San Clemente, CA | Vinyl spins its way back into the heart of San Clemente, California: Meet the man behind the turntable at Moldy Toes Records. Tom Rule drills T-shirt racks into a 4-foot divider in the middle of his new shop as “Seven Year Ache” by Rosanne Cash spins in the background, blaring out the intermittent noise of the electric tool. Off of the main drag in downtown San Clemente, California, one post unsympathetically sticks out just before the row of establishments comes to an end. Moldy Toes Records displays a logo of a disheveled man with a look of anguish and an electrocuted hair-do. The figure strikingly resembles Rule, the owner of the establishment. “Black Sabbath or Tom Waits?” asks colleague Greg McCaughey. Tom Waits (of course). Changing the mood, he turns on “The Heart of Saturday Night.”
Valdosta, GA | Old-School Vibes: Young entrepreneur opens vinyl store. The sounds of jazz musician Yusef Lateef permeated the atmosphere at Vibes and Stuff Record Shop, a quaint storefront in Remerton with an appreciation for vinyl. An old-school record player sits to the left of the cash register, just off the entrance, while the likes of Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey, Black Sabbath and Nirvana in rare form grace the walls to the right of the front door. Le’Shawn Taylor, who has always had a fondness for hip-hop, opened his store Sept. 1. A Tribe Called Quest song, “Vibes and Stuff,” inspired the name. A 2017 Valdosta State University graduate, the store opening comes one year post-college for Taylor. Examining the roots of hip-hop was intriguing to a young Taylor, who absorbed the genre’s history and its originality. “Once I get caught on to something, I obsess over it, and I have to learn everything about it like what are the roots of it,” he said.
London, UK | Bleep to open brick-and-mortar record shop in East London. The Dalston pop-up, which opens today, is scheduled to run until February. Bleep.com will open a pop-up record shop called Bleep × today on Kingsland Road. The online record retailer’s physical pop-up will open at 10 AM on November 10th and is scheduled to stay open until February of next year. They’ve got three or four in-store DJ events scheduled per month so far, including one this Sunday with Floating Points’ label, Melodies International. To celebrate they’ve also got an upfront exclusive 12-inch available at the shop: Le Stim’s A Tribute To Muhammad Ali, a 1980 disco gem that Melodies International has remastered and reissued. They will be holding regular in-store events, album launches, DJ sets, talks and demonstrations, plus partnerships with prominent labels and brands in the electronic music world.
Eagles of Death Metal have a vinyl only covers album coming out: Bug-eyed desert speed freaks Eagles Of Death Metal have a new record coming out – a mad vinyl-only release that’s all cover versions. And it’s called – get this – Pigeons of Shit Metal. That’s because once, back in the day, the mad rock vehicle of Josh Homme and frontman Jesse Hughes were supporting Guns ’n Roses at a gig, and Axl Rose was mean to them. Word is, they were upsetting his crowd. Not to get into who is or isn’t at fault, when Axl took the stage following his public’s lukewarm reception to Eagles of Death Metal, he screamed out “HOW DID YOU LIKE THE PIGEONS OF SHIT METAL”. Which has to sting. Like, you’re a hairy guitar band that’s been invited to open for the Sweet Child ‘O Mine Guys, this is your big chance, your big moment to shine. Wanna cringe hard? Here’s the Eagles official response to that…
Reverb Launches a New App to Help you Buy and Sell Records: If you think the current vinyl record comeback is just a temporary fad, think again. With vinyl sales on the rise, Chicago startup Reverb is doubling down on its effort to make buying and selling records even easier. Reverb announced Friday that it has launched a new mobile app for vinyl owners. The new iOS and Android app lets you browse from Reverb’s collection of new, used and rare records, and sell items from your collection right from your phone. Reverb launched its record marketplace, Reverb LP, back in December. Since then, the startup says it has surpassed $1 million in total record sales on the platform. “More than just a website, we’re creating an online community where buyers and sellers from all over are connecting over records, CDs, and other pieces of physical music that were previously out of their reach,” Reverb LP President Dan Melnick said in a statement.
