Honolulu, HI | The world’s best record shops #135: Hungry Ear Records, Hawaii: …Hungry Ear’s racks boast collections of rare reggae and rock classics (the huge Beatles mural that covers the back wall of the store may give that away), but their bread and butter is Hawaiian and local music: from disco by Nohelani Cypriano to smooth, jazz-tinged grooves from Momi Riley. To Yamashita, this is music he wants to hand down to another generation. “I remember the days when a record store was not only a repository of great music, but also a place where you could meet like-minded people and hang out,” Yamashita says. “A lot of kids aren’t on a professional path and I’d love to give them the tools to integrate into the world outside school, friends and parents, without feeling they have to lose themselves. We’d love it if kids rediscovered the pleasure of spending afternoons after school at our store.”
Racine, WI | Records live here: Longshot Vinyl Lounge opens in Downtown Racine: To Jada Pfarr, those ones and zeros of digitized music cannot compete with good old long-play vinyl records. Now, the Kenosha woman has turned that love of records into a new Downtown Racine store, Longshot Vinyl Lounge, at 324 Sixth St. “I’m a record collector, and my husband is a record collector,” Jada said Monday. “This is what we would be doing on Friday night: putting on records and looking through all the stuff, and we love to record-shop. “And we — especially me — just don’t like record shops,” she said. “They’re dusty; there’s a million records. You have to spend hours of time.” With one particular Milwaukee record store in mind, Pfarr continued: “There’s nowhere to sit down, there’s no bathroom — not a public bathroom, anyway. They have live acts, but it’s cramped, it’s small. They have DVDs; they have all this other stuff in there.” Jada owns the business but said that she and her husband, Jeff, “just kind of came up with the concept of: Let’s make a record store that you’d hang out in…”
Berlin, DE | Berliner Meister Schallplatten direct to disc recording: The Berlin-based Label Berliner Meister Schallplatten is producing live recorded vinyl using Direct-to-Disc methods. Up until the 1950s, most recordings were made direct to vinyl but, with the emergence of new technology, direct-to-disc became marginalised until it nearly vanished from professional recording practices. In 2012 sound engineers Stephan Flock and Rainer Maillard founded the Label Berliner Meister Schallplatten. They made a name for themselves thanks to their bespoke methods of recording and producing an unmistakable quality for the artists they represent. When the opportunity came up to buy a lathe cutter that was destined for destruction, they had a vision not only to preserve the knowledge and the technical know-how but also to establish a new tradition of professional direct-to-disc recording.
Michelle Obama Talks Stevie Wonder, Jackson 5 and Other Childhood Music Memories With Questlove: …Discussing her earliest albums, Obama recalled the first record she received as a gift was Stevie Wonder’s Talking Book, which she was actually given twice one Christmas. “That’s how good an album it was,” she said in a clip premiering exclusively with Billboard. One copy came from her parents and the other from her maternal grandfather, Southside, who she described as the “musical core of our family.” That version included the lyrics in braille, which she studied while she listened to the music, hoping to better understand the artist behind it all…That was the first album she ever owned as a child. But as music fans know, there’s a big difference between the first album you ever received and the first one you bought for yourself. Those early purchases were reserved for the Jackson 5, whose “ABC” and “The Love You Save” she bought on 45 RPM single vinyl records and mostly only played in her bedroom, dancing and singing along.
Vinyl Edition Of Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ Film Soundtrack Coming In February. The film soundtrack is already becoming one of the band’s fastest-selling albums throughout the world. Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody film soundtrack is set to be released as a 2-LP set on 8 February. The 22-song soundtrack album, produced by Brian May and Roger Taylor, features the first-ever release of audio tracks from Queen’s legendary performance at Live Aid as well as other rare live tracks and their biggest hits. Rolling Stone hailed it as “more than just a greatest hits,” praising it as, “a fun imaginative way to relive the band’s genius.” The Bohemian Rhapsody film soundtrack will come as a vinyl double album specially cut at Abbey Road Studios. Continuing the celebration of Queen’s iconic music, a special picture disc edition of the album, as well as a 7” single featuring the original ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’/‘I’m In Love With My Car’ pairing, will also be released on Record Store Day, 13 April 2019. While not featured in the film, ‘I’m In Love With My Car’ is joke-referenced several times in the film. Now the track gets its moment.
