Hudson Valley, NY | Checking in with local record shops to see how things went in 2024 and what 2025 may bring: Since the reemergence of vinyl nearly two decades ago as a popular form of physical media, brick-and-mortar record shops and sellers using less traditional avenues have rolled with economic punches like global pandemics and streaming and found a way to survive and thrive. How was 2024 for local record shops? And what’s ahead for 2025? Doug Wygal owns Rocket Number Nine Records on North Front Street in Kingston. Its name is a tribute to cosmic jazz pioneer Sun Ra’s “Rocket Number Nine Take Off for the Planet Venus,” recorded in 1960 when vinyl was holding strong as the nation’s preeminent means of self-curated in-home music delivery. Rocket Number Nine Records doesn’t stretch that far back, though it hit a key milestone in 2024, celebrating a decade in operation. “I don’t see any evidence that current interest in vinyl is waning,” Wygal said. “As a store, we have experienced growth year after year.”
Crystal Lake, IL | McHenry record shop owner is known for helping others. Now he’s the one in need. Tim Wille, owner of Vinyl Frontier Records, hospitalized with pneumonia. Tim Wille quietly uses a Facebook group he created and the record store he owns to help the McHenry community, those who know him said. “Everybody knowns of his reputation and his generosity to others,” said Sue Low Meyer, McHenry’s former mayor. Through the McHenry, The way we like it. Facebook group and his store, Vinyl Frontier Records, Wille reaches out to its members when a resident needed help. “Tim has used that page and the record store as a central location for a number of community outreach projects that he has done and gotten others involved in,” said resident John Gasek. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Wille posted about a family who was facing eviction, unable to pay their rent, Gasek said. With the help of others on the page, the rent was paid and the residents were able to stay in their home. “He has a good following because he has a good heart…”
Chicago, IL | Dr. Wax and a Bygone Harper Court: …Each Dr. Wax location was said to have a unique character based on its neighborhood. The Hyde Park location in particular was known as a hub for carrying local artists — think Rita J, JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound, Miz Tiyabe and Tanya Reed. It also hosted a wide variety of alternative and underground music. A third of the inventory was vinyl, which was primarily bought used from one-stop shops and which was dominated by hip-hop and soul lps, according to a 2000 Billboard article. Over the years, the store got a number of visits from artists such as Henry Rollins, Q-Tip, Destiny’s Child, Tony Tough and Bimpadelic. (A farewell video for the store said that Jarrard Anthony shot a music video there.) But it was the shop’s employees that kept people coming back, most notably Charles Williams and Duane Powell, a DJ and music connoisseur who worked at the shop for 12 years.
Washington, DC | Bob Bartlett’s ‘Love and Vinyl’ to play at DC’s Byrdland Records: Site-specific work about browsing for records and romance in the digital age opens in time for Valentine’s Day. …The Helen Hayes Award-winning Bartlett says the idea to create site-specific theater, which he believes has the potential to engage audiences in more immediate ways than theater staged in traditional spaces, came while he was living in a downtown walk-up on Maryland Avenue in Annapolis over a decade ago. “I’ve always been drawn to theater produced in unique locations,” he notes. “And more than simply Shakespeare in the park.” Always on the lookout for compelling locations where acts of theater and storytelling can happen, Bartlett often writes with specific spaces in mind. “I’d long dreamed of inviting audiences to walk into a record store to see a play.”
Mumbai, IN | Monkey Bar is hosting Goa’s For The Record Vinyl Bar for a unique pop-up: Whether you’re a cocktail aficionado or simply looking for a fun night out, the Mumbai bar’s pop-up in Bandra aims to give people a chance to enjoy Goa’s mixology, great tunes, and electric energy celebrating food and drinks. There is a lot happening in Mumbai when it comes to experimenting with different kinds of food and drink. Monkey Bar is hosting a one-night-only pop-up with Goan cocktail bar For The Record (FTR) Vinyl Bar on January 17. Cocktail lovers can expect cocktail mastery that not only explores local spirits but also modern cocktail techniques, which the Goan bar brings to the city with a mix of inventive drinks through its cocktail menu. FTR’s founder Buland Shukla, a mixology enthusiast, has curated a bold cocktail menu featuring local ingredients and contemporary techniques. On the menu is the Tea Totaller (gin, green tea, milk washed, lemongrass), Gentleman’s Club (whiskey, grilled pineapples, cinnamon, tamari), and the quirky Bad Boy Martini (gin, house dry vermouth, shrimp-shiitake-seaweed foam).
