Bendigo, AU | Record shop ready to lower the stylus: Vinyl enthusiasts are in for a treat when the city’s newest independent record store opens this Saturday. Regular attendees of the Sunday Showgrounds markets would recognise Bendigo Vinyl co-owners Paul O’Farrell and Sam Edmonds, but now the pair are preparing to take their business to the next level at 333 Hargreaves Street.“We’re feeling nervous, we’re gathering all the stock so that we’ve got plenty on offer for day one,” Mr Edmonds said.“We really hope that it’s a safe place where people can come and hang out. There’s a lot of little shops like this now coming up on Mitchell Street and it’s really exciting.“We hope that we can fit in there and be another option for people to come and hang out, talk music and buy some music. People are really enjoying the vinyl revolution, so we want to help them with that.”
Stroud, UK | Bigger and better – Sound Records is on the move: Formed in Stroud in 2018, Sound Records has gained an enviable national reputation amongst vinyl connoisseurs and music lovers. Last year they released Patched In: Sounds of the Stroud Underground on their own record label, also called Sound Records. The business was established by Tom Berry and Sean Roe and is currently situated at the top of Stroud’s High Street and is a mecca for music enthusiasts. It was named Best Small Shop in 2020 by the Independent Retailers Association. “We moved from Gloucester Street after our first year to the High Street,” said Tom. “Sean left the business earlier this year so I’m now taking Sound Records into its next phase. “The current premises are fantastic and beautiful to look at, but there isn’t the scope to develop some of the projects we want to develop – we’re keen to develop our record label and we need office space for that; we want to be able to host live events and talks and discussions, and we just want a bit more room for more stock. We’ve also got plans to sell books and CDs.”
Seattle, WA | Seattle record store hoping to find neon sign that was sold by accident: The 32-foot sign, which once hung outside the store’s Lower Queen Anne location, was accidentally sold after being in storage. The owner of Easy Street Records is searching for the person who purchased a neon sign that once hung outside the store’s original Lower Queen Anne location. He says it was sold on accident and he’s looking to buy it back. “I cannot find the sign. The case of the missing 32 foot neon sign,” said Easy Street Records owner, Matt Vaughan. The sign reads “Easy Street Records” in neon green and features a neon red star above the letters, in the middle. Vaughan described what happened as a ‘comedy of errors.’ He said the sign was being stored at the National Sign Company. When the company moved locations he said the sign was mistakenly taken to a secondhand store and sold. He’s now trying to find who bought it. “I know that it’s a man that got it, and that he collects cars and that he has a big garage. Those are the only clues that we have,” said Vaughan.
Chicago, IL | New horror-themed coffee shop opens in Avondale with adjoining record store: The Brewed is a horror-themed coffee shop that is connected to Bric-A-Brac Record store. The Avondale neighborhood is quickly gaining a reputation as the mecca of the horror movie community in Chicago. The latest addition, the Brewed, is a horror-themed coffee shop brought to the neighborhood by the same owners (and internally connected inside the building) as Bric-A-Brac Records. The new coffee shop is named after David Cronenberg’s horror classic “The Brood” as an homage to the cult-classic godfather of horror. It serves as a labor of love for owners Nick Mayor, Jen Lemastersa, and Jason Deuchler. With years of collecting items, the collection is truly unique and very personal to the owners. It’s presented in a welcoming way, carefully curated to bend between the owner’s admiration of the genre while creating a unique coffee experience.
Zagreb, HR | Prominent Croatian vinyl record cover designer exhibits works: Silent Craft – a Retrospective of the Graphic Works 1967 – 1997, the first exhibition of works of Ivan Ivezić, the most productive Croatian vinyl record cover designer, who designed some of the most memorable covers for Jugoton (today Croatia Records) from 1960s to 1990s opens today in Zagreb’s HDD Gallery. The exhibition will be opened until June 10. From the time when the cover was just a protection of vinyl from damage, through the time when trained employees of other departments were engaged in design in record companies, to the time when canonized names of Croatian design were created, vinyl has always been a place where every professional but also the curious amateur wanted to try their skills. Ivan Ivezić intuitively understood the essence of this visual communication very early on, and his works became a place of collective memory of space, time and culture. Working for Jugoton, the largest record company in the area at the time, which printed numerous releases in circulations that are today unimaginable from its plant in Dubrava in Zagreb, Ivezić was always graphically present in all possible channels of music distribution.
Pro-Ject Unleashes Metallica Artist Series Turntable On High End Munich 2022: You won’t mistake this turntable for any other! With the resurgence of vinyl records enjoying lasting popularity and still growing, it’s obvious that the medium is no longer the domain of classical and jazz listening audiophiles. So it is perfectly fitting that at this year’s High End Munich show Pro-Ject is previewing a handmade (in Europe) special edition Metallica artist series record player. Pro-Ject was chosen by the Metallica Team to be the partner in this collaboration, a Metallica-themed record player. This player receives an aesthetic overhaul with a “mirror-finished metal logo contour.” You only need look at the pictures to see that this is a bold, stylish, modern record player that stands out from the crowd. But if you are lucky enough to be in Munich this week, then you can see it in person at the show. Beginning in Summer 2022, the Metallica Turntable will be available in limited quantities for $1599 USD through select Authorized Pro-Ject Audio Systems retailers.
Melbourne, AU | PBS 106.7FM auctions hundreds of collectable vinyl records and CDs: PBS has a 42-year history of supporting diverse, under-represented music in Melbourne and have amassed an incredible collection of music. After 20 years of being located at Easey St, the team has recently moved down the road to Collingwood Yards. The new station is, however, a little smaller, and after 20 years at Easey Street the team had collected a lot of music. In addition, a combination of announcers using their own record collections and preferring to use digital formats has meant that the PBS collection had been largely sitting in shelves unplayed and untouched. “We knew that we didn’t want these records to go into landfill; we wanted to give this music the opportunity to be passed on to fellow music enthusiasts” remarked Meg Butler, Marketing Manager at PBS. “We decided that the best option was for us to auction the items, so have worked with Melbourne-based Abbeys Auctions to put together a Records and CD online Auction.”
