Toledo, OH | Glass City Record Show returns to Toledo: The Glass City Record Show is back in Toledo after the pandemic shut it down last year. This is the 39th year of the show which started in 1982 at the Holiday Inn in Perrysburg, and after a few years moved to the Knights of Columbus Hall in Toledo, and has been here ever since. For $1 admission, the public is welcome to come and sift through thousands of music products. “Vinyl’s, .45’s, CD’s, DVD’s, cassette’s, stereo equipment, anything music related,” said Rebecca Locke-Gagnon, co-runner of the show. There are over two dozen dealers with nearly 50 tables of content. The dealers range from all over the area including Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania and even Colorado. Some of them have even been with the show since the very first one, like Jack Taylor. “I’m a dealer, yeah, I’m a collector first, and these become duplicates at some point, and then I share them with the rest of Toledo,” said Taylor.
York, UK | Oxfam to host pop-up music stall at Shambles Market: Fans of vinyl records and CDs are in for a treat when a music stall opens at York’s Shambles Market for one day only. Oxfam’s Goodramgate store will be setting up its first ever pop-up music stall at Shambles Market on Friday, September 10. On sale will be a wide range of cds and vinyl records. Sandy Morey, manager of Oxfam in Goodramgate, said: “There will be all kinds for sale – classical, popular, folk, jazz, blues, punk, metal and lots more. “There will also be a selection of sheet music and we even have a number of vintage ‘78rpm discs too!” She added: “The public have been very generous in making huge donations to us so we are eager to turn these records, cds and the sheet music into funds to help Oxfam’s work in developing countries.” She said she hoped people would support Oxfam’s first market music stall, adding: “Everything will be available at great prices, for great causes.”
UK | Vinyl records are bad for the environment – it’s time for that to change: In light of the recent IPCC climate report, it’s high time the music industry reconsiders its approach. Now, a label has figured out how to produce 100 percent recyclable records. In the UK alone, vinyl record sales have been growing exponentially for the last 12 consecutive years and in 2020 alone, 4.3 million vinyl sales were made. While that’s great news for old school music nerds and Billie Eilish – who, according to Pitchfork, had the second-biggest vinyl sales week since 1991 with her new album Happier Than Ever – it turns out the medium is actually pretty bad for the environment. On the surface, the vinyl boom might seem like a slower and more conscious way of consuming and acquiring music, but in fact, its production methods are outrageously outdated: the PVC used to make records can take up to 1,000 years to decompose, while pressing machines powered by steam boilers require fossil fuels to generate the heat and pressure to operate. When it comes to packaging and production, things don’t look better.
UK | London label announces world’s first 100% recyclable vinyl record: Collaborating with a new manufacturer in Holland they’ve worked together to develop a process that uses 60% less energy cost compared to traditional vinyl manufacturing processes. Needs, a London based not for profit record label, have teamed up with Green Vinyl Records in Holland to produce a 100% recyclable record. Vinyl has often been debated for it’s negative and detrimental impact on the environment due to high energy usage manufacturing procedures and waste. Green Vinyl’s new method of production uses 60% less energy cost compared to traditional vinyl manufacturing processes. “…Over the years vinyl has been a difficult subject for us. There was even a point where we seriously thought about becoming a digital only label. But after a period of intense research we came across Green Vinyl and found a solution to do what we love and in a way which is ethical, progressive and pushes the format forward. Hopefully through this release we can raise awareness about this revolutionary new technology and inspire others to think about the way they produce vinyl.”
Hamilton, ON | How did we get from vinyl to streaming? Owner of iconic Hamilton record store looks back: The owner of 30-year-old Dr. Disc has lived through big changes in Hamilton’s music scene. Record store owner Mark Furukawa has lived through it all: the rise of digital streaming, the near-end of CDs, the resurgence of vinyl, and now a pandemic that stopped live music for almost two years. In that time, he’s seen demographic changes in Hamilton that have changed the music scene as well. He says it’s gone from a largely blues and rock music scene to a more eclectic and electronic scene that fuses genres together — both because of changing demographics and the globalizing influence of the Internet. “When I got here, 30 years ago, it was very working class, the steel companies were the big thing. And it was more blue collar than anything else here,” he said. “The demographic is shifting quite a bit now to a younger, more affluent population. And when you get that, our tastes for arts, culture, food — they change in lockstep.” This month marks the 30th anniversary of his store, Dr. Disc, located at 20 Wilson Street in the city’s Beasley neighbourhood. When the store first opened in 1991, music stores were booming and Furukawa says there were six other stores within a mile of Dr. Disc.
Los Angeles, CA | How Big Vinyl Sales Helped Billie Eilish’s New Album Hit No. 1: It’s no surprise that Billie Eilish’s second album, Happier Than Ever, debuted atop the Billboard 200 albums chart. But what is astonishing is how extraordinary her physical sales were—particularly vinyl records. The seven-time Grammy winner’s sophomore album sold 73,000 vinyl LPs, making it the second-highest weekly vinyl haul since at least 1991, the New York Times reports. (SoundScan—the predecessor to MRC Data, which is Billboard’s tracking arm—first began keeping track of data on music sales in ’91.) Only Taylor Swift, who sold 102,000 vinyl copies of her LP release Evermore after months of preorders, had more. Released in an array of boxed sets and retail-exclusive variants, Happier Than Ever made 54 percent of its total sales in the United States on physical formats including the historic LP sales, 46,000 CDs, and nearly 10,000 cassette tapes. According to the Times, Happier Than Ever achieved the equivalent of 238,000 sales in the U.S. in total.
This scented candle smells like a record shop: Eau de… vinyl? A new candle scented like a record store has been released by DW Home. More specifically, the candle smells of “the familiar scent of pressed vinyl and warm woods, accented by notes of sweet blossoms, hints of amber, and soft fruit. According to reviews, it appears to have accurately captured the scent of record shops, with one individual noting it “brings back a flood of memories.” Alternatively, for those who wish to experience the record shop scent in person along with a host of other senses, check out our favourite record stores from across the globe here.
