DeKalb, IL | Record store provides local artists’ music: Green Tangerine Records, known for its sales of various music genres, is exposing customers to local underground artists by selling their music in the store. Sara Mohr, a College of DuPage student and Green Tangerine Records customer, said she appreciates the store’s variety of records from bands like Nirvana to local music. Mohr frequently visits the store, located at 838 W. Lincoln Highway, and when she discovers new music there, she feels original. “It’s important to recognize smaller artists and their music; it’s important to encourage people to keep creating,” Green Tangerine co-manager Terri Ainger said. About 9 years ago, the store started selling local music, Ainger said. The store’s decision to sell local music began at its original location in Cortland, about a 7-minute drive, from DeKalb.
Barrow in Furness, UK | Family business in Barrow wins ‘Record Shop of the Year’: A record shop in Barrow-in-Furness has been named the UK’s ‘Record Shop of the Year 2019’ just 12 months after opening. TNT Records were awarded the prize by Long Live Vinyl magazine after customers voted for the shop in an online competition. Owner and founder Dave Turner said the win came as a huge surprise to him. “It’s been a crazy first year for us, but being recognised as the best record shop in the whole of the UK is something that I could never have expected. “It’s obviously thanks to our amazing customers that we won the public vote, and they are the whole reason we have been successful this year. “When we opened we wanted to just give the people of Furness a decent record shop because there is nothing like this within about two hours of here – and the people have shown us nothing but support from day one.”
UK | A very Black Friday: how the fetish for vinyl is sending prices soaring: The popularity of Record Store Day – and its Black Friday edition – is turbo-charging the collector mentality at the expense of the average buyer. In the UK, it didn’t take long for Black Friday – a sales event pegged to Thanksgiving in the US – to go from novel to normal. Its impact on the music industry has been less conspicuous than the gaudy discounts toted by mainstream retailers, but no less significant. Founded in 2008, Record Store Day (RSD) proper takes place every April; in 2010, its American organisers introduced RSD Black Friday, intended as a celebration of independent shops and special-edition records as the antithesis to the corporate frenzy. “Cheapness is not a main goal,” they explain. “Celebrating art is.” Their choice of words is telling. RSD Black Friday has also made it to the UK in recent years: at my local record shop last week, people queued for the 8am opening to snag the nearly 100 special releases.
Birmingham, AL | Charlemagne Record Exchange, a fixture of Birmingham’s Southside, closing after 42 years: Marian McKay Rosato, owner of Charlemagne’s Record Exchange, remembers a very different Five Points South than the one that exists today. In the late 1970s, parts of the neighborhood were somewhat rundown and unsafe, Rosato said. But all the business owners knew one another, from the long-gone Little Bombers Lounge to Rosato’s Charlemagne Record Exchange, which has occupied the same spot on 11th Avenue South since 1977. Today, the area is very different. Many corporate-run chain hotels, restaurants and shops occupy the spots once held by local businesses. With those changes came rising rent costs, something that damaged the longtime record store, especially over the last two years. Rosato said that in the last two-year lease she signed, rent on the building increased another $250 per month in the first year and, by this year, had risen to an additional $400 per month. “The rent was considerably higher…”
Jme’s ‘Grime MC’ Album on Course to Debut in Top 20 in the Charts Despite Physical-Only Release: Despite not releasing digital copies of the album or making it available to stream, Jme’s Grime MC LP is on course to chart in the UK Top 20. After dropping last Friday, Grime MC is currently no.18 in the charts and looks set to feature after the Official Charts Twitter account reported the news on Monday. The album – Jme’s fourth studio LP – is eighteen tracks long and packs in features from the likes of Skepta, Giggs, Wiley, P Money, and out-and-out grime in its sonics. Vinyl copies of Grime MC are available to purchase from all good record shops and Amazon, while CD copies will be available to buy from HMV in-store or online.
Seattle, WA | Selector Records adds new stop on Hill-proximate vinyl tour: In the digital age of music streaming, vinyl records just won’t die. With record sales reaching their highest revenue level since 1988, Capitol Hill and the nearby have sustained a few shops that have survived long enough to cash in on the resurgence. And sometimes, something new comes along. Selector Records and Apparel opened earlier this month off the beaten track on E Madison. After eleven years DJing in Hawaii, Seattle native Sherman Crawford moved back home with the goal of opening a record store business. “I always had a dream of having a record store and that opportunity fell into my lap with this building,” he said. This building, located on 23rd and Madison, previously housed Looters Records. Crawford stumbled upon the store and moved in upstairs. When the store closed, Crawford took over.
AU | Australia’s Making Pressing Vinyl Easier Than Ever In 2020: For a growing number of people, vinyl records offer a tangible way to appreciate music and support the artists making it. In 2018, according to ARIA, sales from vinyl albums increased by 15% and accounted for 28% of revenue in the physical format market. The popularity of vinyl records presents a real opportunity for musicians to choose this format for their music. However, for some time in Australia vinyl production options were limited, until now. Australia’s newest facility is Roundabout Records. Located in the Adelaide Hills, they offer boutique full-service vinyl pressing. They can master and cut 7inch and 12inch records and are currently developing further services to add to their catalogue. Vinyl Groove, also in South Australia, offers a local vinyl pressing and mastering of 7inch, 10inch and 12inch records.
London Records to reissue Happy Mondays first four albums on vinyl on January 31, 2020: On January 31, 2020, London Records will release brand new vinyl reissues of the first four era-defining Happy Mondays albums, their first vinyl pressings for many years. The reissues of Squirrel And G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out) (1987), Bummed (1988), Pills ‘N’ Thrills And Bellyaches (1990) and …Yes Please! (1992) have been cut from Factory Records lacquers and have been pressed on 180 gram vinyl. The iconic artwork from each album has been redrawn by the original designers, Central Station Design, and there are new sleeve notes by influential journalists, plus a download code giving exclusive access to rarities and remixes… These important vinyl reissues from London Records celebrates the unique contribution of the incorrigible, maverick Mancunians. New sleeve notes by respected journalists John Robb (Squirrel And G-Man…), Andrew Perry (Bummed), Sylvia Patterson (Pills N Thrills And Bellyaches), and Miranda Sawyer (Yes Please), offer a fresh perspective on each album and the Mondays ongoing cultural significance.
