Tarentum, PA | Former Jerry’s Records owner now selling vinyl from Swissvale spot: Jerry “Vinylman” Weber owns hundreds of thousands of records. He’s not a fan of acquiring music on digital platforms. “I have never downloaded a song,” Weber said. “I have a flip phone. I am what you call ‘eccentric.’” Weber loves to help others acquire music. He owned Jerry’s Records in Squirrel Hill for 40 years, retiring in 2017 and selling it to employee Chris Grauzer. Weber, 72, an Oakland native, needed two knee replacements. He took a few years to mend. In 2019, he started selling records from his warehouse in Swissvale, Vinyl-Man’s Clubhouse. The space is a former car dealership and light fixture store. He has 250,000 records stored in the large building where 50,000 are for sale, most for $5 in every genre from rock to jazz to country-western. He decided to open more hours to give customers additional shopping time. The record store on Washington Avenue will be open from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
Atascadero, CA | Traffic Records Moves Twenty Feet to a Larger Location: Those searching for records in Atascadero will be pleased to hear the Traffic Records has recently relocated to a larger space only twenty feet from where it sat before. Traffic Records and Bland Solar Company and Show Room saw their leases come time for renewal and decided it would be mutually beneficial to switch as the record store needed more sales space and Bland Solar was open to a smaller location. During the first week of February, the two businesses made the change, and now Traffic Records sits at 5850 Traffic Way while Bland is at 5870. Due to the tight restrictions placed on businesses based on square footage, Traffic Records owner Manuel Barba was forced to make a decision. “The max number of occupancy that I could have of shoppers at any one time was two to three with people waiting outside. As the store got increasingly more successful and busier, I found myself setting up a lounge area outside in the hopes that people might stick around and wait…”
Marquette, MI | Buy or trade your favorite vinyl records: The Emporium featuring Vintage Vinyl in Marquette is open by appointment. Make an appointment to buy or trade vinyl records. To schedule a visit to The Emporium featuring Vintage Vinyl in Marquette, call or text owner Jon Teichman. The shop holds thousands of records, as well as vintage toys, books and homeware. Teichman constantly adds to the collection, but special orders are available if you don’t find the album you’re looking for. “Everyone’s welcome, all tastes are welcome. And if people have records that they’re not listening to and they’d like to trade them in, and have them looked at by us, they should definitely contact us,” says Teichman. “We love to look at people’s collections. We can come to you or you can bring the records to us, but we’re really interested in people’s records.” The Emporium is located at 317 W Washington St. in Marquette. The shop is currently open by appointment only.
Record Store day and Vans new vinyl supports Black-owned record shops: Vans and Record Store Day 2021 are teaming up to support Black-owned record shops across the country. Together, the two companies are putting out the dual vinyl Songs for You, Vols. 1 & 2 that will specifically benefit Black-owned independent record shops in the United States. Late last year, the United States saw a massive spike in vinyl record sales over the holidays. In fact, Record Store Day’s Black Friday event and Taylor Swift‘s folklore helped the industry sell over 1.445 million vinyl on the weekend before Christmas. Now, Record Store Day hopes to keep the momentum surrounding physical album sales going this year. On June 12, Record Store Day is officially holding its 2021 event. This time around, however, RSD is teaming up with Vans for a special collaboration. Together, the companies are releasing the dual vinyl Songs for You, Vols. 1 & 2. The new compilations feature nineteen tracks from prolific Black artists including Curtis Mayfield, H.E.R., Run The Jewels, Summer Walker, Common, Pop Smoke and Freddie Gibbs among others. Roberta Flack’s recent cover of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” is also included.
Medicine Hat, CA | Round Again Records sees generations of music lovers come together: At Round Again Records on Third street, the music doesn’t stop playing. From the Rolling Stones to The Beatles, to ABBA. Music is everywhere. Old-fashioned records, CD’s and even cassettes each blanketing the walls of the store. Their colorful covers, a catch to those itching for a musical escape. “I get a lot of people who come down here and it is a trip down memory lane.’Oh I had this or oh I had this and it kind of takes them back,” said owner Pete Rose. That feeling of nostalgia during a period of uncertainty is what some people say keeps them coming back. …But the lure of the store is not exclusive to those wanting to return to the good old days of their childhood or teenage years. “A lot of my customers I would say are between 17 and 25 and some are even younger coming in with their parents you know and It’s not the parents buying the record it’s the kids, or the parents buying the record for the kid,” said Rose.
