Record Store Day announces 2023 Black Friday releases: The annual record store event takes place November 24th. The List of Record Store Day (RSD) Black Friday 2023 exclusive releases has been unveiled. Limited edition releases will include selections from The Beach Boys, Jeff Beck, Dierks Bentley, Buckcherry, Kiss’ Eric Carr, Cypress Hill, The Doors, Dr. Dre, Grateful Dead, INXS, Jonas Brothers, Kix, Limp Bizkit, Post Malone, Joni Mitchell, Willie Nelson, Prince, Skid Row, Lil Wayne, Rob Zombie and many others. These will be available on November 24th at participating indie music retailers. Capitol Records will celebrate The Beach Boys’ Christmas Album on green vinyl with an RSD First release limited to 7,000 copies. The Beach Boys’ Christmas Album was originally released in 1964 and features seven holiday classics and five original tracks, including the singles “Little Saint Nick” and “The Man With All The Toys.”
Portland, OR | Community rallies to clean up Portland’s beloved Mississippi Records music store after suspected arson: A group of community volunteers rallied to help Mississippi Records, an institution in Portland’s indie music scene, clean up on Saturday after the store’s owner says someone tried to burn down the store earlier this week. In a social media post, Mississippi Records co-founder Eric Isaacson, said no one was hurt when someone threw a Molotov cocktail into the business on North Albina Avenue. Isaacson said that a lot of records in the shop were damaged or covered in ash and chemical fire retardant, so he put out a plea for the community to come help clean up. Portlanders showed up to lend a hand. Throughout the morning, the shop had more than 100 people volunteer their time to clean up the mess. They had completed a bulk of the work by the early afternoon, and shoppers were back to digging through the racks.
Beckley, WV | Laying down tracks “Uptown.” When Clint Blunt moved back to Beckley after living in South Carolina for 30 years, he wanted to do something different. Recognizing that the vibrant downtown of his childhood days had dramatically changed, he wanted to see fun places to go besides bars. It wasn’t until Cheap Thrills Records closed that he began to think about potentially filling that void. The Coal City native began looking at vinyl records after receiving a record player and Patsy Kline album for Christmas about three years ago. This started his infatuation with flipping record bins at stores dotted across the southern part of the state. But, if he was going to have a store, he would need more than a personal collection. “So, I went on the search to find a collection of records,” shares Blunt. “I thought that I was going to have to put it together, you know, one estate sale at a time.” As luck would have it, he found an entire collection for sale in Virginia.
Edinburgh, UK | Edinburgh record shop Umbrella Vinyl releases limited edition vinyl with proceeds helping refugees: Umbrella Vinyl in Tollcross launched their independent record label last year. Edinburgh record shop, Umbrella Vinyl, has partnered with music charity The Glasgow Barons to support refugees living in Scotland. The Tollcross shop, which opened in August this year, began life when founders Nick Langford and husband and wife duo, Josh and Laura Thompson, launched a record label in September last year, with their debut record being a rerecording by lesser known 1960s jazz group, Brotherhood of Breath. After producing their limited edition jazz record the Edinburgh business then decided to support the wider music community by donating ten per cent of proceeds of their record to charity. The Umbrella Vinyl team, who champion music from all over the world including jazz, blues, reggae and classical hope their new record will be the first of many on their new label.
Brooklyn, NY | Fire Talk Records celebrates a new shop in Greenpoint: A new record shop has been quietly (ironically enough) settling into Greenpoint for the past two months—in late July, Fire Talk Shop opened its doors at 67 West Street for a sequence of friends and family events and soft openings before officially celebrating its grand opening last Friday, September 22. Spearheaded by record label Fire Talk Records—established in 2009 and self-described as “purveyors of the underground”—the shop features a selection of both new and used vinyls from artists like Cocteau Twins, Nick Cave, The Prodigy, Stereolab, and many more from fellow labels they love. And the opening week revelry continues with a pizza party, signing, and dj set from Canadian indie rock quartet PACKS on Saturday, September 30, from 1:30 to 3 p.m. ahead of their show at Union Pool. Earlier events have included a series of other signings, spinning, and listening parties.
Cheyenne, WY | New owner, same passion at Cheyenne’s Downtown Vinyl: Meet Kay, the new owner of Downtown Vinyl in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Much like Don, the previous owner, Kay does not like having her picture taken, so we reached a compromise. Kay has lived in Cheyenne for 35 years. She retired a few years back and spent a lot of time browsing Don’s record store. At some point, she offered to buy the store. Initially, he said no. But at some point, he was thinking about retiring, so he asked her if she was still interested. Kay told me she has about 9000 records at home. Let that sink in. That’s someone who really loves music and loves it on vinyl. But her kids have grumbled that, someday, when mom kicks the bucket, they don’t want to have to deal with getting rid of such a massive collection. So, she’s slowly selling it off through the store. Except for her Elton John. She loves Elton. So, for the fans of the store, be of good cheer.
San Francisco, CA | San Francisco’s record industry is spinning right back around: The days of tangled cassette tapes and chunky CD players may be behind us, but it seems that San Francisco is keeping one music tradition alive: vinyl. A number of new record stores have opened around the city in recent months, including specialty stores like Discolandia, which focuses on Latin American and Caribbean music. Meanwhile, historic staples like Amoeba, the beloved institution near the former home of Janis Joplin, remain as popular as ever. And though it seems like Tiktok may have a lot to do with the resurgence, the trend has actually been growing for nearly two decades. Vinyl album sales have grown for 16 years straight in the US, and the format now represents around 43% of all album sales. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, 41.3 million records were sold in the US last year; 45 times more than the figure for 2006.
4 Best Turntables for Vinyl Newbies and Audiophiles Alike: Easy to set up and unpretentious, this is way to go. Vinyl got a bad rap for a while there. Though you still might find Reddit types who try to one-up you by knowing more obscure blues artists from the American South or avant-garde artists from the pre-war era, it’s a pretty welcoming scene now. I mean, you can buy new Taylor Swift albums on vinyl, so yeah, it kind of had to open up. That said, the world could benefit from getting more into vinyl. Sure, streamed music sounds great coming from nice digital speakers, soundbars, and headphones, but there really is something nice about collecting and listening to vinyl. First, there’s just a much more massive breadth of music on vinyl—the fun, kooky shit. Plus, the audio setup process, no matter how rudimentary, makes you feel a bit more connected to your music. It’s nice. And to help out anyone entering the vinyl world, we sent our audiophiles on a quest to find the best options out there. This is what they found.
Glasgow, UK | Hearing IS believing…but Scots firm Linn’s record player will cost you £50,000! How a Glasgow engineer with a passion for music created the world’s best hi-fi… Around the time Gilad Tiefenbrun was born, his father Ivor was conceiving an engineering brainchild that would confound hi-fi buffs everywhere. Then only 26, the Glasgow innovator was a frustrated music lover – convinced far better quality sound from his vinyl LPs was achievable. What did not convince him was the accepted wisdom of the day that ever more extravagant loudspeakers were the sole means of progress towards sonic perfection. So he built his own turntable and took it to local hi-fi shops for auditions. Hearing, after all, was believing. That was in 1973 when prog rock was in its pomp and Pink Floyd’s album Dark Side of the Moon was upping the ante in the race for audio superiority. It was the demonstration record of choice almost everywhere. Half a century on, you may imagine the vintage record deck is as defunct as the band. Not so. Decades-old Linn Sondek LP12s remain in use all over the world and, say their owners, still sound fabulous.
