Milton Keynes, UK | Off the Record charity shop in Milton Keynes chosen for ‘Record Store Day’ venue: This year Record Store Day will be on Saturday 20 April and Off The Record, located in Midsummer Place, Milton Keynes has been selected to be part of this worldwide event. Record Store Day is an annual event where independent record shops come together to celebrate people’s love of music with limited releases. Off the Record is a specially curated shop by Willen Hospice, selling pre-loved and new vinyl records to raise funds for the charity. They will be celebrating the day by selling limited releases and live music in store. The centre will open at 6am if people want to arrive early and the shop will open from 8am. The shop will be managing the queue and admittance will be limited to ensure people have space to browse. Each customer will be allowed to buy one copy of each LP and a list of stock will be updated throughout the day. There will still be the normal range of pre-loved and new music and accessories as well for customers to browse, but when the records are gone, they are gone.
Hayward, CA | The Record Store: This Shop’s Niche Hip-Hop, Soul, Jazz, and Funk Make It a DJ’s Dream: Come inside The Stacks Record Shop in Hayward, California. When SETI X—the San Francisco-based emcee and recipient of the Pharrell Williams-backed J Dilla Music Tech Grant—told me about a small brick-and-mortar he co-owned with Delrokz, a turntablist and breakdancer from Daly City, I knew my visit would yield audio gold. Nestled in Hayward, a sleepy suburb 45 minutes outside of San Francisco—and whose local high school mascot is a hay-carrying farmer—The Stacks Record Shop can be easy to miss. The brick shop is on the edge of a three-block downtown scene, which isn’t particularly known for any music or arts presence in the region. Though off the radar, it’s a Bay Area audiophile’s sanctuary. Since opening in 2020 during shelter-in-place, the Filipino- and Indian-owned storefront has become one of the only remaining spaces that specializes in niche hip-hop, soul, jazz, and funk.
Cambridge, MA | A walk into Armageddon will delight aficionados of punk and metal with vinyl, CDs and cassettes: It’s time for another episode of Totally Excellent Mid-January Cambridge Day-Approved Record Store Walk & You Better Dress Warm. Except the days are warmer, the sun is shining, the birds are chirping and spring has officially sprung. What better weather to hide away in a basement record shop void of natural light with aggro punk obscurities screaming at you through the loudspeakers from open to close? If you read that last line as snark, you’re one type of person. If you read it and thought “Fuck yeah!” you’re another. Armageddon Record Shop (12 Eliot St. B, Harvard Square, Cambridge) is for the truly initiated, mostly initiated into punk and metal. Contrast it with a more generalist shop such as Planet Records, a few blocks away.
Louisville, KY | Jack Harlow Foundation and Guestroom Records Give Away 100 Records and Record Players: The partnership gave Louisville kids their choice of vinyl albums and players to go with them. Jack Harlow’s non-profit organization continues its mission to make Louisville a better place to live. In March, the Jack Harlow Foundation made Louisville a better sounding place too. In partnership with the local record shop Guestroom Records, they welcomed 100 local kids to come to the store, chose their favorite album, and then take home a record player to listen to it on. In a photo set by Urban Wyatt we spot kids with everything from Chief Keef’s “Glotoven” on glow-in-the-dark vinyl to Korn’s “Issues” and even Alex G’s “Trick.” When Travis Searle and Justin Sowers opened Guestroom Records all the way back in 2002, their inventory was their personal vinyl collection. They sold records out of their guest rooms and garages for 11 years, until they opened their retail location in the Clifton neighborhood in 2013. In 2024, they helped make memories for 100 kids and we are here for it.
Grand Forks, ND | Groove city: Where to find vinyl records in greater Grand Forks: I’m old enough to remember my parents having 78 RPM records (yes, 78s) of hits such as Ernest Tubb’s “Walking the Floor Over You”and “How Much is That Doggie in the Window?” by Patti Page. Spinning at near lightning speed, they were as fragile as glass–drop one and it’s done. Time passes. When 33 1/3 LP (long play) records came around (no pun intended), it was something of a miracle. All that music on one disc! Beautiful cover and centerfold artwork and extensive liner notes. The inevitable crackle and pop that comes with age could be blissfully ignored. So too the unwanted repetitive loop when the needle gets stuck in a record’s groove. Then–too soon for me–along came compact discs. Another miracle! Even more music on an even smaller disc. Clearly they had their advantages. Still do. Not the least of which was that they were nearly indestructible. And, like cassette tapes, eventually they could be played in cars!
