Fives record shop celebrates 40 Years: IT was all the way back in 1977, in the heady days of glam rock and punk, that Fives Record Store first opened. Owner Peter Drisoll had just closed his heating business, and was wondering what to do next: it was a choice between a bike shop and a record shop, and to all local music lovers’ relief, he chose the latter. The first incarnation of the store was next to the Sarah Moore pub on Elm Road.“Two recent customers actually remembered the Elm Road shop!” Peter laughed…“It was very bad about six year’s ago, but the vinyl comeback saved us. Young people are really into it now,” he explains.
Godfathers of vinyl: “I thought I was out, but they pulled me back in.” After a five-year break, former M-Theory owner Eric Howarth is getting back into the brick-and-mortar record-store business. His new shop will be a mere stone’s throw away from the old M-Theory location on the corner of 30th and Juniper in North Park. “I appreciate having the flexibility to do things when I need to versus having to open at a certain time and close at a certain time. I enjoyed having M-Theory and everything else, but you’re locking into a certain thing if you’re going to be behind the counter at a retail store. That’s just the way it goes,” Howarth said. Howarth was actually looking to sell off his Vinyl Junkies business, which he refers to as his “mobile record store.” He mentioned it to Tim Mays since Mays’s bar, the Casbah, hosts the Vinyl Junkies Record Swap. To Howarth’s surprise, Mays expressed interest in buying Vinyl Junkies and took up his offer to stay on as a partner.
Learning about vinyl records in a digital age: The convenience of Googling a song and being able to listen to it in a matter of minutes was not always possible. Before radio, Pandora, or Apple Music, there were vinyl records. Junior Journalist Raines Murphy took a trip to Falling Star Records and he says he learned a lot from music guru Tony Doolin. “Elvis, you need some Elvis. How about this one,” says Doolin. Raines asked, “How do records work?” Doolin explained, “You see these tiny little grooves on the record? When you put that on the turntable and you bring the needle over, there is a diamond tip and it runs through the grooves and the vibrations translate into an electronic signal and is reproduced as music.”
Kiki & Henry’s vintage record fair returns to Stourbridge: Vintage vinyl is up for grabs to Black Country music fans this weekend as Kiki and Henry return to Stourbridge with their popular record fair. From 11am until 4pm on Saturday (November 18), the organisers and their fellow traders will be taking over their regular spot at the historic Talbot Hotel in High Street for the last time in 2017 – so customers are urged to bring their Christmas lists along. Traders will be offering a vast array of vinyl records and collectables to suit all tastes and budgets. Music books, CDs and memorabilia will also be for sale and the Talbot’s bar and restaurant will also be open for hungry shoppers.
Brand new vinyl record pressing machines enter the market: For the first time in 30 years, vinyl production capacity is on the up. Jack White’s new Third Man pressing plant in Detroit will be kitted out with eight brand new presses, when it opens doors in Spring 2016. Built by German start-up Newbilt Machinery, the new presses update the existing workhorses with new features like an electronic control system and a hydraulic power supply to squeeze the molds made by Record Products of America (RPA). The company claims that material and energy loss during stand-by times will improve although the multi-step, labour-intensive process that goes into pressing a record won’t actually change.
One of the rarest records in the world is going on sale this weekend: Sex Pistols’ cancelled A&M Records ‘God Save the Queen’ 7″ is being auctioned. Regularly included in lists of the rarest and most valuable records in the world, a cancelled pressing of Sex Pistols’ ‘God Save the Queen’ 7″ single on A&M Records is going up for sale in London this weekend. Although now celebrating forty years since the single was released on Richard Branson’s Virgin Records, changing the course of pop culture forever, Sex Pistols’ ‘God Save the Queen’ has a pre-history that many don’t know. Originally signed to A&M Records, 25,000 copies of the Pistols’ single were pressed ready for distribution before the label’s owner Herb Alpert reportedly tore up the contract just six days in.