UK | ‘The speakers are the crown jewels’: the rise of Britain’s listening bars: Music on high-end sound systems takes centre stage in these Japanese-inspired spaces for audiophiles. Paul Noble was working as a radio producer and sound engineer when his frequent travels to Tokyo sparked the idea for a change of career. “In Japan, there’s an amazing tradition of listening bars, where they have a deep, beautiful, reverential approach to listening to music,” he says. “It’s nothing to do with club culture. It could be a tiny bar, with six seats in it, and you’ll just sit and listen to music, usually in silence. “It’s such a gorgeous, meaningful way to re-engage with music in an era where the listening experience – and all of the love and care that goes into recording, writing, recording, mixing, mastering an album – has been devalued.” The eventual result was Spiritland, a cafe and bar in London’s King’s Cross in which visitors can meet, chat and buy a coffee or cocktail, but where the music is central, as evidenced by the large and beautifully designed speakers—“a one-of-one super-high-end sound system”—dominating one wall of the low-lit, brick and wood-panelled space.
Dallas, TX | First Look: Seager & Sons Brings Hi-Fi Eats and Lo-Fi Beats to North Texas: Seager & Sons is a new spot at The Boardwalk in Plano that serves pizza, fried chicken and cocktails to a soundtrack of ’70s favorites. It was a huge mistake selling off my vinyl collection to Half Price Books in the mid-80s so I could upgrade to CDs, but what’s done is done. …Record stores are popping up everywhere, which is a good thing. But we’re also seeing a wave of boutique bookstores and coffee shops trying to lure these new analog kids into their establishments by festooning their walls with LP record album sleeves even if they don’t always provide the sonic delights that LPs supposedly impart. Enter Seager & Sons, a new restaurant located at The Boardwalk at Granite Park in Plano. They came up with an advertising slogan that is as catchy as a hook from an ABBA song found on a ’70s record: “Hi-Fi Eats and Lo-Fi Beats.”
“Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”—Sex Pistols to release three ‘Live In The USA 1978’ albums for first time: It features performances in Atlanta, Dallas and San Francisco—their final shows before reforming in 1996. Sex Pistols are set to release three live albums of their legendary 1978 US tour for the first time. Centring around shows in Georgia, Texas and California, the three albums all come from the legendary punk band’s famous tour of the States in 1978. These marked their final live shows in nearly two decades, with the members not taking to the stage again until their reformation in 1996. Comprising Johnny Rotten (real name John Lydon), Paul Cook, Steve Jones and Sid Vicious, the British band broke out tracks from their iconic 1977 album ‘Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols’ during the shows, including live renditions of ‘God Save the Queen’, ‘Bodies’ and ‘Anarchy in the UK’. For the latter, they rebranded the song ‘Anarchy In The USA’. “Now, we came to dance—what did you come for?” Rotten can be heard saying during the Georgia show, before the band ripped into ‘God Save The Queen’. After the rendition, he also branded the track as “the new British National Anthem.”
Peterborough, ON | Square dance caller of 35 years still uses vinyl records: Wayne Whatman and the Otonabee Squares kicked off a new dancing season on Monday night. Beginners are invited to give it a try for free during the month of January. On Monday nights, the basement of Emmanuel United Church is filled with music and laughter. Dancers of all ages join hands and spin circles, step together across the floor, or curtsy to their partners as they meet in the middle. Participants cry out in excitement as they surge forward or step back, and everyone listens carefully for the caller’s instructions. Up on stage, Wayne Whatman hooks a finger under the arm of an old record player, lifting the needle to stop the music. He speaks into the microphone with an easy grace, correcting and guiding dancers into the right positions before allowing the classic vinyl to spin once more. He smiles as the dancers find their groove and then shouts out moves over the loud music and merriment.
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