Chicago, IL | Chicago’s Secret Spot: One Year of Miyagi Records: Hyde Park’s Miyagi Records talks to 5 Mag on one year of building community and creating your very own secret spot on the Southside of Chicago. Influenced by the “hyper-curated, hidden vinyl shops of Tokyo, Japan,” Miyagi Records‘ goal is to “become your ‘secret spot.’” Originally founded by Nigel Ridgeway and Marco Jacobo as a pop up shop during the pandemic (and located in a storage unit), Miyagi Records is celebrating a year at their proper brick-and-mortar shop located at 307 E. Garfield in Hyde Park, Chicago, having moved on from just selling vinyl to creating a vibrant community space with both a cafe and multiple artist events. One year into their business, I was curious to see how they had been coming along. So it’s been a year since your record store opened…. congratulations! What were your original goals in opening it aside from selling vinyl? Thank you! It has been a wild year. As we grow, the mission remains the same – essentially, this is bringing back the community aspect of record stores.
San Diego, CA | Vintage is meeting modern at this new record store inside a San Diego pub: Ever wanted to grab a beer and spend some time with iconic musicians like Iron Maiden, Pink Floyd and Bob Marley? Well now, San Diegans will be able to at a brand-new record store coming soon to a popular local brewery. The record store will be inside the North Park location of Modern Times Beer+Coffee. Hundreds of vintage vinyls spanning the decades and genres will be available for music lovers to browse — jazz, 70s rock, 90s hip hop, heavy metal, funk. When it opens on Saturday (3/23), it will join Modern Times’ Point Loma location as the second in-restaurant record store for the brewery through a partnership with Vinyl Record Rarities, a long-standing mobile record purveyor in San Diego County. “Since vinyl records are (having) such a resurgence in the popularity of them, I believe that those two businesses coming together under one roof and having a combined shared experience is something that was really drawing people in,” said Stan Schwarz, owner of Vinyl Record Rarities, to FOX5SanDiego.com.
Stroud, UK | Future for record shops is ‘bright’ says Stroud owner: The ownerof a record shop in Stroud is positive about the future of vinyl. A surge in sales has led the Office of National Statistics to include vinyl purchases in the ‘basket of goods’ they use to calculate inflation. This is vinyl’s first appearance since 1992. Tom Berry, who runs Sounds Records in Stroud said: “The quality of sound from a vinyl record is somehow warmer and more nostalgic. “You hear the outer reaches of the register more clearly and people are beginning to appreciate this quality again. “Listening to digital recording means losing certain analogue qualities so although the sound is crisper, it’s actually less rich. “There’s also something special about the actual physical object. An LP with its cover art can be a beautiful and iconic thing. “We lost that with cassettes and CDs first and now, with streaming, there is no physical product at all.”Dr Simon Opher, local GP and Labour Party Candidate for Stroud said, “Records do sound better than digital reproductions. “There is also something about a record shop in itself.
London, UK | ‘Incredibly rare’ Beatles vinyl found in charity shop sells for thousands: Jaime-Marie Madden found the record, which she initially thought to be worth a few hundred pounds. An “incredibly rare” Beatles vinyl record, discovered in a London charity shop, has been sold for over £4,200. Jaime-Marie Madden, the manager of a Cancer Research UK charity shop in Enfield, north London, found the record and initially thought it might be worth a few hundred pounds. The vinyl turned out to be a first pressing from the original masters of the Beatles’ debut studio album Please Please Me, released in 1963. It was listed on eBay with a starting price of £1,499.99 and eventually sold for a winning bid of £4,211.89. Cancer Research UK shop manager Ms Madden said: “When I first spotted the vinyl, I thought it might only be worth a few hundred pounds.” “The record was in good condition, with only a few marks, but the sleeve was pretty damaged and worn, with a cut at base, some scuffs, marks, ageing and stains.” …”Luckily, at Cancer Research UK we’re trained to spot donations that can raise more money for life-saving cancer research, so after taking a few pictures and Googling the record, I knew we had something special!“
