New York, NY | Record Store Day Is Rescheduled. Can It Still Survive? Record Store Day has been moved to June 20, but the trend of social distancing suggests lower sales. April is the most glorious month of the year for vinyl junkies, veterans and rookies alike. Unheard live performances, digital album giants and new singles are released in limited numbers in celebration of the now-retro format for listening to music: vinyl. Nearly 1,400 independently owned record stores open their doors for their highest sales of the year, a critical boost to their typically-slim profit margins. Record Store Day began in 2008 as a way to support independently owned record stores in the music industry, and since has become significant in the continued sales of the vinyl platform. A Nielsen Music report recorded that Record Store Day 2019 was the third-largest sales week for vinyl since 1991, and compared to the week before, sales rose 193%. Record Store Day has now been moved from April 18 to June 20 due to concerns over the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. But what if record stores can’t survive until June?
Los Angeles, CA | Record stores go silent during what should have been a good month: April was supposed to bring new life and activity to record stores. Now almost everything has stopped. Record Store Day – an annual celebration and sales promotion of independently owned record stores – had originally been scheduled for April 18. Now it has been put off until June 20. Stores have had to close their brick-and-mortar operations. Businesses can only struggle to stay alive. “We’d been doing good,” said Brian Flores, one of the owners of Sick City Records on Sunset Boulevard. They had been in business for fifteen years, first in Silver Lake, then Echo Park, he said. “Then everything went to zero in the last three weeks.” It’s when the bars closed – that’s when the customers stopped coming, Flores said. And when Tom Hanks got sick. Now the store can only sell online, through Etsy, Instagram, Facebook – and even there, sales are very slow, Flores said. Yet his business still shows more life than Rockaway Records in Silver Lake – which temporarily closed not only the store, but also its online operations.
Vancouver, CA | Need a vinyl fix? These local record stores have you covered: With many small businesses in lockdown and people in quarantine, we are all in a state of shock, if not withdrawal, as we miss our usual routine. Spare a thought, too, for the poor vinyl addict — the one for whom a visit to the neighbourhood record store was once a weekly or at least monthly ritual. To help, Vancouver record stores are adjusting their business model. In mid-March, Audiopile on Commercial Drive began a vinyl-to-go service. “We had a quick meeting after a busy weekend and after seeing the bad news — the government hadn’t stepped up at that point — we locked the doors and asked, What should we do, should we just go home? Or should we try to get records to people who still want them — and can afford them?” said store manager/buyer Mark Richardson. Owner Geoff Barton, Richardson and another employee, Corey Woolger, opted for the latter. Richardson had read that Easy Street Records in Seattle had implemented something similar. So they came up with a $75 minimum order for free delivery (via bike) for most of the city. After they posted the offer on Instagram, people began inquiring about stock.
Santa Cruz, CA | Streetlight Records Copes by Turning to Online Sales: Long before COVID-19, the friendly neighborhood independent record store had already had a lot of practice in dealing with seismic shifts in the marketplace, and even in facing an existential crisis or two. Still, the pandemic has dealt a swift, potentially crippling blow to indie record retailers like Streetlight Records, which has had to close its two stores in San Jose and Santa Cruz. We had the opportunity to visit with Paige Brodsky, who manages the San Jose shop and is also Streetlight’s marketing manager. “Well, it’s challenging, for sure. Our business has certainly seen its share of challenges over the years. But we try to be nimble and try to be able to catch those curveballs. We’re in a situation where probably about half of the total Streetlight staff has been fully furloughed. And little less than a half is working from five to 15 hours a week to fill online orders, and get more of our products listed on various online sites, just to try to get us through and keep the bills paid until we can open again.”
San Francisco, CA | Support San Francisco Record Shops Through Discogs and Online Stores: Listening to records is a great way to pass the time. We know. A huge component of shopping for records is the physicality of the task: leafing through the racks. That satisfying flip, the waft of air, the smell, as one album after the other whistles by. Often, we’re not even sure what we’re looking for. We hope to stumble across something awesome, a hidden gem or a guilty pleasure. Maybe it’s something you’ve never even heard before, but the art just speaks to you, or perhaps it’s a classic album you just never got around to buying. Online shopping isn’t the same, but it can help scratch the itch. And, more importantly, the dollars we spend support local shops when they need us the most. Much like your friendly neighborhood SF Weekly, it’s a particularly great time. Here are just a few local vinyl sellers currently selling their wares in cyberspace. The Big Boys: Rasputin and Amoeba: It’s pretty much business as usual for these guys, both of which already had a significant online presence. Founded in 1971 and with six branches across the Bay Area, Rasputin’s online selection of used and new music and movies is comprehensive. They also have an active and friendly social media presence, which is certainly welcome right now. “Like” them, “friend” them, all that jazz.
Los Angeles, CA | ‘Record Safari’ film follows LA collector’s cross-country trek for records to sell at Coachella festival: Alex Rodriguez chases his high in antique stores and obscure record shops across the country. He flips through musical history by hand, seeking out treasures to fill up his Ford Fusion as he hits the road again. The 40-year-old’s addiction to vinyl is now the subject of a documentary, “Record Safari,” which follows him around the country on one of his yearly road trips as he searches for albums to fill the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival record store. “Since I wasn’t in that drug and alcohol world, records became my drug. I’ve built a collection of 23,000 records,” the Los Angeles resident and Coachella record store curator says in the new documentary. The 101-minute documentary, by filmmaker Vincent Vittorio, was initially set for release during the first weekend of Coachella on the festival’s YouTube channel. But with the postponement of the festival due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, the film was instead released on March 27. “It’s a feel-good doc for any current, past or future vinyl lover that allows them to feel like they can kind of step away on this road trip movie. It really gives them a look into this one quirky fanatic, Alex Rodriguez, taking us on this journey across the country,” the 40-year-old director said.
Unwinding the mystery of degraded reel-to-reel tapes: Crooner Bing Crosby knew a thing or two about sound. In 1947, recognizing that recorded music sounded better on magnetic reel-to-reel tape than on vinyl records, he invested in a company to develop equipment to record his radio shows. Soon, reel-to-reel tapes and recording and playback machines were a household craze. Now, as reel-to-reel tapes make a comeback among audio buffs, scientists are unraveling the secret of why some decades-old tapes are unplayable, while others retain their original superb audio fidelity. The researchers are presenting their results through the American Chemical Society (ACS) SciMeetings online platform. “It is a mystery why some tapes hold up and others don’t,” says Andrew R. Davis, Ph.D. “I talked to audio technicians to ask what they do to remedy unplayable tapes. They knew that heating degraded tapes worked, and they used everything from toaster ovens to hair dryers. But no one knew exactly why heat worked, and sometimes the tapes reverted quickly to being unplayable. We are trying to find out why.”
