Record Store Day Launches “The List” For 2020: Everywhere, Baby!: One of the most exciting days leading up to the annual celebration of the record store is LIST LAUNCH DAY, and for RSD 2020, that day is TODAY (3/5)! Record Store Day has released the list of limited edition titles that will be part of the party on Saturday, April 18. It spans formats, genres and decades, and includes literally something for everyone. The full list can be found at recordstoreday.com.
Brookline, MA | Village Vinyl Thrives in Coolidge Corner: The shop opened in Brookline Village in 2017 and has been growing ever since. Longtime Brookline resident Jonathan Sandler has had a special connection to record shops his whole life. In the early ’90s, he worked in a record store, and later met his wife in Flipside Records on Beacon Street. Now, he runs Village Vinyl & Hi-Fi on Harvard Street in Coolidge Corner. The shop opened in Brookline Village in 2017 and has been growing ever since. “We’re definitely on most record shoppers’ routes,” says Sandler. “We appeal to lots of different types of record buyers. We have shoppers that other people don’t have. We try to be strong in all genres; we try to make the experience as pleasant and as pleasurable as possible.” Sandler speculates that records have been resurging in popularity for a few different reasons. First off, the sound quality is higher than electronic streaming. Second, sitting and listening to a record is an experience that requires physical and mental presence and engagement on the part of the listener.
New Brunswick, CA | New Shop Bringing Some ‘Riff Raff’ Into Uptown Saint John: A new store opening in uptown Saint John next month plans to fill a gap for the city’s skateboarding and record-collecting community. Riff Raff Skate Shop, opening on Charlotte Street, will sell skateboards and skateboard hardware, clothing and accessories, along with a selection of new vinyl for those with a heavier taste in tunes. “Calling it a ‘skate shop’ was a hard decision to make because it’s not just a skate shop. It’s also going to end up being a music shop, a record store,” says owner Trent Wheaton. The record selection at the shop will focus on heavier acts that are harder to find at other record stores in the city. “It’s only going to be heavy music,” says Wheaton. “It’s only going to be metal, punk and hard rock.”
Bakersfield, CA | Back-to-back concerts this weekend at World Records: …For the first time in 24 years of putting on concerts, World Records has two shows on successive nights — two shows to help your spirit refuel. Friday night it’s Tinsley Ellis, the 2020 Blues Music Awards nominee for blues-rock artist of the year, and on Saturday night we welcome Grammy award-winning bluegrass artist Rhonda Vincent and the Rage. I’ll never forget the afternoon at the record store in 2002 when I opened the mail pouch containing the upcoming release by an artist I didn’t know. The CD cover showed a guy with eyes downcast, holding his guitar, the wooded swamp in the background. It looked so good I said to my co-workers Chris and Bruce, “This needs to go in the player right now. Look at this — ‘Hell or High Water’ by Tinsley Ellis.” It just took a few seconds to know we were new Tinsley Ellis fans.
Hackney, UK | ‘It’s hopeful and generous’: Thurston Moore’s experimental record shop: hurston Moore is sitting in his shop window, pricing up a pile of records and telling me how Sun Ra used to operate. “Before he was going on tour, to say Egypt, he used to ask them to send him some fabrics from there. He wanted to feel them in his hand, pick up the vibrations.” We are talking about the physicality of objects, of holding a record or leafing through a pamphlet or a book of poetry. These things can be talismanic in a world where everything is digitised and streamed, where all music is available without us leaving the house. Here in this new shop, an old record cover, some Robert Smith merch, a book of strange poems, a Barney Bubbles print, a Japanese pressing of a Bowie album may seem out of time but they are deeply precious. The shop has opened in my local high street in Hackney and it is the brainchild of Moore, co-founder of Sonic Youth, in collaboration with comic artist Savage Pencil (Edwin Pouncey) and Soho Music and Zippo Records head Pete Flanagan. His son Jim is working there. “I love collaborations. I always wanted to be on compilation albums!”
U2 to release “11 O’Clock Tick Tock” single for Record Store Day: On April 18, U2 will once again participate in Record Store Day with a new vinyl re-release. Their 1980 single “11 O’Clock Tick Tock” will be released as a 40th Anniversary Remastered edition. The single, pressed onto transparent blue 12″ vinyl, will feature two unreleased live tracks: “Touch” and “Twilight” from the band’s September 22, 1980 show in London. Tracks from this show have previously been released as part of the 2008 Deluxe Edition of Boy… This release will mark the 11th Record Store Day that U2 has participated in since 2010. This remastered single follows in the footsteps of their refreshed U2 Three release for 2019’s Black Friday Record Store Day. Much like that EP, “11 O’Clock Tick Tock” will have refreshed graphics reminscient of the band’s original visual aesthetics. Additionally, this year’s RSD releases are in partnership with War Child UK, a charity dedicated to supporting children of the world harmed by conflict.
