Bribie Island, AU | Beloved Vinyl Store Closes: Jason and family at Surfside Wax Records on Bribie Island announced the store’s sad closure. Surfside Wax Records closed its doors for good this weekend after 26 years of selling vinyl on Bribie Island, QLD. Business owner Jason Broomham made the announcement on Facebook about the beloved store, writing, “To all of you that have been customers, friends and colleagues I would like to thank you all for your support, your friendship and being apart of something that I have loved doing so much. As I always said the hardest part of my day was choosing what music to play, I loved what I did and all of you are the reason why I did.” Broomham added that all stock and electronics have been sold to Marty at Revived Audio, who “runs a market stall at Carseldine Markets on Saturday’s and Caboolture Markets on Sunday’s.” The owner also noted that Marty is “a great person to deal with” and “very passionate about vinyl and hi fi equipment.”
Larchmont, NY | NY orthodontist opens record store for charity: ‘This is a passion’ Sometimes in life, people wear a couple of different hats. Dr. Garrett Weston is an orthodontist in Larchmont, New York. He’s also a music lover and a record collector. His grandfather set him on that path. His father too. “He was like one of those Maxell commercials from back in the ’70s where he’d be sitting in that chair between speakers as big as I was when I was a kid and put things on the turntable, and he had a massive collection of jazz and classical and rock,” he said. Weston was laser focused. “Every summer I would try to get a job at the local record stores,” he added. “And every summer they’d say like, ‘dude so many kids want to work in the record store, I’ll call you,’ and they never did.” Life moved on. Weston started fixing smiles, but the love of music lingered. “That old idea of working in a record store, having a record store, and just seeing how vinyl was starting to make a resurgence and being really excited about the fact that that was happening and wanting to be a part of it, and thinking, Larchmont needs a record store, and I’ve got the space,” Weston said.
Westmeath, IE | Local Lives: Chance visit to record shop led Gerry to life in music: Originally from Crosshaven in Cork, Gerry Crowley has lived in Mullingar on and off since the 1990s. Two chance encounters in two different record stores would dramatically alter the course of his life. The first happened in 1977 when Gerry was 18 years old, had just finished his Leaving Cert, and was planning to study business in college. “One day I went into a record shop in Cork, and I just got chatting to the guy who owned the shop and he said, ‘Do you want a part-time job?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, ok,’… So I never bothered going to college… I just loved the whole buzz of a record shop.” Back then, “record shops were meeting points for people and they’d come in and chat… have a cup of coffee at the counter and have a cigarette.” The part-time job became full-time “almost immediately” and Gerry stayed there for three years. He is still in touch with one of the owners, Ursula, who was “great fun.”
SG | Vinyl record collecting is having a resurgence in Singapore – what does ‘stan culture’ have to do with it? From Teresa Teng to Billie Eilish, record collecting is enjoying a renaissance in Singapore. We asked the folks at Roxy Records, Wildflower Wax Co and Vinyl Kakis – who’s buying them and, more importantly, why? When he was 20, Tan E-Reng bought his first vinyl record, Pet Shop Boys’ Disco. It was meant to be a gift for his father but “funnily enough, the vinyl renaissance bug never caught my dad”, he recalled. “So I ended up being the one listening to the record more.” Four years later, he boasts a collection of 121 records, ranging from classics such as “the odd The Police record” to rarities such as vaporwave classic Floral Shoppe. “I have always just felt an affinity with having a physical copy of something, be it with books, music or art,” explained the 24-year-old music student, who added that he’s been funding his vinyl collecting bug with his part-time job as a music production teacher. And he’s far from the only one who’s been amassing records in Singapore – just a quick Google search and a scroll through listicles of cool things to do here reveals an abundance of record stores.
Puscifer vinyl stampers become one-of-a-kind collectibles: Your chance to own a part of the ‘Existential Reckoning’ origin story. Vinyl collectors and music obsessives come in all shapes and sizes, but at their crux, they share one core value: the need to obtain fetishized objects. If you love a band and their music — specifically, on vinyl — what’s a record fiend to do when owning a simple slab of tasty wax isn’t enough? Well, traditionally, you’ve got a few options, including box sets, colored vinyl, collector’s editions and the like. But alas, you want more now, don’t you? Worry not: Goldmine and Revolver have you covered with their latest endeavor, which finds the stampers used to press the uber-limited runs of Puscifer’s 2020 album, Existential Reckoning, being transformed into something assuredly special. Intrigued? Let’s dive in. To understand the project’s origins, we checked in with Dan Yashiv, the Head of Production at Sunpress Vinyl, the fine folks who took on the endeavor at its onset. “Puscifer had gone on tour in support of Existential Reckoning and wanted to do something special regarding having limited records for sale at the merch tables,” Yashiv explains.
Pink Floyd army comes for anti-LGBTQ2 fans outraged by new ‘rainbow’ logo: Pink Floyd fans are hitting back against anti-LGBTQ2 trolls who have criticized the band for being “woke” for reinventing their iconic rainbow logo as part of their 50th anniversary celebration. Last week, the British rockers released a deluxe box set of their 1973 hit album Dark Side of the Moon, updated with a fresh take on the album’s original art — the widely recognizable prism refracting light. The band posted the adapted minimalist version of the logo to Facebook, which now features the number 50 inside the prism, with the 0 filled in with a rainbow. Some of the band’s so-called fans took the new logo as a statement of support for the LGBTQ2 Pride movement and lashed out at the band in the comments. Actor George Takei, along with many others, shared some of the reactions to the Facebook post. …For every comment calling the band out of their “woke agenda,” however, there were dozens of comments mocking these fans and reminding them of the original Dark Side imagery.
UK | Unsold £1m album keeps royalties debate open: A band attempting to sell just one copy of an album for £1m as part of a campaign for higher online royalties said it was about “keeping the debate in the public eye.” The vinyl copy of Vegetal Digital by the Pocket Gods, from St Albans, has been on sale at a record store in the Hertfordshire city since October. The band wants to set up a rival streaming platform with the money. Frontman Mark Christopher Lee said the record is “still raising awareness of an issue we are passionate about.” He said musicians routinely get underpaid for their work and that Spotify currently paid it a royalty of £0.002 per stream, but a track had to reach 30 seconds in length to qualify. His four-piece band have been releasing albums of 30-second songs since 2015 to highlight the lack of what they call fair royalties. Lee said their latest album – Nobody Makes Money Anymore, which has 1,000 30 second songs on it, had got about one million “spins” and raised about £250. Last year, their 76th album, a vinyl LP consisting of 10 new full-length songs, and not available in other formats, was put on sale in Empire Records with the six-figure price tag.
