Medicine Hat, AB | Take what you need: Local record store owner doing what he can to help: The owner of a local record store is doing what he can to assist those in need during these tough times. Big Al’s Music and Games owner Al Brigham has been filling up an empty cooler with essentials every night before closing. He leaves the cooler out overnight with a note on top, asking people to take what they need. “I’m leaving a lot of different things in there every night,” he said. “I know sometimes it isn’t everything people need, but I try and have it stocked with toilet paper, gloves, water and music. “These are really challenging times right now and I’m just trying to help out.” Brigham leaves the cooler outside every night and has been doing so for two weeks. “Pretty much everything I’ve left outside is gone in the morning,” he said. “All I ask is that people leave the container so I can fill it up again.”
North Adams, MA | Belltower Records Doors May Be Shut But The Music Is Still On: Belltower Records is keeping the record store experience alive despite the sudden closure because of the COVID-19 outbreak. “People love to connect over records and their love of music. Music can ease a lot of anxiety or discomfort over day-to-day life and in that way it serves an emotional purpose,” owners Andrea Belair and Wes Nelson said in a joint email. “With this sudden retreat into isolation, we think it’s important to not overlook how this will affect people emotionally. ‘Music is the healing force of the universe.’” The record store closed in the Norad Mill on March 16 as concerns over the novel coronavirus continued to ramp up. “We decided to close out of concern for public health surrounding the COVID-19 crisis since we did not want to contribute to the spread of the virus through exposing customers through contact with it,” they wrote. Belair and Nelson have always sold music online but saw an opportunity to expand while the brick and mortar operation is closed.. They have increased their offerings on both Discogs and Etsy…
UK | Tributes to former ERA chairman Paul Quirk: Following the sad news of the death of former ERA chairman Paul Quirk, industry figures have paid tribute. Quirk died aged 71 after a short battle with cancer. Alongside his brother Rob, he headed up the Quirk’s indie retail chain, which was centred on Ormskirk, outside Liverpool. Paul Quirk became an increasingly well-known industry figure, so it was a natural step to for him to get involved with the Entertainment Retailers Association, launched in 1988 by members including Woolworths, Our Price and WH Smith. “He didn’t see why he should sit around the table with people who were trying to put him out of business,” said former Millward Brown charts director Bob Barnes. “But he came along, realised that his issues were the same as theirs and soon became more and more involved.”
Why Warner Records Is Still Releasing Big Albums Amid COVID-19 Lockdown: As artists postpone releases amid a market slowdown, one major record label is finding success sticking to its original plans. “Music is very of the moment — it captures a time,” says Warner Records COO Tom Corson. It was not on my list of expectations, when interviewing Los Angeles-based Chairman and COO of Warner Records Tom Corson, to be greeted by a quote from the German soccer coach, Jurgen Klopp. But these are, as those serotonin-sapping global headlines keep reminding us, unpredictable times. “Football is the most important of the least important things.” …Corson told me these words resonated with him not only for offering a spot of mirth during an oft-bleak period, but also because he humbly disagrees: Music, says Corson, is, by far the most important of the least important things — especially right now. With this essential credo set in stone, he permits me to quiz him on the fact that Warner Records is having hit records… during a particularly abnormal few weeks.
Why ‘High Fidelity’ Plays So Differently After 20 Years: High Fidelity turned 20 this March, which is a sentence I take absolutely no joy in writing. I was 17 when I first saw it, fully in the throws of teenage angst, and John Cusack was one of My Guys. I watched Better Off Dead and Say Anything… almost constantly (the former more than the latter – Say Anything… is actually kind of a bummer), and the prospect of seeing Cusack bemoan his failed relationships while lording over an elitist record store was extremely my shit at the time. (I was exhausting to be around, you guys.) It was a combination of all of my favorite things – mopey introspection, music snobbery, and pining over girls. Consequently, when I walked out of that movie theater in March of 2000, I absolutely loved High Fidelity. Today, I’m considerably older, I’ve been married for several years, and I have way more grey in my hair, and High Fidelity doesn’t play the same as it did back when I was in high school. I’m not positive, but I think I don’t actually like it anymore.
