A glimpse into the elusive world of Europe’s record dealers: Record dealers play a crucial role in the movement of second hand music, and are often responsible for influencing the dance floor sounds of their respective cities. A direct line for DJs and collectors, they are the anonymous tastemakers behind musical trends, reissues scenes and resale price surges. Jack Needham meets three dealers, operating in London, Lisbon and Paris, to put faces to Discogs usernames, and understand a little more about what motivates the dealers, beyond the bottom line… Pry open the doors of most lockups or storage containers in any given city and you’ll most likely be greeted by a stack of innocuous items crammed into a tiny rectangle; dilapidated furniture that never found a buyer or moth eaten clothes that were never thrown away. But Dobshizzle’s lockup is slightly different.
Saint Petersburg, FL | Your guide to the 3 most popular spots in Saint Petersburg’s Methodist Town neighborhood: Visiting Methodist Town, or just looking to better appreciate what it has to offer? Get to know this Saint Petersburg neighborhood by browsing its most popular local businesses, from a hot dog shop to a record store. Hoodline crunched the numbers to find the top places to visit in Methodist Town, using both Yelp data and our own secret sauce to produce a ranked list of neighborhood businesses… Planet Retro, a spot to score vinyl records and more, is another top choice. Yelpers give the business, located at 226 Martin Luther King Jr St. North, 4.5 stars out of 22 reviews. Score a classic album or a rare gem at this spot, which caters to fans of hardcore, punk rock, doom and sludge. It also hosts live bands on weekends.
New Orleans, LA | Check out the 5 top spots in New Orleans’s Seventh Ward neighborhood: Spending time in Seventh Ward? Get to know this New Orleans neighborhood by browsing its most popular local businesses, from a brunch spot to a vintage record store. Hoodline crunched the numbers to find the top places to visit in Seventh Ward, using both Yelp data and our own secret sauce to produce a ranked list of neighborhood businesses… Domino Sound Record Shack, a spot to score vinyl records and more, is another much-loved neighborhood go-to, with five stars out of 46 Yelp reviews. Head over to 2557 Bayou Road to see for yourself. Take a trip back in time as Domino Sound Record Shack sells new and used vinyl records, cassettes, dominoes and stereo equipment. Up and down the aisles, you’ll find Reggae 45s and LPs, as well as punk, blues, jazz, hip hop and more.
Pop culture: After tragic music industry fire, source says Shelter Records catalog ‘probably’ safe: Here’s a bit of good news to share in regard to a music industry tragedy: The Shelter Records catalog is probably safe. Many music artists are worried they lost historical materials in a 2008 fire at a California facility used by Universal Music Group, the world’s largest record company, to store masters and other recordings. The public was largely unaware of the significance of the fire until New York Times Magazine published a June 11 story about what might have been lost in the blaze. Among the hundreds of artists whose materials could have been destroyed: Count Basie, Chuck Berry, Ernest Tubb, Jerry Lee Lewis, Neil Diamond and Loretta Lynn. The names of Oklahoma artists like Roy Clark, Leon Russell and Reba McEntire appeared on a list published in a New York Times follow-up story.
Best ‘gel’ type stylus cleaners: It’s a long established fact that regularly cleaning your stylus preserves the sound quality of your turntable set-up and extends the life of your vinyl. The following dip-and-done stylus cleaners are an excellent alternative to dry brushes and liquid cleaners. They work by gently lowering the needle into a gelatinous material and lifting it up again, while the dirt gets stuck in the gel and off the stylus. One thing to be careful about when using these types of cleaners is to make sure the movement of the stylus is vertical only, with no horizontal motion (like platter rotation), or you could snap off the cantilever while in contact with the gel. With automatic turntables, where you can’t prevent your platter from turning by lowering the tonearm, you simply raise the ‘gel’ toward the stylus then slowly lower after contact, while the arm is still in the rest. Here is our selection six stylus cleaners to dip your tip in.
