Record Store Day Announces 2023 List: It’s coming on Record Store Day, (Saturday, April 22, 2023) so it’s time again to roll out the incredible titles in the offing for the big, enduring holiday built in support and celebration of independent record stores the world over. This particular Record Store Day, the 16th, sets a high bar as far as the magnitude, artistry and diversity of the releases is concerned. (The UK list is here.)
New York, NY | Inside the Unlikely New York Record Store That Sells Vinyl to the Stars: The Greenwich Village record store, owned by a one-of-a-kind NYC character, stocks the shelves of Lana Del Rey, Rosalía, Bella Hadid, and more. When a 20-year-old Jamal Alnasr moved to New York City in 1990, he barely spoke English and only knew the names of 10 artists, like Madonna and Boney M, whom he’d heard on the radio. A native Palestinian, he arrived in the city after a few years spent living in Jordan as a teenager. He used music to teach himself English, then landed his first job at a record shop on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, where he read CD pamphlets, learned lyrics, and researched artists’ influences. After four and a half years, he opened up his own shop, Village Music, down the street, with the money he had saved from working. On opening day, Alnasr decided to put his collection of rare records up for sale, and made $5,000. “If people came in and meant to spend $20, they would spend $200,” he recalls. “I had a lot of rare stuff.” Word eventually got out that he was the man to see if you were looking for an impossible-to-find record.
San Francisco, CA | Harmonic convergence: How a stellar record fair led to a brand new record store: Globe Spinners and Offshore Sounds were sparked by two vinyl fiends who shared a love of worldly rarities and dealing discs. When one crate-digging record lover and concert promoter who was laid off during the pandemic met another record lover whose academic work specialized in media cultures of the mid-century Far Left, it was magic—or at least a boost for Japanese City Pop fandom in the Bay Area, for which both qualified. Peter Arko and Dylan Davis not only shared a love of global vinyl rarities but a yen for dealing records, mostly out of necessity in this astronomically expensive corner of the world. The two launched quarterly record fair and swap Globe Spinners together—the next one is Sun/19 at Harmonic Brewing in SF, polishing off SF Beer Week with tons of vendors and DJs, food, and, of course, drink—to focus on international genres and get together with like-minded friends. Now, they’ve opened a record store, Offshore Sounds, in new space 710 Collective. Offshore Sounds is the latest addition to a music scene that’s recovering from the past three difficult years and embracing physical media more and more. It’s certainly something to get jazzed about.
UK | Meet the people ‘Behind the Counter’ of the UK’s vinyl revival: We are pleased to announce the return of Behind the Counter for a fourth season. The 12-part video series, which had more than two million viewers across season three, celebrates the unique culture and heritage of independent record stores across the UK. A collaboration between Record Store Day, Classic Album Sundays and Bowers & Wilkins, Behind the Counter, takes you on a tour of some of the UK’s best-loved independent record shops, showcasing the passion of the owners who are “embedded in the local community” (Steve – Winyl, Manningtree) and dedicated to introducing music fans to their next favourite artists and albums. From Glasgow to Southampton, Isle of Wight to Belfast, music fans are introduced to a new record shop every week whose stories are told through individual episodes released on Tuesdays at 10am on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.
Clickbait Articles Belie Reality: The Vinyl Manufacturing Industry’s Resiliency: New trade advocacy group, the Vinyl Record Manufacturers Association, is establishing best practices and standards. Two recent online articles ushered in the new year with headlines that the vinyl boom could be over because the record industry couldn’t keep up with consumer demand. The media loves these types of headlines for their pass-along potential in that they make good clickbait. But from my perspective, they are hardly rooted in reality. “Did the Music Business Just Kill the Vinyl Revival?” makes generalizations based on faulty assumptions that fail to recognize the resilience and the massive undertaking to return in 2022 the format (which most observers thought was dead in buried early three decades ago) to the same 1 billion level it achieved in 1986, according to the Record Industry Association (RIAA). An article in TechRadar takes a more measured approach, though the headline reads like clickbait.
Austin, TX | Austin’s Gold Rush Vinyl Doubles Record Manufacturing Capacity: Pressing plant expands machinery to meet steady demand. The ongoing boom in the popularity of vinyl records has been good for business at Austin’s Gold Rush Vinyl pressing plant – so good that the North Austin company has added two new pressing machines. The new machines – a pair of Pheenix Alpha AD12 presses manufactured in Sweden – will allow Gold Rush to double its production and keep up with demand. They’re expected to be up and running this week. Once fully operational, company founder Caren Kelleher said Gold Rush will be able to turn out “tens of thousands” of pieces of vinyl every week for bands and labels in Austin and far beyond. The new capacity will cut the company’s turnaround time down to three to four months, some of the fastest delivery in an industry still struggling to keep up with the resurgence in vinyl sales that began more than a decade ago. Kelleher said she no longer worries about the vinyl boom turning out to be a fad, with typical order sizes taken by the company growing from 500 to 1,000 or more pieces in recent years. Business stayed strong even through the pandemic, when touring collapsed and recording artists had to rely on physical product sales to generate income.
Shawnee, KS | Friends share a passion for collecting vinyl records: As records become increasingly popular, these three seniors connect over music. Making a comeback from the past, vinyl records have come into full swing popularity with teens and young adults- many who are influenced into listening because of modern and contemporary artists. According to the New York Times, vinyl record sales have grown steadily in past years, however, it wasn’t until the COVID-19 pandemic that sales increased rapidly. Seniors Anthony Molinaro, Alec Forristal and Adam Budimlija have been friends for longer than they have shared their passion for music. It wasn’t until a year or two ago that Budimlija decided to hop onto the vinyl bandwagon, and Forristal and Molinaro eventually decided to follow along. All three friends have cultivated impressive collections. Molinaro has the largest at roughly 70 records, while Budimlija and Forristal have collections around 40 to 50 records.
Des Moines, IA | New station in Cowles allows students to listen to vinyl records: The newest addition to Cowles Library – a listening station with vinyl records and turntables – is available for students to use and check out. The vinyl listening station and records are located on the main level of the library. The vinyl station allows students to interact with media they may otherwise not have access to. “LPs had a culture resurrection and it seemed like the perfect time to get this project rolling,” Cowles librarian Johanna Stankiewicz said in an email. “The music collection and listening station provides an opportunity for educational and personal discovery. It is one of the many services we provide at Cowles Library to provide a more inclusive and creative approach to supporting students and the educational mission of Drake.” A turntable produces sound by reading the grooves of a vinyl record. In order to listen to a vinyl record, one must have a turntable, records and headphones, although headphones are optional. Many students are unable to listen to vinyl records unless they buy or inherit a turntable.
