Treehouse Records will close at the end of 2017: If you’re the kind of person who likes to complain about the homogenization of the greater Uptown area and bemoan the city’s loss of cultural institutions (and who isn’t sometimes?), Saturday’s news that Treehouse Records will close its doors at the end of the year is further evidence of our civic slide into pre-fab characterlessness. Even if you’re not that kind of person, it sucks to lose a cool record store. Treehouse owner Mark Trehus announced his decision to retire after a Saturday in-store performance by the Suicide Commandos. “I am retiring,” Trehus later wrote on Facebook. “The store will close forever on December 31st, 2017.”
Grandson of late Oklahoma City jazz and blues record store owner keeps family legacy open: The racks and shelves are filled with vintage blues, jazz and rhythm and blues records, cassettes eight-tracks and posters that are treasures of the music history of Oklahoma City. Charlie’s Rhythm & Blues, 5114 Classen Circle, was founded in the late 1970s by Charlie Nicholson. Nicholson died Feb. 23 at the age of 71, but the store will stay open thanks to his 18-year-old grandson, Justin Daniels. In a midcentury modern building where the HiLo Club and its neon cocktail glass sign have glowed at night since it opened in 1956, and where the Patio Restaurant once faced Classen Circle, the record store “open” sign was lighted up on a recent weekday afternoon.
When it comes to vinyl records, Brad Johnson has found his groove: It was sometime around the late 1980s that the music world sublimely declared vinyl records were obsolete, having been overrun by the compact disc — a technology that in recent years has been displaced by downloaded music. Brad Johnson is here to say that vinyl not only alive, but that music lovers still have a place in their hearts and their collections for what many have called a purer form of listening to anything from rock and country to jazz and R&B. There are an estimated 1,500 independent record stores in the U.S. today. Research firm IBIS World estimates about one-fifth of all surviving stores are located in the Southeast.
Elderly jazz fan seeks home for 2,000-plus collection of records, tapes, books: What will become of his collection after he’s gone? Just to be clear, Gil Sokolow is not dying. His health is superb, and he looks younger than his years. Because 88 is apparently the new 75. But the man’s a realist. One of these days, he won’t wake up. He doesn’t want to burden his three children with disposing of his lifelong jazz obsession: 2,000-plus vinyl albums, cassette tapes, and books he has thoughtfully curated since he fell hard for jazz as a teen in West Philly. “I want someone to appreciate it,” he says of the alphabetized collection that lines the walls in the den of his modest home in the Far Northeast.
Record Store Day Canada: Alexisonfire Tops Album Sales, Vinyl and Singles See Gains: Classic artists Neil Young, The Doors, Rush, Santana and David Bowie topped the list of Record Store Day exclusive album sales in Canada, but it was reunited Canadian screamo act Alexisonfire that had the No. 1 selling release on April 22, according to Canadian figures provided to Billboard by Nielsen Music. Alexisonfire’s Crisis was followed by Young’s Decade, The Doors’ Live at the Matrix ’67, Coheed & Cambria’s Good Apollo I’m Burning Star IV, Rush’s Cygnus X-1, Santana’s Live at the Woodstock Music & Art Fair, Bowie’s Cracked Actor, the Space Jam soundtrack, Notorious B.I.G.’s Born Again, and, at No. 10 Claypool Lennon’s Lime and Limpid.
Gorillaz’s ‘Humanz’ vinyl box set contains 14 unreleased songs: The Damon Albarn-created band released their fifth studio album late last month, ending a seven-year wait since 2010’s ‘The Fall’. The new album features guest appearances from the likes of Vince Staples, Grace Jones and Danny Brown. A new Amazon listing has revealed that 14 previously-unheard tracks will make the cut with the ‘super deluxe’ box set of ‘Humanz’. The box set will contain 14 pieces of 12-inch vinyl, with each individual record containing an album track and an exclusive alternate version. New collaborations with the likes of Little Simz, Faia Younan and Azekel are set to be featured in the collection.
