After 60 Years Sumter Music Shop Changes Tune: For over 60 years Seaco’s has been a haven for music lovers. “Well it’s actually an acronym for Sumter Electric Appliance Company and to me it was the cool place to hang out as a kid. I grew up in this store,” Brooks Wilkinson said. “This used to be the hub of retail in downtown Sumter. We would stay open until nine o’clock up the two weeks before Christmas.” Edward Wilkinson opened the Main Street shop in 1956 and after all those years watching his father Brooks eventually took over. “We started of course as a record store with a listening station. During the Van Halen era: Kramer guitars and Marshall amps. The nineties: sound systems and posters (and) t-shirts, so we just keep reinventing ourselves,” he said.
2 new bars opening in Fort Worth soon, including one that sells vinyl records: A sister location to Off the Record in Dallas, this hybrid bar and record shop is bound to be a mainstay for music lovers on the west side of the region. Expect 20 draft taps serving local and national craft beer brands, as well as a menu of cocktails at the new location on Magnolia Avenue. You’ll be able to grab a libation and peruse a selection of vinyl records provided by Good Records, which is a Dallas institution. Like its predecessor, Off the Record West will host live music and DJ nights. Off the Record is the brainchild of Joshua Florence, Phil Coward and Tim Daniels, who also own and operate Club Dada, Independent Bar and Kitchen, and City Tavern in Dallas.
Hattiesburg record store honors Fats Domino with all-day music tribute: A Hattiesburg record store honored Fats Domino Wednesday by playing his music, and only his music, all day. T-Bone’s Records and Cafe’ featured an “All Fats, All Day” tribute on its in-store sound system. The Rock and Roll legend died Tuesday in Harvey, Louisiana, near New Orleans, at the age of 89. “He really was one of the earliest pioneers of Rock and Roll that brought, in an early way, both black and white audiences together for a mutual good time,” said Harry Crumpler, owner of T-Bone’s Records and Cafe.’ “And before 1955, he had five different gold records and each sold over a million copies, not just anybody could do that.”
Love for all things vinyl: Spin It Again Records finds new spot on west side: With vinyl records being produced again, Ed Swarts may have to open a used CD shop to qualify as a specialist in retro sound. Nah, probably not going to happen. Swarts started a used record store because of his love for all things vinyl – from album covers that are works of art to the warmer sound provided by analog technology to the very act of placing a record on a turntable. Last month, Swarts moved his 7-year-old Spin It Again Records store to a new location on the west side, at Central and Tyler. Swarts said he had been thinking about making the move from east Harry even before his landlord decided to do something different with the property.
Vintage Vinyl In San Francisco: The agreement was simple. I would confine my record shopping to a single afternoon. No last minute runs to out-of-the-way shops the next day. No desperate pleas about “Just one more,” or “I’ll be quick, I promise.” On the vacation with my wife that we’d been planning for an entire year, and one that almost immediately became a quasi-business trip, I had one Sunday afternoon to satiate my desire—the word “addict” has occasionally been thrown my way in anger—to check out vinyl LP stores in San Francisco. Given my limited time, I decided to ask SF friends for suggestions and to stay away from anything chain-like or the bar/venue/record store places like Amados in the Mission district.
Independent Label Market’s Winter Edition Is Coming: Independent Label Market returns to London’s Old Spitalfields Market for the final, winter edition of 2017 next month, with the likes of 4AD, Erased Tapes, RVNG Intl., Warp and Whities all confirmed to set up shot at the event. Also among the labels taking part in the last event of the year are Because, Mute, Heavenly, Houndstooth, Rough Trade, Transgressive, Sonic Cathedral, plus lots more of course. As ever, London Brewers Market will be on hand to satisfy people’s thirst at the event, and they will be partering with Love Music Hate Racism for the first time, with the two projects being brought together via ongoing collaborations with AIM who support the market.
Pro-Ject builds on Essential III turntable with feature-packed FlexiRange: Over the last two decades, Pro-Ject has made a name for itself producing quality decks across a wide range of prices. Now that many modern record players also offer digital, Bluetooth and recording options, Pro-Ject is using its budget Essential III (£240) deck as the basis of five new models. Collectively, they fall under the ‘Essential III FlexiRange.’ All five turntables are built around the original Essential III’s design, meaning they have high-gloss MDF plinths and platters, decoupling feet, aluminium tonearms and Ortofon OM 10 cartridges. But each has its own selling point…
The Jimi Hendrix Experience / 8LP vinyl: Sony will issue for the first time (in Europe) a vinyl edition of The Jimi Hendrix Experience box set – also known as ‘The Purple Box’ – at the end of this week. This eight-LP set was originally released on CD in 2000 (as has been reissued on CD a few times since), and presents previously unreleased concert and studio recordings which span Hendrix’s four year career from 1966-1970. Beginning with the first known recordings of the Jimi Hendrix Experience in October 1966 to his final multi-track recording session at Electric Lady Studios in August 1970, this box set concentrates on previously unreleased or commercially unavailable music. This vinyl set contains the original 56 tracks – there is no bonus material. It comes with a large format booklet and is released on 27 October 2017. Very good price of just under £90 in Germany, at the time of writing.
Bosphorus to host rare record auction: Local and foreign records from the age of vintage vinyl are to set to find new homes in a water-bound auction on Oct. 28 in Istanbul. Teos Antik in Balat, which organizes various auctions every month, will host an auction in a unique setting: a boat touring Istanbul’s picturesque Bosphorus. The auction will primarily focus on records from the 1970s and 1980s by legendary local artists like Zeki Muren, Cem Karaca and Ajda Pekkan. The boat is to depart from the city’s historic Golden Horn neighborhood of Balat, said Teos Antik. The records are expected to fetch prices ranging from a relatively modest 100 Turkish Liras to as high as 7,000 liras.
