Record Store Day Black Friday 2019 is Friday, November 29th: Exciting New Titles Set For Release At Independent Record Stores, Nationwide. Record Store Day has taken care of your holiday shopping today with the release of the list of albums, singles, CDs, cassettes and books that you’ll be wrapping up to give and get this year, all available in limited editions only at independent record stores starting on November 29, AKA Black Friday. Since 2010, the organizers of April’s worldwide celebration of the record store, Record Store Day, have worked to shift the perception of Black Friday as a mass-produced, low-as-you-can-go event, concentrating instead on a list of special releases that highlight how great gifts from a record store can be, and celebrating the kick-off of the holiday rush at independently owned neighborhood businesses. This year’s diverse list continues that tradition and it can be found now at recordstoreday.com.
Los Angeles, CA | The Get Together Indie Label Fair Will Make Its L.A. Debut At The MOCA: On Nov. 15 and 16, the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in Downtown Los Angeles will turn into an indie music lover’s mecca with its first edition of The Get Together: Record Label Market & Music Fair. After throwing three successful seasons of the Come Together in their home in New York City, Other Music has paired up with L.A. concert/event power team Spaceland and the MOCA to bring their indie artist vinyl/merch fair and music showcase extravaganza to Southern California. Following a kick-off party the first night, on Sat. Nov. 16, the marketplace will officially launch at 11 a.m., until 5 p.m., with a chance to shop merch and vinyl from a large selection of indie labels from around the world, including Future Classic, Fat Possum, Brainfeeder, Cosmica, Domino, Matador, Mexican Summer, Ninja Tune, Rough Trade, Stones Throw, Big Crown, Sub Pop and Young Turks. The event website reveals that more labels and programming additions will be added and also notes that “you can meet and mingle with the teams behind the records you love,” which is pretty awesome.
Seattle, WA | ‘Our window to the world’: Love of music, art inspires window-dresser at Seattle’s Easy Street Records: Every day, some 20,000 pairs of eyes pass the Easy Street Records store at California Avenue and Southwest Alaska Street in West Seattle. They look over while they’re waiting for the light to change, glance over as they walk past or stop cold in front of the store to take in the work of longtime visual artist Kevin Larson. On and off for 25 years, Larson has been dressing the store’s two front windows in a style that reflects not only the tastes of the people who work there, but the store’s customers as well, while celebrating new and established artists in a way that few stores do anymore. “The window is Easy Street putting forward our stamp of approval, our recommendation of a particular album,” Larson said. “It’s a challenge to catch the essence of a record. “Sometimes it helps to listen, sometimes it doesn’t help at all. I used to install after the store closed and play the record on repeat.” Larson does it on a small budget, but with big ideas and boundless creativity, fueled by a life spent in the record business. In the process, he has made Easy Street’s windows — and the store itself — one of the city’s musical taste makers.
Requiem for a Record Store: All Things Must Pass, a documentary about the rise and fall of Tower Records, is worth a look. It’s one of those interesting stories that are relevant to me because it’s ephemeral and generational. It’s like watching a doc about free weekly newspapers thick with ads, repertory movie theaters that showed old films, or even as recent as video rental stores; all things that were big in “our” time — baby boomer’s time — and have since faded. But whatever age you are, you may find it of interest. I’d wondered how they managed to get interviews with people like Bruce Springsteen and David Geffen until I found out the director was Tom Hanks’ son Colin. As Colin’s dad nostalgically depicted in That Thing You Do, back when I was a kid, records were sold in places like TV and radio stores, department stores, and five-and-dimes (a pretty anachronistic phrase now). A few record stores existed mostly for the classical and jazz fans (I can’t really call them “crowds”) and were smallish hobby and collector stores. We boomers have lived through the whole era of the giant record superstore, rock-driven places like Sam Goody in New York and Tower Records, which started in 1960 in Sacramento and made its first giant leap to San Francisco in 1967. Its early claim to fame was completeness; every record, every genre.
Waco, TX | ‘Gospel was transforming the world of the music:’ Well-known Baylor professor preserves largest gospel collection in the world: Robert Darden’s black gospel music restoration project has flourished since 2005 to become one of the largest of its kind. A well-known Baylor journalism professor is considered the go-to-guy for restoring and saving black gospel music from the golden era. His project has now gone beyond just music. Robert Darden’s black gospel music restoration project has flourished since 2005 to become one of the largest of its kind in the world. Darden said his love for gospel started as a child, which led him to become a gospel music editor for Billboard Magazine and an author of many books on the genre. In the basement of the Moody Memorial Library at Baylor sits one of the largest collections of gospel music with songs that address the faith, struggles, hopes, and hardships of black Americans during the Civil Rights Movement. “(What) I discovered along the way was about 75 percent of all gospel music, from the golden age of gospel to time between 1945-1975, that gospel was transforming the world of the music of the civil rights. The music that transformed rock and roll was unavailable,” Darden said.
Vince Gill to release 30th anniversary edition of ‘When I Call Your Name’ album: Country music star Vince Gill will release a 30th Anniversary vinyl edition of his Grammy winning record, ‘When I Call Your Name.’ In celebration of the 30th anniversary of When I Call Your Name‘s release, a new vinyl edition of this influential collection with drop on November 15th. In addition to a standard black vinyl version, the album will also be available in a distinctive limited-edition pressing on metallic gold vinyl, which will be available exclusively online from uDiscover and the UMGN Store. These vinyl editions mark the first time the album has been back on vinyl since its initial release. Preorder When I Call Your Name here. When I Call Your Name features guest appearances by Emmylou Harris and Patty Loveless, with whom Gill had worked with in his career, and instrumental support from such notable players as keyboardist Barry Beckett, bassist Willie Weeks, and guitarists Randy Scruggs and Fred Tackett.
