Vancouver, CA | Another Vancouver record store closes its doors after 40 years: Despite a resurgence in the popularity of records in recent years, technology and the internet have killed yet another brick and mortar store: this time a Vancouver record shop. After 40 years in business, Sikora’s Classical Records on Hastings Street is closing it’s doors for good. The original owners Dick and Dorothy Sikora had a vision in mind when they opened their doors, says now co-owner Edward Savenye. “They wanted this city to have something like that, where people who love classical music could come here and enjoy… yes consume, but at the same time, it was kind of like a gathering place,” he says. But now the owners have decided to close their doors because of what he calls the “five dirty Ds:” distribution, downsizing, demise, digitization, and desertion.
Vancouver, CA | Vancouver’s only classical record store calls it quits after 40 years. In a business dominated by Spotify and Amazon, Sikora’s Classical Records just can’t compete anymore. This is the story of a love affair that ends in heartbreak. Only for Ed Savenye, the sorrow comes from the decision to close Sikora’s Classical Records, the business he poured his heart and soul into for over 20 years. “As you can imagine, it’s pretty much the range of human emotions. There’s obviously sadness … and I’ll be honest, anger in that a lot of people, for the sake of a couple of bucks, they just deserted us.” Record and books stores are the serial victims of new technology and online commerce. Sikora’s managed to keep going beyond what seems reasonable in a Spotify and Amazon world by offering human service in a niche market. But reality finally caught up with the store at 432 West Hastings, and on Feb 28, 2019, exactly 40 years after Sikora’s first opened, it will shut its doors for good.
London, UK | Take a look around London’s three new record shops. More new record shops than Cabinet resignations. London has welcomed three new record shops since the start of November: the Arthur Russell-inspired World Of Echo on Columbia Road, a second outlet for Notting Hill institution Honest Jon’s in Kings Cross, and an (albeit semi-permanent) brick & mortar spot for online retailer Bleep.com in Dalston. To give you a sense of what to expect, VF took a camera to all three, which you can explore in the galleries below…Notting Hill record shop and label Honest Jon’s has opened a new venue in King’s Cross. Housed within new development Coal Drops Yard, the shop will operate as a sister location to its current Portobello Road spot. Co-founder Alan Scholefield explains: “we’ve been in that (Portobello) shop since ’79 — 40 years there and several years around the corner — so one thing you do accumulate is a lot of stuff. We’ve got a lot of records.”
Rochester, IN | BIZ BUZZ: Record Farm opens new location in Rochester: The Record Farm, located inside the State Theatre building on the 300 block of Market Street, is expanding to a second location in Rochester. Similar to its pairing with the State Theatre, the new store will be located inside the Times Theater at 616 Main St. in downtown Rochester. The Times is currently closed while raising funds for a restoration project. Like in its Logansport location, the Record Farm’s new store will sell new and used vinyl records, tapes, CDs, turntables and musical accessories like guitar picks, strings and straps. The Rochester store will also sell Fender guitars, basses and ukuleles and offer consignment on used musical instruments. Matt Swisher, who is co-owner of the Record Farm along with Adam Wilson, says the Rochester location is slightly larger than the Logansport location, allowing it to stock a little more inventory and musical instruments.
Discogs: Sound investment: What we know about the high-end vinyl market: In the last 12 months of sales, a handful of downright eye-popping transactions happened in the Discogs Marketplace. Five records broke the $10,000 plateau, which happened only once before in the site’s history! There were two promo copies of The Beatles’ Love Me Do, an unreleased Sex Pistols single, a Japanese Pink Floyd album (surprisingly not Dark Side Of The Moon!), and of course the record-breaking $27,500 Canadian copy of Prince’s The Black Album. Top-end prices are at an all-time high, and vinyl is as cool as ever. It’s even led to some fear of vinyl being commodified the same way modern art has, functioning purely as a material to be bought and sold by investors. This means deep-pocketed buyers would purchase high-end items at the top of the market in hopes of selling for a tidy profit down the line.
Wilkes-Barre, PA | Vinyl records a hot item at fair: Music lovers flocked to The Woodlands on Sunday. Many hoping to to either find some greats deals or rare releases during the NEPA Records and CDs Fair. Jack Skutnik has been organizing the event for around 30 years. The fair – which travels around the Northeast and visits the Wyoming Valley about twice per year – brought roughly 30 sellers hailing from as far as Michigan to sell everything from vinyl to old comics. A longtime collector himself, Skutnik said the event offers music lovers and collectors something they can’t find anywhere else. “They bring an eclectic mix of music here,” he said of the sellers. “There isn’t a record store in the world that could possibly be as eclectic as this, just because you’ve got all these different personalities.” As hundreds were able to browse through genres like classic rock, jazz, children’s and even sports, it was the vinyl that peaked the interest of most.
