Berlin vinyl outlet Bass Cadet Records is closing down: Bass Cadet Records will close at the end of 2016. The vinyl and clothing shop was situated for three and a half years on Weserstrasse in Berlin’s Neukölln district. In a written statement, the team behind the store said “roadworks that choked us since August” were behind their decision to close. The store had forged relationships with the likes of Levon Vincent, DJ Qu, Jus-Ed, Fred P, Ron Trent, AYBEE, Lerato and others over the years. They also started an eponymous label and a sub-label called Orbits, which has released a record from Trent and has a forthcoming 12-inch from Jenifa Mayanja.
Vinyl resurrection, Spokane just gained another record store, even as it lost a beloved music chain: Mike Roberts had only lived in Spokane a few days before noticing the for-sale sign posted on the Northwest Boulevard property, but he saw the potential in this tiny storefront. Here, he could sell records and tapes. He could have a home for his Resurrection Records label. After making a call to the property owner, he moved into the shop at the end of September. He had been in town for less than a month. “I like talking to people about music all day,” says Roberts last week at his Resurrection Records store. “I may not know as much as others, but I always like to learn through conversation.”
Iconic Sacramento record store to close due to rent hike, says owner: One of Sacramento’s institutions for used record shopping will soon be going silent. The aptly named Records at 1618 Broadway plans to shut down by the end of December. According to owner Kevin Hartman, the closure of Records after nearly a decade on Broadway is due to a recent rent hike of $500 per month and a slowdown in customers selling their vinyl to the store. Hartman is mulling the possibility of reopening Records at a new location, but doesn’t yet have firm plans. The closure comes as sales of vinyl albums reached a 28-year high in 2016.
United Record Pressing’s Original Nashville Plant, Steeped in Music History, to Cease Operations: Down an industrial road in southeast Nashville, framed by yellowing, beige-box warehouses, is a building dressed in incongruous, deep-ocean-blue tiling. A burnt-orange sign above its steel-and-glass doors reads UNITED RECORD PRESSING. Inside is where the first Beatles record in America was pressed, where Wayne Newton was fêted as a 16-year-old whippersnapper with an unfathomable jawline. Berry Gordy, founder of Motown, was provided an apartment there. Racist hotel owners didn’t want his money. After more than five decades, vinyl records won’t be made there anymore.
Eyeconik Records spins classic gems for vinyl collectors: Local record collectors gained a boon when Justin Tyskewicz moved his record store from New Jersey to Las Cruces in 2010. Tyskewicz, an avid collector who opened his first record store at age 21, had built up a diverse collection and clientele whose interests covered all genres. “I opened the store in New Jersey in 2008 when times were tough,” he said, “because I’ve seen how records offer people a way to spend a few bucks and bring happiness and joy to someone’s life.”
Records: the ‘master of the music industry’ says Bournemouth: The resurgence of records is going strong, no wonder the Bournemouth locals have something to say about the music medium bringing generations together. The Entertainment Retailers Association released figures this month showing vinyl sales earned the record industry a whopping £2.4m in week 48 of 2016 with downloads only producing £2.1m. ‘The younger crowd are getting into it.’ Chris is the co-owner of Rose Red Records in Boscombe alongside his brother in law. ‘It’s a business for family, I’ve always wanted to do it,’ Chris stated. He moved on to discuss the changing average of customer age. ‘’We get 14/15 year olds coming in with parents, they’re getting involved in an evolving music format.’
New business spotlight on Sonic Ascension Records: Lee Ash has more records than he can count at his recently opened shop at 128 Broad St., Montoursville. Sonic Ascension Records is the culmination of Ash’s longtime dream of opening up his own business to showcase and sell his collectibles. Ash, 51, said he has “always been into records” and has long been buying them wherever they can be found. As a teenager, he favored punk music and later got interested in 1960s garage bands and rockabilly. He eventually got to the point where he felt he could start selling his huge supply of records out of a brick-and-mortar store site.
In the groove: Embassy Vinyl record store in Scranton: R.J. Harrington started grooving on vinyl records as a teen in the late 1990s. Albums at that time, nearly dead in the music industry, remained a niche of audiophiles and collectors. But new pressings by small and obscure bands hooked Mr. Harrington on the vinyl music medium and partly led to a stint working in a record store. A decade ago, in his mid-20s, he opened his own record store, Embassy Vinyl, in the 300 block of Adams Avenue in downtown Scranton. The shop remains a favorite of music enthusiasts, ranging from graying middle-agers and baby boomers who grew up with albums to youngish hipsters discovering vinyl for the first time.
Storytellers: Denver man makes his own unique records: Baumeister started his business, Meep Records, about five years ago. He bought a recording lathe, and got to work in his living room…Baumeister’s lathe is from the 1950s. He can take any type of recording—a song, a message, any piece of audio—master it on his computer, and record that audio onto a blank record. He described the process as the opposite of a record player. “Instead of the needle catching the groove and making the sound, the sound is coming out into the stylus and wiggling and putting the grooves on the record,” Baumeister said.
The vinyl comeback, Some say vinyl is making a comeback, but for Kevin Diebolt, it never left: “Vinyl plays at 50,000 Hz — there’s no way to replicate that with digital,” said Diebolt, owner of X-Disc, a buy-sell-trade record store in the heart of Kitchener’s market district. “You just feel it.” His first record, one he stills owns today, is the Beatles’ Abbey Road. To say that vinyl has played a significant part in Diebolt’s life would be a grave understatement. He lives for it. “My dream job was always working in a record store,” said Diebolt. “I memorized all the music charts.”
