Bath, ENG | New burger bar and records store coming to Moorland Road in Bath: Two new shops are coming to a popular Bath high street – including a burger bar which is opening imminently. Moorland Road, in Oldfield Park, is poised to welcome the new additions of Revival Records Exchange and Magu. Magu has been tantalising people online since April by posting pictures of sourdough cheese burgers, bottles of its own brand of sauce and crispy bacon…It promises to offer “secret off-the-menu burgers from time to time” and asks people to follow its Instagram account for updates. The record shop will be taking the place of a former jeweller…”Having two new independent businesses on Moorland Road will be a nice boost for the street and I wish them well.”
Spokane, WA | Spokane Staple: Bob Gallagher’s shaping Spokane’s music scene, one record at a time: Walking into 4000 Holes Record Store for the first time can be an overwhelming experience. Rows and rows of carefully organized new and used CDs greet you from the middle of the store, and, along the wall, new and used vinyl, equally as organized, sit in record racks, crates on the floor and on-the-wall displays that reach all the way to the ceiling. That’s not to mention the wall covered in Beatles memorabilia, plus items from bands like the Doors and a note to 4000 Holes from the late Layne Staley, behind the register. It’s a lot to take in, and it’s been that way since the record store opened in 1989.
Frederick, MD | Local record store reopens after devastating floods destroy inventory: After devastating rains and flooding destroyed a local record shop, the community came to its rescue. Vinyl Acres in downtown Frederick reopened its doors this weekend after repairing the basement-level shop for the last five weeks. Owners said the costly work done to clean-out the mess, restore flooring and records, could not have been possible without the help of the community who donated thousands to the shop’s GoFundMe page. “We were not really ready to give up. I can barely describe the level of gratitude that we feel. It’s just the goodness of people,” explained co-owner of Vinyl Acres, Martha Hull.
Scranton, PA | Before plant closure, WEA employees gather to reminisce: Embracing each other and wiping tears, employees who once made vinyl records and compact discs gathered together for one “last song.” At a dedication ceremony for an old record press Saturday morning and at a reunion picnic in the afternoon, hundreds of former employees of WEA Manufacturing reminisced about happier days. As WEA eventually became Cinram International and then Technicolor, the number of employees dwindled. The plant, which at its peak employed 3,500 people, will close its doors in a few weeks. The employees wanted to honor the Marquardt family, especially the late Richard C. Marquardt, who grew his own father’s company, Specialty Records, into WEA.
Is your brain an analog or digital device? New research surprises. How the brain represents information has real world impact on how capable we are of dealing with the complexity of reality. Compare an analog and a digital audio recording medium. VHS video tape – an analog medium – stores a continuous curve of modulated audio/visual information. In a digital CD continuous audio is sliced into 44,100 frames a second, and represented by discrete numbers. On playback the sounds are presented as continuous, much as the individual still frames of a motion picture appear continuous when played back fast enough. Most people can’t hear the difference between digital and analog recordings, me included, but those who say they do may spend thousands on turntables and tube amps to get the full analog experience.
Clash Tech: Affordable Turntables: …The good news is that vinyl still sounds sensational if you invest in the right kit – and the joy of wax is now open to all. For instance, here are four affordable models that can all be instantly hooked-up to most audio systems because each one has a built-in ‘phono stage’, so there’s no need for a specialist pre-amp to perform that role. They are super-simple, too, but don’t mistake ease-of-use for low-ball performance. These decks will get your mojo working with aplomb for less than the price of an arm-full of actual vinyl. So what are you waiting for? Get rifling through your loved-ones’ lofts for that killer stash of long-forgotten 12-inches.
How does a vinyl record make a sound? Have you ever had a close look at a record and wondered how that tiny groove can result in the sound you hear through your speakers? If so, you’ve come to the right place. While the basic idea is around 140 years old, thanks to Edison’s phonograph the record as we now know it is more like half that age. Columbia Records launched the first 12in LP in 1948, with the first public demonstration taking place on June 20th at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York. The rest, as they say, is history. It seems impossible to kill off the vinyl format. It’s a wonderful piece of engineering which, even today, seems just a little too unlikely to actually work. But work it does – and, with the right equipment, to a fabulous level.
