Keeping up the Mojo, Two USF Alums find success in book and record store: At a time when technology is moving so fast, sometimes it’s best to take a step back and appreciate the art forms of yesterday. While many people, if not everyone, currently have both their music and books loaded onto their phones, or some other device, there is still a community of people who believe a book is best read on a page and for the ultimate listening experience for any song, one needs pressed vinyl and a record player. For members of this community who attend USF, or just live in Tampa, Mojo Books and Records might be a frequent stop.
Six months after leaving Adams Morgan, Crooked Beat Records has found a home in Alexandria: Crooked Beat Records owner Bill Daly always planned to open a store in Alexandria, Virginia. He just didn’t expect to do it so soon. “This store was supposed to be our second store,” Daly said. “We were supposed to open one here and still maintain one there. If you had told me a year ago that we would have a store in Alexandria or Arlington, I would have said, ‘No, we’ll have our second store here in Alexandria, but we’ll always be here in D.C.'” The move began last spring, when the store announced it would be shuttering its Adams Morgan location after 12 years in the neighborhood.
Retro resurgence: The unlikely return of cassette tapes in Canadian music: Tyson Wiebe firmly believes the audio cassette hasn’t been played out. Many, many years after most music fans tossed their tapes in the trash, the Lethbridge, Alta., musician got behind the dated format in a big way — by forming an independent record label intent on resurrecting the once-loved cassette. Through production runs of 100 copies, Wiebe hopes to convince more homegrown artists that releasing tapes makes sense in 2017. He sees it as a way for musicians to stand apart in the age of streaming music, and get more people to actually play a full album. “It sounds great to us and it’s a lot more inexpensive than doing something like vinyl,” the founder of Norwegian Blue Records says.
Intersection Sessions: Ed Smith & ReRunz Records: Ed Smith’s record store, ReRunz Records, opened last Summer on West Church street. There are bins full of James Brown 45s- along with other funk, soul, R&B, Jazz and hundreds of other records. The walls are lined with records and concert posters- for the Jackson Five, T Bone Walker, Fats Domino, Run DMC… There’s also a sign advertising Smith’s own group- the After Hour band- which rehearses at the store on weekends. Smith used to have a store in Pine Hills, but he closed it in 2000. He says he couldn’t compete with the big box stores. Last August though, Smith says he decided the time was right to re-open.
Record Listening Club connects with vinyl sounds: There is nothing quite like listening to a record from start to finish without any distractions. Being a part of the Record Listening Club allows students and staff to do just that and to discuss the meaning behind individual songs and albums as a whole. Reference archivist Lindy Smith started the group last fall and said it gives her the opportunity to discover new music. The Music Library at the University has about one million recordings. She said starting this club seemed like a fun way for staff and students to utilize the library’s resources and dive into new listening material.
Pressing Matters, A look at death of local vinyl industry: Last year British-born, New York-based writer and reggae lover Vivien Goldman was in Jamaica for activities related to International Reggae Day. Based on discussions she had with players in the local music industry, she became aware of the death of the local vinyl industry. “How could this happen?” she questioned. “Vinyl is such a strong signature of Jamaican music, and the fact that this arm of Jamaican music and culture was dying was astonishing.” Goldman would team up with the international firm The Vinyl Factory to produce Pressing Matters, a docu-film on this dying aspect of Jamaica’s culture.
‘I like the physicality of it’: Stuart McLean describes his love of vinyl in 2012 interview, ‘I feel a physical competence which I don’t experience very often in my life’: “There is something about vinyl,” McLean told CBC Daybreak Alberta’s Russell Bowers back in 2012 while visiting an independent Marda Loop record store in Calgary. “I like the physicality of it. I was never an athlete. I am not physically adept with things.I am a little bit clumsy. I break things and I drop things. But with an album I can slide that record out of the album cover like no one else. I can spin it around on my hand between side one and side two with elegance and lay it down on the turntable and then get the needle over and drop it right at whatever cut I want to drop it on.”
