Miami, FL | Miami’s ATV Records announces closure: The beloved dance music venue, which acts as a club and record store, will remain open until July 31st. ATV Records is permanently closing after two and a half years of operations. The Miami venue, home to a record store, nightclub and bar, announced the news via Instagram late on Thursday, June 23rd. No official explanation for the decision was given, with the team noting that they came to agreement following a “long and careful assesment.” ATV (short for “addicted to vinyl”) will continue to host parties until July 31st, its last day of operation. The space, launched by former club Electric Pickle, opened its doors in late 2019. ATV’s intimate atmosphere and four-point analog sound system made it a favourite among local and touring artists such as Danny Daze, Jubilee, Mike Servito, Moxie and countless others.
US | Manufacturers Struggle to Keep Pace With Vinyl Record Demand: Demand for record albums continues to soar in the United States, and the manufacturing base is having to reinvent itself to meet demand. The arrival of the compact disc nearly killed off record albums, with vinyl pressing machines sold, scrapped and dismantled by major record labels. Four decades later, with resuscitated record album sales producing double-digit annual growth, manufacturers are rapidly rebuilding an industry to keep pace with sales that reached $1 billion last year. Dozens of record-pressing factories have been built to try to meet demand in North America—and it’s still not enough. The industry “has found a new gear, and is accelerating at a new pace,” said Mark Michaels, CEO and chairman of United Record Pressing, the nation’s largest record producer, in Nashville, Tennessee.
Tewksbury, UK | Music tastes may vary, but vinyl is forever: Spinning favorite LP’s for hours on end with the volume up just a bit too loud has long been a pastime for many teenagers. Vinyl records have been around since the early 1900’s, offering professional sound quality to the average consumer. Those of us who grew up during the prime of the vinyl LP, from the 1950’s through the late 1980’s, remember spending endless hours at the local record store. Other than the radio, a teen’s record collection was the only access to popular music and worth the investment of an entire week’s allowance. That is not to say that the vinyl record did not go without competition from other music mediums. In the early 1960’s, cassette tapes made their way into the music listening industry. The cassette promised portability with the ease to rewind forwards or backwards. Unfortunately, cassettes also came with the problem of jamming in the cassette player, kinking or breaking the cassette tape, usually from overplay.
Rowsley, UK | ‘Irreplaceable’ vinyl records sold at Rowsley car boot by mistake: A woman has said she is “horrified” after a relative accidentally sold 16 of her sentimental vinyl records for less than £1 each at a car boot sale. Rohan Mellor said the albums she had inherited were being stored by a relative while she moved house. They were sold in Rowsley, Derbyshire, on Sunday, the day after she and her husband got back from their honeymoon. Mrs Mellor said they were first press albums from the early 1960s to late 1970s, and were “irreplaceable”. They included albums by The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, David Bowie, AC/DC, The Clash, and The Who. The 26-year-old said the relative storing them had recently had a bereavement and accidentally mixed her records up with items she was clearing out. The vinyl records had been collected by Mrs Mellor’s father and uncle, and after her uncle died a few years ago her father gave them to her and her sister. She said she was “utterly shocked and horrified” that they were gone.
Hereford, UK | Long-gone Hereford music shop provided hours of entertainment: A much-missed Hereford music shop has been remembered for the hours of entertainment it provided. George Clegg posted a photo of an old music shop in our Facebook group We Grew Up in Hereford. The black and white picture shows Buzz Music, which was opposite the Old Harp pub in Widemarsh street until it was demolished to make way for Garrick House and the multi-storey car park in 1990. In the mid to late 70s it was a popular shop selling an array of vinyl records, and many spent hours listening to music that was played in there aloud and on headphones. It later sold instruments including guitars, drums, keyboards, as well as public address sales and hire, and home and project studio recording gear. Some fans collected posters specially made for the shop, that read Buzz Music with different illustrations. Former employee Andy Thomas said Alan Kitchen was the director and ran the electronic instrument repairs, studio and public address, and system installation.
CZ | People have treasures at home. Old Records are expensive. Prices have been rising rapidly lately and Czechs are starting to save more and more. At the same time, they often do not know that they have treasures hidden at home for tens to hundreds of thousands of kronor. One such treasure are vinyl records, which have recently seen an incredible surge in popularity. For rare pieces, people are willing to give huge sums. Vinyl records experienced their greatest fame in the last century. However, gradually they were replaced by cassettes and CDs, and today we can easily play music from the Internet. In recent years, however, records have regained their importance, and contemporary musicians have also released their songs on records. It’s not just the new records that sell well, the decades-old pieces are also particularly valuable. The prices of some range from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of kroner. Rare pieces sell for millions. Vinyl records were very popular in the Czech Republic, and many Czechs still have dozens of tracks hidden at home, on which only dust falls.
50th anniversary vinyl reissue of Jethro Tull’s 1972 album ‘Thick as a Brick’ due out in July: A 50th anniversary vinyl reissue of Jethro Tull‘s classic 1972 concept album Thick as a Brick will be released on July 29. The reissue will offer a recreation of the original album’s unique packaging, which featured a 12-page broadsheet newspaper that included fake news articles, a crossword puzzle, a connect-the-dots puzzle and more. The half-speed-mastered LP, which features acclaimed prog-rock studio whiz Steven Wilson‘s 2012 mix of the album, can be preordered now. Thick as a Brick, which featured one long, continuous song, was released in March 1972 and became Jethro Tull’s first album to top the Billboard 200 chart, spending two weeks at #1 in June of that year. The concept behind Thick as a Brick is that the album’s lyrics came from an epic poem written by an 8-year-old boy named Gerald Bostock, a character created by frontman Ian Anderson.
