Sunrise Records to move into 70 closing HMV locations across Canada: Sunrise Records is placing a major bet on Canadian music sales with plans to move into 70 retail spaces being vacated by HMV Canada. The Ontario-based music retail chain has negotiated new leases with mall landlords across the country. Sunrise’s expansion gives the company a quick foothold in the Canadian music scene just as the industry’s largest retailer closes shop. Stores will begin to open this spring after HMV liquidates and removes its signs. “It’s a good opportunity for us to get a lot more stores open,” Sunrise Records president Doug Putman told The Canadian Press in an interview.
Change the record: Having called Stokes Croft home for six years, one of Bristol’s last remaining record shops will soon be moving to 32 City Road in St Paul’s. Idle Hands owner Chris Farrell is looking forward to the move: “It’s got a slightly different vibe. It’s very fresh, it’s very bright, a bit airier: the air’s better out of the pollution! It’s just a slightly nicer space.” For those who will go nowhere else to spend hours flipping through vast record collections, have no fear, you won’t be left high and dry for long. Idle Hands will be reopening in its new home at the beginning of March, and only a two minute meander away from its current home.
Jumbo Records on move to bigger Leeds shop as vinyl revival spins on: Jumbo Records in Leeds city centre is set for a return the Merrion Centre after nearly 30 years at the nearby St Johns Centre as the continuing vinyl revival means they need a bigger shop. Shop manager Adam Gillison said vinyl sales have increased by around 50 per cent and Jumbo Records wants a larger new unit to create a long-term home. Jumbo Records first opened in Queens Arcade in Leeds in 1971 before moving to the Merrion Centre in 1974. The business moved over the road to the newly-built St John’s Centre in 1988 and now shop staff are preparing to move back to a unit at The Merrion Centre on the corner of Merrion Street and Wade Street on March 29.
The Vinyl Countdown! Decades of iconic album covers feature in stunning new collection which will have you dusting down the record player: Vinyl records are enjoying somewhat of a renaissance, with sales soaring to a 25-year high last year. And now record covers are being celebrated as artworks in their own right in a stunning new collection. A new book entitled Art Record Covers is being released by Taschen this month and features 500 record covers from the 1950s through to today. From Andy Warhol’s artwork for The Velvet Underground & Nico to Robert Mapplethorpe’s cover for Patti Smith’s Horses, some of the world’s most famous artists have been behind the iconic covers of our time.
Record Store Day: Build up begins for the event that helped trigger vinyl revival, From Carlisle to Newcastle, events are taking places across the region for this year’s special Record Store Day: The North East’s vinyl experts have plans well underway for what will be the 10th anniversary of Record Store Day. Stores from across Tyne and Wear, as well as Durham, Stockton, and Carlisle will join over 200 independent record stores across the UK in celebrating. The event, hailed as the driving force behind the vinyl revival, sees record collectors and music fans head to local record shops to purchase exclusive releases and promotional products released especially for the day.
This Vinyl Record Produces a Sick Star Wars Hologram: In the two-disc set, each has a B-side that contains music on the outer edge of the disc, and a specially etched center area. In that center area is the nifty hologram. You set the disc playing and point a directional light (like a small flashlight) at the center area. When viewed this way, two 3D holograms appear and rotate—and you’re simultaneously playing the soundtrack! The etchings were made by Tristan Duke. The two holograms that you get to see are the Millennium Falcon and a TIE fighter.
