Australia to get first modern vinyl pressing plant in 30 years: Program Records is set to open in Melbourne in 2018 and will come fully equipped with WarmTone presses, with makers Viryl Technologies claiming them to be the fastest pressing time in the world. The Canadian company says its fully automated machines can press a record in just 30 seconds. The factory will initially be offering 12-inch pressed at 140 and 180 grams and plan to offer 7-inch and 10-inch pressing in 2019. Custom colour options will also be available. Founder Steve Lynch says: “Program Records will focus on supporting the local music scene backed by a data driven and highly efficient production facility. Australia has a great music scene that deserves to have affordable, good quality vinyl made here on time.”
Electric Fetus’ Bob Fuchs on the vinyl revival: Start being sorry you gave away all your vinyl records (if you ever had any), or didn’t want your parents’ or grandparents’ collection, or don’t have a turntable. Vinyl is back. In fact, vinyl records are so popular that Sony, the biggest of the Big Three record labels, recently announced that it will start pressing them again, as soon as March 2018, in a new factory near Tokyo. The last time Sony made a vinyl record was 1989. Bob Fuchs knows more about the music business locally than anyone. The general manager of the Electric Fetus, a longtime Minnesota mainstay, he has seen it all firsthand in his 30 years there (he started in the record department in December 1987).
Yesterday & Today: Early DC punks shopped, worked at record store: Almost 40 years ago, the door opened to an unassuming record store in a strip shopping center in Rockville and became a rallying point for music fans and members of D.C.’s fledgling punk and alternative scenes. In September 1977, Skip Groff opened the Yesterday & Today record shop at 1327 Rockville Pike. “The rent was remarkably cheap for what I considered to be a prime location,” said Groff, sitting in his living room in Montgomery County. “When I started in 1977 it was $450 a month.” As the punk music scene began to percolate, Groff, who had served stints as a disc jockey at WINX and WAVA, and had worked in the record industry doing promotions for RCA, opened his independent store. This was the year that bands including The Ramones, Blondie, and Talking Heads released American singles, which Groff couldn’t sell.
The Smiths announce deluxe The Queen is Dead vinyl box set with unreleased recordings: The Smiths are releasing a deluxe version of their 1986 album The Queen is Dead on 20 October 2017. The vinyl set includes the first take of ‘There Is a Light That Never Goes Out’, along with demos and b-sides taken from their third studio album. The news comes over a month after the band teased a possible reissue of the album on social media. Hopefully this release will go more smoothly than their ‘The Queen is Dead’ single reissue earlier this year, which drew the ire of Morrissey after HMV implemented a ‘limited to one per customer’ policy.
Nightmares of an Erstwhile Record Store Manager: I have a recurring nightmare. It isn’t always the same, but it always involves a last-minute, present-day reopening of Hollywood Records and Tapes, the record store I managed decades ago. Until one day when it was abruptly shuttered by the building owners following a bank foreclosure. In my dream, I’m freaking out — rushing around, un-boxing 8-tracks, installing LP racks, and trying to remember how to fill out an Ennis form. Because customers are coming any minute now and we’ve been closed for 32 years! Ancient history. But memories of losing “my” music shop came flooding back when I heard that the Roosevelt Row home of Revolver Records is for sale. Wide awake, that news brought a flood of my own long-ago panic when one day my record store was no longer there.
