Austin, TX | Discogs Presents: SXSW Record Fest at SXSW 2020! Discogs to Host Free Record Fair at South By Southwest Music Conference. Discogs, the leading online physical music Marketplace and Database, announced today its first-ever event in association with the South by Southwest festival in Austin, as part of the official SXSW Block Party. Discogs Presents SXSW Record Fest will take place over three days from Thursday, March 19th to Saturday, March 21 from 12 pm – 6 pm at Native Hostel and entry is free to all. SXSW proves that the most unexpected discoveries happen people come together, a great match with Discogs’ community of record lovers from around the world. A record fair is a perfect way to round off a week of celebrations around music. Numerous tables will be filled with records, tapes, and CDs covering all genres of music. Be a part of the community, meet specialists, other collectors and find the gems you never knew you needed! More information can be found on the Discogs Presents SXSW Record Fest event page.
Chicago, IL | New Documentary Drops the Needle On Stories Attached to Record Collections: “This film was a collection of stories, akin to a record of songs. Each story is like its own song (on an album).” – Filmmaker Danielle Beverly talking about the format of her new documentary Dusty Groove: The Sound of Transition. A new Chicago-centric documentary offers a candid look at the personal stories often attached to peoples’ record collections. The film, titled Dusty Groove: The Sound of Transition, follows record store owner Rick Wojcik as he travels to meet with people looking to sell their vinyl collections. The focus is on the intimate stories that come from the potential record sellers, who are each parting with their collections for different reasons. “I think it’s a really nice love letter to Chicago as much as it is to vinyl and to the people that buy vinyl.” – Dusty Groove owner Rick Wojcik on his reaction to seeing the finished version of Danielle Beverly’s documentary. Dusty Groove: The Sound of Transition will had its Chicago premiere Friday February 28 at the Chicago Cultural Center.
Bangor, ME | New record store adds another element to downtown Bangor’s hip factor: Downtown Bangor has plenty of coffee shops, tattoo studios and craft beer, and now, it’s got another new business to add to its growing hip factor: the Vinyl Canteen, a record store and cafe that opened last weekend on Central Street. Owner Christopher Tierney has spent the past two years renovating the building at 22 Central St., and though the sign for the Vinyl Canteen went up last June, the finishing touches weren’t ready until just this past month. Tierney, a New York native who splits his time between Long Island and Bangor, wanted to officially open by March 1 in order to celebrate his 60th birthday, which is this week. “It’s a special birthday and a special thing for me, so this is really the best birthday present I could have,” said Tierney, who made his career teaching electronics in public and vocational schools on Long Island before retiring last year. The Vinyl Canteen is equal parts record store, audio equipment shop and cafe, though it’s the vinyl that will likely get people through the door. As Rolling Stone reported last fall, vinyl records were in 2019 poised to exceed CDs in sales for the first time since 1986 — and Tierney, a self-admitted audiophile, knew a record store in downtown Bangor made sense for him for a fun retirement business venture.
Phoenix, AZ | Zia Records Turns 40: How The Phoenix Record Store Has Survived Revolutionary Music Industry Changes: On this week in 1980, the top album was “The Wall” by Pink Floyd, followed by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Don Fogelberg, Rush and Michael Jackson’s “Off the Wall.” Everyone listened to music on terrestrial radio or on good old cassette tapes — and Brad Singer opened Zia Records opened its first store in Phoenix. Now, 40 years later, we’ve gone from cassettes to CDs to vinyl making a comeback, all the way to Spotify and Apple Music and YouTube. In short, the music industry has been revolutionized, but, through all of it, Zia Records is still around. In fact, it’s expanded in that time, and its current general manager has plans to expand more. The Show sat down with Zia’s Jarrett Hankinson to talk more about how a record store today survives and the impact it’s had on our city in the last few decades.
Glasgow, UK | Charity takes on former record store: Refuweegee has moved into the site which Fopp has vacated in Byres Road. A Glasgow charity has taken on the site of an iconic former record store. Refuweegee has revealed that it is moving into a unit on Byres Road which was formerly operated by music retailers Fopp. The store closed at the end of January after a difficult few years for the business. The Fopp brand began its life in 1981 as a stall in De Courcy’s Arcade – a short walk from Byres Road. The company – known for its heavily discounted vinyl and CDs – went into administration in 2007 when it was bought by HMV, however was shut earlier this year as part of wider store closures. Refuweegee director Selina Hayles told Glasgow Live that the charity is looking forward to using its new home to increase support for those arriving in the city. She said: “I think we are quite possibility one of the only organisations that can be accepted to follow such an iconic shop. “So we are hoping people aren’t too upset about the closure of Fopp because at least it’s being used for something really community-focused.”
Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore picks 5 seminal records from his collection: Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth fame is widely considered to be one of the greatest guitarists to ever walk the earth. His riffs recognisable, his licks sublime, Moore and his bandmates fundamentally changed the face of rock music throughout the mid-’80s and ’90s. The sound they produced was a scuzzy, bold mass of noise, one that formed the foundation on which today’s thriving indie rock arena is built upon. Voted the greatest guitarist of all time by Spin alongside bandmate Lee Ranaldo, Moore continues to uphold his axeman tendencies. Alongside unleashing 2019’s Spirit Counsel, an experimental three-track EP with offerings stretching for up to 63 minutes, his latest venture involves his other great love – vinyl. “I live in Stoke Newington,” declares Moore fresh off stage, having just handed over the award for Recording Studio of the Year to Church Studios at the Music Producer’s Guild Awards. “I used to stay there in the 80s and it was quite a different time then, particularly in that part of North London.”
New York, NY | The Archive Of Contemporary Music — And Its 3 Million Recordings — Is Leaving NY: Located in New York, the Archive of Contemporary Music (ARC) has a collection of popular music that rivals that of the Library of Congress, housing more than three million recordings. The archive is independent and gets no money from state or local governments and because of rising rents, it’s being forced to vacate its longtime Manhattan headquarters. News of its predicament brought offers from all over the country, and the archive has just announced that it will be moving to two different locations outside of the city. “It’s daunting,” says ARC’s founder, Bob George. “It’s going to be a nightmare. We have a lot of boxes we have to buy.” George founded the archive in 1985 with his own albums — 47,000 of them. His mission was to collect vinyl LPs and 45s, as well as CDs. But when 78s from the 1920s started to roll in along with cassettes and 8-track tapes from the 1970s, George just couldn’t say no.
Changing the record: why High Fidelity’s gender swap is perfectly timed: In the TV remake of Nick Hornby’s novel, the obsessional record store owner is now re-imagined as a woman, played by Zoë Kravitz. Finally, female music geeks are getting some recognition. It was perhaps always a given that High Fidelity, the much-loved-Nick Hornby-novel-turned-Hollywood-romcom, would be turned into a television series – there are few stories more adaptable or soundtrackable. The surprise, though, is that in its small-screen incarnation, the protagonist is not Rob, as immortalised by John Cusack, “the ultimate music fan, a record store owner who is obsessed with pop culture and Top 5 lists”, fond of proselytising the “subtle art” of the compilation tape and grandly announcing his intention to “now sell four copies of the Three EPs by the Beta Band”. Rather, in the new incarnation from the streaming service Hulu, the record store owner is Rob(yn), played by Zoë Kravitz, a woman who “can easily school anyone’s music knowledge while knocking back whisky neats”. To date, there have been remarkably few fictional female characters famed for their music knowledge. It’s a niche field, perhaps, but one that nonetheless has an impact.
