BBC Music partners with Record Store Day: Special programming will take place across the BBC radio networks. In the run up to Record Store Day itself, Steve Lamacq will be talking to different record stores around the UK on 6 Music as they reveal which artists, performers and musical events will be taking place. It is expected that more than 25,000 music fans will be taking to their local record shops from the early hours on April 16.
Webster’s Sweet Spot Audio & Records is worth the drive for vinyl fans: Like an increasing number of people these days, Sweet Spot Audio & Records owner Nigel Harrison believes that vinyl is the superior format for listening to music. “It’s more tactile; you can touch it, you can feel it, you can read it, you’re more engaged with it, you’re interconnected with it, you have to be attentive to it, and there is just more presence with it,” Harrison explains. “And personally, I do think it sounds better.”
The world’s best record shops #003: Dusty Groove, Chicago: It’s not often you see a record shop make the jump from online store to bricks and mortar, let alone make it this emphatically. Born after a massive crate digging trip ended in a snowstorm in the mountains of Pennsylvania, Rick Wojcik and JP Schauer established Dusty Groove as a part-time online record shop in 1996 at a time when dial-up modems were all the rage. Success quickly followed, and the jump from part-time to full time dealership saw the pair upgrade operations rapidly, from running monthly sidewalk sales from the bedsit of a former prostitute to owning a store space with its own shop front.
Oz Music’s new owner talks vinyl, the music industry, and the store’s future: “I am finding more and more stores that have opened that are vinyl only or carry CDs and vinyl, they’ve opened in the last 3-5 years, some within the last 12 months,” he said. “I think the rumors of our demise have been greatly exaggerated.”
Popular record store in Charles Town destroyed by fire: Leslie’s Record Land has been a fixture on Washington Street since the 1960’s, and what music enthusiasts in the area call “the real deal” in the age of iTunes and digital music. “She’s probably one of the last dinosaurs still selling records, tapes,” said Charles Town resident Elias Jones, about the owner of the store. “I think she might even have eight-tracks.”
Kilwinning record shop’s Bowie Day tribute helps to raise £200 for Cancer Research charity: Colin Boyd, owner of Rare Trade Records, told the Herald: “Artists die all the time but I don’t think there was anyone who touched as many musical genres as David Bowie. He was a creative genius who inspired so many people. We thought we’d do something in the shop to acknowledge that.
Sell your records, it’s time for the reel-to-reel revival: If you were an audiophile in the 1950s with some extra discretionary income, the reel-to-reel tape player — perhaps set like a sculpture in your ultra-modern teak wall unit — was the nucleus of your hi-fi system. Today, our playback devices are pocket-sized. But do the vinyl and cassette revivals signal that we’re willing to forgo convenience for quality? Is a reel-to-reel tape comeback next?
