Quebec City, CA | Trio of music lovers bringing vinyl back to Quebec City: The Leisure Society will be a one-of-a-kind record store/coffee shop/vinyl pressing plant. Three Quebec City music lovers have concocted their dream project: a coffee shop-meets-record store combined with a state-of-the-art vinyl pressing plant. When it opens in the Saint-Roch neighbourhood this coming fall, The Leisure Society will be a space to slow down, put on a good record, and enjoy a cup of coffee. Not only that, it will be the province’s first vinyl pressing plant since the last one closed in 2015. Demand for vinyl records from consumers continues to grow across the country, while artists and music labels increasingly return to physical music platforms. Jean-François Bilodeau, Audrey Lapointe and Olivier Bresse have been working on the project for the past two years. The three met through a shared love of good coffee and great music while working in different roles in the restaurant world…”Jean-François is crazy about playlists,” said Bresse, with a laugh…”We just realized that we buy vinyls, but we all bought mostly online,” Bresse said. [Of course you know by now that the plural of vinyl is vinyl. —Ed.]
Oakland, CA | Oakland’s Park Blvd Records to close in June: Park Blvd Records, the only specialty rap and hip-hop store in Oakland, known for its rare and eclectic selection of cassettes and vinyl, will close its storefront at 2014 Park Blvd. on June 16. The company announced the move on Instagram and Twitter on Thursday, May 30: “So much has changed in the four short years since we opened — in rap music and in record collecting, in The Town and in the world — that our already stubborn mission of running a highly specialized neighborhood music store has started to feel like a full on fool’s errand.” The store’s owner, Andrew Nosnitsky — who goes by Noz — told The Chronicle on Thursday that the shop had not been working on a number of levels, and that the decision to close the physical space had been a long time coming. “I’m shocked that we’ve been able to do it for four years,” Nosnitsky said. “Every step of the way, it seems like it’s been such a struggle. It’s just been a lot. The shop has always been a labor of love.”
Los Angeles, CA | Record resurgence: Vinyl records offer nostalgia, new experience: If you find yourself sorting through albums of various music genres as the faded sound of classic rock music plays in the background, you may be at a record shop. While the phonograph, the first version of the vinyl record, was invented in 1877, the style of music listening is making a comeback, as explained by the owner of the Record Surplus store, Neil Canter. “Back in the ’70s and ’80s and into the ’90s, there were so many record stores, and then they all started going out of business in the 2000s,” Canter said. “Now there’s so many record stores again, so obviously there’s a demand, enough demand to have that many stores.” Canter explained why there has been a resurgence of vinyl records and record stores in 2019. “It’s a gathering place for people who want to look for, maybe, music that… they don’t know about. We have a lot of people who come in here and… they’ll say ‘I came in looking for one thing, I didn’t find it, but I found all of these instead,’” Canter said. “You [are able to] come in and discover things that you wouldn’t [by] going online.”
The most expensive vinyl records ever sold on Discogs: In what was originally created as a hobby project in 2000 by Kevin Lewandowski, Discogs has now grown to become a definitive resource for Vinyl and CD recordings across the market. The site, whose mission has now changed to become “the biggest and most comprehensive music database and marketplace,” aims to bring together music fanatics of all genres through the knowledge of the art form. The database itself already celebrates contributions from more than 463,000 people, a catalog of more than 11,200,000 recordings taken from in excess of 6,300,000 artists. Understanding the strength of his platform, Lewandowski introduced the ‘marketplace’ in a bid to bring sellers of music together in one place. With more than 23 million items available and thousands of sellers, Discogs has become your favourite indie vinyl record shop taken to astronomical lengths. Over the years of growth, major sellers have taken their rare vinyl records to Discogs in a bid to garner the largest audience. This move, coupled with the somewhat rebirth of vinyl records in recent years, has amounted to major deals being brokered via the market.
Disco icon Patrice Rushen’s Elektra / Asylum recordings collected on new 3xLP release: A retrospective of soul, jazz and boogie from 1978 to 1984. Legendary vocalist Patrice Rushen’s recordings for the Elektra / Asylum label are being collected in a new 3xLP compilation via Strut Records this July. Remind Me: The Classic Elektra Recordings 1978-1984 collects all of Rushen’s chart singles, 12” versions and well-worn sample sources in one place, alongside an exclusive interview with Patrice Rushen herself and a selection of rare photos. Joinging the Elektra roster in 1978 as part of their pop / jazz division alongside the likes of Donald Byrd and Grover Washington, Jr., Rushen found ehrself given the freedom to make what she calls “sophisticated dance music.” As she continues: “L.A. musicians were not so locked into tradition. None of us were accustomed to limitation and the record label left us to take our own direction.” An artist whose work is often overshadowed by contemporary disco legends, Rushen’s sound added a jazz element to the dance floor, particularly on timeless tracks like ‘Music Of The Earth’, which opens the collection.
Megadeth Expanding More Albums For Reissues: Megadeth will continue their ongoing reissue series this summer with a trio of albums from the mid-2000s. The band’s 2007 record, “United Abominations”, 2009’s “Endgame” and 2011’s “Thirteen”, will each include bonus material when they are released on July 26. The thrash outfit’s eleventh set, “United Abominations”, marked their first appearance in the US Top 10 in 13 thirteen years when it debuted at No. 8 on the Billboard 200. The remastered reissue will includes the rare bonus track – a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Out On The Tiles” – while also seeing its return on vinyl for the first time in over 12 years and again on CD for the first time in 3 years. Introduced by the lead single, “Head Crusher”, 2009’s “Endgame” was co-produced by Dave Mustaine and Andy Sneap – currently a touring guitarist with Judas Priest – and went on to reach No. 9 on the US charts. The 2019 reissue will includes the bonus track, “Washington Is Next! (Live)” on the CD version, while seeing its first appearance on vinyl in more than decade. PHOTO: TRAVIS SHINN
Apple Is Finally Killing iTunes: Farewell to a clunky but world-shattering icon. It’s the end of a music era. Nearly two decades after launching iTunes and ripping up the retail-store model of album purchases, Apple is ready to retire the iconic product, according to Bloomberg. During the software keynote at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose, California next Monday, the tech giant is set the replace iTunes with standalone music, television and podcast apps. The move, which has been rumored for years now, will align Apple’s media strategy across the board: iPhones and iPads already offer separate Music, TV and Podcast apps in lieu of the centralized iTunes app that lives on Macs and Macbooks. Users can expect the new Music app to offer some of the same functionalities that iTunes currently does — such as purchasing songs and syncing phones — just with a sleeker interface that’s free of the outdated and oft-bemoaned features of the heritage product.
