Casper, WY | Casper small businesses are happy about holiday shopping turn out: Small Business Saturday made several Casper business owners happy this past weekend. Black Friday weekend is one of the busiest shopping seasons of the year, and this year Small Business Saturday was the next day. Small Business Saturday is an opportunity to support small businesses and communities across the country. Several small businesses in Casper were happy about the turn out this year. Brandon Schulte, the store manager at Sonic Rainbow, a local record store, was thrilled about their turn out. “It’s always nice to see people and be around our friends and the people we love so much, and our great customers are the reason why we keep the doors open and why we stay in business,” said Schulte. “It was also really kind of nice that people were quick, people were respectful of the rules, and so we got to see people, even if it wasn’t for super long stretches of time.” Other store owners were just as happy to see people out and about shopping and browsing local stores.
UK | Shops will be allowed to trade for 24 hours a day to recoup coronavirus losses: Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick says he wants to encourage greater trade in the run up to Christmas. Shops will be allowed to trade around the clock in the run up to Christmas in order to recoup losses suffered during the coronavirus pandemic. Retailers normally have to go through a lengthy process to apply to local authorities under the Town and Country Planning Act if they wish to extend hours outside the window of 9am to 7pm. However, Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick has said he wants to remove the bureaucracy to encourage greater trade – allowing shops to open for up to 24 hours a day in the months of December and January. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, he said: “With these changes local shops can open longer, ensuring more pleasant and safer shopping with less pressure on public transport. How long will be a matter of choice for the shopkeepers and at the discretion of the council, but I suggest we offer these hard-pressed entrepreneurs and businesses the greatest possible flexibility this festive season. …Record stores, which will also be able to open for 24 hours a day, have had to adapt to the lockdown restrictions this year with many taking part in three Record Store Day events instead of the usual annual one.
UK | Interview with Tom Rose: Celebrating 15 years of Reveal Records: While we’ve interviewed a number of record labels over the years, this one is long overdue. Reveal Records began life in 2005 when founder Tom Rose, then the owner of an independent record store (Reveal Records Derby), took a leap into the world of record releases following a chance encounter on myspace with the widely acclaimed American songwriter Joan As Police Woman. This was just a year after the launch of Folk Radio UK and it wasn’t long before we met – virtually, via Myspace and then later in the real world, often at the BBC Folk Awards where Kris Drever and Lau (also early signings to the label) would pick up multiple awards (including ‘Folk Singer of the Year’ in 2017 and ‘Best Group’ in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2013). Next month, on December 11th, Reveal Records will be celebrating their 15 years as an independent label with the release of “Home Is Where The Art Is”, their first compilation of the Reveal artist music featuring 57 tracks on a deluxe double CD with booklet (including the digital-only bonus tracks – see below), the compilation is a primer for new listeners and a chance to look back over the variety of world-class music Reveal Records artists have created to date.
Athens, GA | Record stores work to overcome COVID-19 pandemic: To residents and visitors of Athens alike, the downtown record stores offer a distinctly local tune. Although the pandemic and corporatization of downtown throw challenges old and new at independent businesses, Wuxtry Records and Low Yo Yo Stuff Records are fighting to overcome and meet the demand for music, both live and vinyl. Recent shifts in downtown Athens’ “dynamic” have brought big changes, Nathaniel Mitchell, manager at Wuxtry, said. During the years Nancy Denson was mayor, the amount of franchises that opened downtown was a major change from Mitchell’s first visit to Athens in 1999. Over the last two decades, many smaller stores have been replaced by corporate franchises, he said. Corporatization makes life tough for independent record stores. …Issues in the supply chain persist during the pandemic, Ploharski said. If a customer looks for a record that isn’t there, odds are the store tried to order it everyday from five to 10 different distributors from two or three countries, and nobody has it right now…
Buffalo, NY | Buffalo Obscura Presents Artist Installations at Record Theatre: Buffalo Obscura, an arts collaborative still at work with social distance-friendly “events” during the pandemic, is presenting monthly installations at the Lafayette Avenue window of the Record Theatre, 1786 Main Street. The Record Theatre series began in October with the work of photographer Rachele Schneekloth, whose installation titled “In This Together” looked at the “dignity and power and humanity” all around Buffalo, with a focus on the city’s “complex, brave, beautiful, wise, vulnerable people, with full, rich lives.” Wrapping up this month, and still on display as of today, is Miggie Wong’s “Lightened Record Theater,” an installation celebratrating the power of records in a colorful and theatrical arrangement. Hundred of “records”/circles (made with transparent color films) are arranged and displayed on and behind the angled windows. Based on light sources from indoor and outdoor, “records” are lightened up in various colors. This visual installation of the colorful records expresses a tribute to the audio records once sold at this landmark store.
