Santa Clara, CA | Your New Favorite Record Store is Just “On the Corner” No one knows the name of the record store nestled just two doors down from Park Station Hashery, but it’s no mystery what they sell there. With its rounded black-and-white sign out front reading“RECORDS,” On the Corner Music does a fantastic job at marketing its merchandise, but do Santa Clara students really know what’s behind the door? Upon entering this cozy used record store, newcomers are immersed in the nostalgic scent of box after box of assorted 60’s, 70’s and 80’s vinyl. The space is filled with the soft crackling of a jazz record that store owner Jeff Michael Evans has just taken out of its worn cardboard sleeve. …“Vinyl was the normal media at the time,” Evans said, recalling the early days of his collection. Despite the rise of CD’s in the late 80s and early 90s, Evans noted that vinyl was still very popular among kids at the time, primarily due to its lower price point.
Grand Rapids, MI | DJ plans Grand Rapids’ first Black, woman-owned record store: Grand Rapids’ first Black, woman-owned record shop is coming to the city’s Southeast End neighborhood with a targeted opening next month. Della Soul Records will offer a space for vinyl enthusiasts to buy and sell records at 1220 Kalamazoo Ave. SE in what owner Della Marie Levi describes as a “quirky, eccentric and colorful” space. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, Levi took her love of music to a new level, learning the art of DJing on vinyl records. By becoming DJ Della Soul, Levi also found a new way to connect with her late father, who she described as an “avid vinyl listener.” “When he was in his chair with his cocktail and his vinyl records playing, he was in such a beautiful zone,” Levi said of her father. “That was his way of relaxation and rest, and I learned good music through him.”
Ocean Springs, MS | Maynard’s Music dedicating Little Free Record Store in Ocean Springs: Pretty soon music lovers will be gaining access to classic and vinyl records at one local library thanks to this music shop. This Saturday, Maynard’s Music is dedicating a free community record shop to the Ocean Springs Library System. Visitors will be able to donate and share their classic CDs, cassettes, vinyl records, and other music formats with the community. The music box will be placed in the lobby area of the Ocean Springs Library. Matthew Comstock, the owner of Maynard’s Music, says this music shop is the only one in the region. “This will be the first one that I know of in this region that offers a little free record shop as opposed to a little free bookstore. So yeah, this is the only one that I know of in this area. It was a little tough because we had to find a location where its inside. You know it has to be protected from the weather, the records can’t get hot or wet or anything like that. So, we’ve been working with the public library. They’re very excited about it and we are very, very, very excited about it.”
HK | Is Hong Kong seeing a vinyl revival? Record store owners see a growing trend among young people: HMV and Hong Kong Records might have disappeared in 2018 but vinyl is making a quiet comeback in independent music stores and even bars. Many consider vinyl albums a thing of the past, condemned to the dustbin of history thanks to the popularisation of first CDs then music streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal and YouTube Music. Hong Kong’s former record giants Hong Kong Records and HMV both closed the last of their retail locations in 2018. To some, it seemed like the end of an era. But analogue music did not completely go away. Vinyl records have been making a quiet comeback in Hong Kong, in both local independent music stores and the homes of dedicated audiophiles and collectors. It’s not just a Hong Kong trend. Luminate, a US-based entertainment data company, released a report in July showing that US vinyl sales were up 21.7 per cent for the first half of 2023 compared with the same period in 2022, and had been rising for 17 consecutive years.
Sarasota, FL | Sarasota Music Archive offers a journey through music history: The archive houses media from the 1850s, Jimi Hendrix records, jazz collections and classic comedy albums while preserving the sounds of the past for the future. Not all music enthusiasts today are familiar with a “78” record, but not long ago, you could find them in The Sarasota Music Archive. The collection of records was so numerous, that when an engineer came to visit the site, he requested staff remove it because of its weight. Thanks to a corporate grant, the archive was able to digitize and remove the records, the standard format from the 1910s to 1950s and known as “78” for their revolutions per minute. The process of digitization, just one aspect of the archive’s work, may not sound difficult, but it can be when it requires each record to be played from beginning to end, and when the collection is as extensive as what’s tucked away in the Special Collections Department of Selby Public Library. Just for perspective, the collection of a later variety of vinyl records totals about 300,000, with each record being 40 to 50 minutes in length.
Arcadia, CA | Vinyl records are in high demand. So these music pros opened a pressing plant in Arcadia: Production turnaround times grew longer, so they decided to press their own here in Southern California. Vinyl might be the one of great comeback stories of the 21st century. The once-antiquated medium, according to a 2022 sales report from the RIAA, makes up over 70% of physical format sales. But vinyl’s growth has come with a side effect. As demand increased and more major label artists got in on the action, production turnaround times grew. And grew. And grew. “It created a bottleneck,” says longtime mastering engineer and vinyl manufacturer Gil Tamazyan. “It was locking up most of the pressing plants for a lot of indie artists that were just trying to do small-batch records.” Enter Onyx Record Press.
Manchester, UK | The record label teaming up with a popular bakery to create something ‘different’ for Stockport: Inspired by European bars, the new space on St Petersgate will encompass a daytime cafe before turning into a late-night bar spinning records. In recent years, the Underbanks area of Stockport has been attracting attention both regionally and nationally for its role in the south Manchester’s town’s renaissance. Dotted with boutique clothing stores, upscale barber shops and trendy bakeries, it’s often dubbed the ‘Soho of the North’. But just up the road, over from the Marketplace, there are a number of businesses opting to set up shop on St Petersgate. Home to Columbian coffee shop and Cafe Sanjuan and family pub Petersgate Tap, and leading onto Lawrence Street where sandwich shop Rack resides, it’s a little bit away from the hustle and bustle, but that’s exactly what drew Andrew Lyster to it. This weekend, the designer and DJ officially opened Mø6b, a daytime cafe space run with a residency from hit bakers Trove, and a late-night bar spinning records.
This $250 Bluetooth record player is a great gift for the music lover in your life (or yourself!) TL;DR: If you need a brand new statement piece for your house that also doubles as a great holiday gift for music lovers, the Mbeat Hi-Fi Turntable could do the trick. It’s now on sale for only $249.99 (reg. $369)! When you live in a world where everything is amazingly tiny and portable, it’s almost impossible to go back to the basics. Vinyl fans may especially find it arduous to find a piece of furniture that both marries the love of the craft and has a super modern flare. If you’re looking for something that fits the needs of both the kids (Gen Z, anybody?) and the old souls (we’re kidding, you’re not that old!), this classic hi-fi turntable from Mbeat could do the trick. Now, it’s on sale for only $249.99 (reg. $369)! Working as a fully manual, belt-drive turntable, you can play your favorite records while simultaneously blasting said albums on a Bluetooth speaker for the world to hear.
