgic factor,” Sherwood said. “The reason I love records is ’cause it’s tied to a time and a memory.”
Colorado Springs, CO | Lightning in a Record: Local Musician Archiving and Re-Releasing Colorado Springs Underground Music: Music can be ephemeral. An aspiring musician can sing an original song all alone in their bedroom, and once that melody dissipates into silence, it is never heard again. A small band can play a few gigs without anyone recording it, and eventually the catchy tune stuck in an audience member’s head the following morning is forgotten forever. This is part of the beauty of music — while some instances of music are recorded, played and cherished for centuries after their original composition, others strike like lightning, a blip in the here and now that only a chosen few get to witness. Local musician Danny Stewart is attempting to go back in time and capture those forgotten lightning strikes by rereleasing music from Colorado Springs’ local underground scene ranging from the 1980s to the 2000s. “It’s fun to put it all together and have something that’s an encapsulated moment in time, for somebody to go ‘This is what it was like in this span of time,’” Stewart said.
The Kinks Celebrating 60th Anniversary of “You Really Got Me” by Releasing Limited-Edition Vinyl Single: The Kinks’ breakthrough hit “You Really Got Me” arrived 60 years ago this summer. In celebration of the milestone anniversary, the legendary British Invasion band is releasing a limited-edition 7-inch vinyl single featuring the song. The disc, which will be released on August 16, features a remastered version of the track’s original mono mix. In honor of the year the classic song was released, only 1,964 copies of the vinyl single will be available. The disc features a replica of the original Pye Records label and push-out center hole. The single also features a mono mix of the original B-side, the non-album track “It’s All Right.” The disc comes packaged with a 7-by-7-inch print. The single can be pre-ordered now, is available exclusively at The Kinks’ online store and via Rough Trade Records.
Dinosaur Jr. to Reissue Farm for 15th Anniversary: A new vinyl edition of the 2009 album is getting released via Jagjaguwar. Dinosaur Jr. have announced a reissue of their 2009 album Farm. The new vinyl edition of Farm features four bonus songs that were previously exclusive to a bonus CD. Among the bonus tracks is a cover of the Zombies’ “Whenever You’re Ready,” which is out digitally today. Hear it below. Farm (15th Anniversary Edition) is out August 16 via Jagjaguwar. Farm marked Dinosaur Jr.’s second album following their 2007 reunion LP Beyond. The record featured the group’s original lineup: J Mascis, Lou Barlow, and Murph. Mascis produced the album and tracked it with the band at his own Bisquiteen Studio in Amherst, Massachusetts. Dinosaur Jr. issued their most recent reunion album, Sweep It Into Space, in 2021.
The Notorious B.I.G.’s ‘Ready to Die’ Is Getting a 30th Anniversary Limited-Edition Reissue: The late Brooklyn rap icon’s debut hits the three-decade mark in September. The Notorious B.I.G.’s acclaimed Ready to Die debut album, which turns 30 years old in September, is getting some special treatment for the big anniversary: A limited-edition 2-LP reissue is set to mark the occasion. Ready to Die (30th Anniversary) will arrive on the album’s original Sept. 13 release date, and will feature a reimagined cover art featuring a photo of Biggie Smalls, the late Brooklyn rapper’s G subway stop and the Brooklyn Bridge. The limited-edition reissue will be available commercially as a double album on black vinyl sold on Rhino and Biggie’s official online shop. Select retailers such as Barnes & Noble will also have a color vinyl edition for sale on the same day.
