Bridport, UK | Bridport Music to close after 40 years (unless a buyer comes forward): A much-loved record store at the heart of a town has come to the end of a ‘long and winding road’ after more than four decades. Steph and Piers Garner, who run Bridport Music, say they’ve put their ‘heart and soul’ into running the business but are ready to move on to the next phase of their lives. The couple said: “We have come to the end of the long and winding road called Bridport Music. We have been trying to sell the business for a couple of years. We always said ‘don’t worry, we won’t disappear until we find a buyer.’ As it turns out, we were wrong. After two years of trying, we have failed to interest anyone with the desire and the means to take over the reins of Bridport Music. We’ve been close on a couple of occasions but not close enough, and we have decided that now is the time for us to move on to the next phase of our lives. “We’ve put our heart and souls in to the shop but as we’re now in our 40th year here, we have no more to give.”
Hollywood, CA | Critics sue to stop Hollywood project that would displace Amoeba Music: Weeks after Los Angeles officials gave the green light for a new development on the Hollywood site now occupied by Amoeba Music, critics are suing the city to stop it, arguing that it would tear down a “cultural resource” that deserves protection. AIDS Healthcare Foundation and the Coalition to Preserve L.A., a group funded by the foundation that is critical of how the city handles planning and development, are also pushing the city to enshrine the distinctive murals and neon art at the Sunset Boulevard site as part of a historic monument. Doing so would make it harder to tear down the building, which boasts a Space Age neon turret, an old-fashioned marquee, and murals inside and outside the structure. L.A. “is giving short shrift to the historic significance of Amoeba by completely ignoring the rich and lengthy cultural history associated with this iconic corner of Hollywood,” AIDS Healthcare Foundation President Michael Weinstein said in a statement Wednesday.
North Yorkshire, UK | Vinyl archive that speaks volumes about its collector up for auction: Vinyl records spanning the 1960s to the 2000s could make thousands at an auction. They are just part of a Lancaster man’s collection of over 5,000 CDs and records which filled a terrace house he shared with his mum in the city. Bob Beckett was passionate about music and an avid collector who would despatch his sister out each week with a list of records to track down, says valuer Simon Norfolk. Mr Norfolk has the job of cataloguing the collection for 1818 Auctioneers, on behalf of Bob’s family. He estimates the collection is large enough to fill a 75 square feet container and it is being sold through a number of 1818 Auctioneers music sales this year and next. “Bob was collecting right up until last year, when he sadly passed away,” explained Simon Norfolk. …“Bob has left an incredible archive, I haven’t seen anything like it before. There’s a lot of Punk, New Wave and Indie, much of it influenced by John Peel, so expect to see bands like the Fall, Captain Beefheart, P. J Harvey and Half Man Half Biscuit. There are also other genres including Roots and Dub Reggae.
The pieces are in place for a new Rush jigsaw collection: Four classic Rush album covers have been transformed into 500-piece jigsaws – and they’ll be out later this year. Hot on the heels of a series of jigsaws featuring Metallica album covers comes news that Rush are the next band to be put on a puzzle. Zee Productions imprint Rock Saws will launch four 500-piece jigsaws in September featuring the covers of Fly By Night, A Farewell To Kings, Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures. Each puzzle will be presented in a vinyl box set size, which the company say is “perfect to fit alongside your vinyl collection.” Rock Saws have previously released jigsaws based around Iron Maiden, Motorhead, Judas Priest and Slayer. All four sets are now available to pre-order.
UK | Cassette sales in the UK at the highest level for over a decade: Cassette tapes are enjoying a likely resurgence in the UK, after rising to their highest sales levels in more than a decade. Despite being technologically outdated, a BPI (British Phonographic Industry) report reveals that nearly 35,000 tapes were sold in the UK for the first half of 2019. In contrast, some 18,000 tapes had been sold by the same point in 2018. When it came to artists proving successful on tape, Billie Eilish has secured the top spot – selling 4,000 copies of her debut album When We Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? It was followed by Catfish and The Bottlemen’s The Balance at 2 on 3,000 cassette sales, with Madonna’s Madame X at no.3, Lewis Capaldi’s Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent at four and Hozier’s Wasteland Baby completing the top five. Last year’s bestseller was The 1975’s A Brief Enquiry Into Online Relationships which sold 7,523 copies, most of which came in the first week of release. While it appears that an apparent resurgence is on the cards, Wired suggests the possibility of cassettes being treated as “merch that just so happens to store and play music.”
