San Francisco, CA | Vintage Vinyl Shop Cantina Records Opens in North Beach: A self-described “old hip-hop head,” John Bruce, owner of recently opened Cantina Records in North Beach, got bitten by the vinyl-collecting bug back in the nineties. The more he listened to hip-hop, the more he wondered where all the samples his favorite artists incorporated in their music came from. “I’d hear a hip-hop song, then maybe later listen to a James Brown record and realize ‘oh, that’s where they got it,’ and a lightbulb started to go off,” he explains. “A lot of my interest in collecting started with that.” His passion for vinyl accelerated when he moved back to San Francisco from Seattle, where he went to college, in 2001. At the time, he worked at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. So it was easy to run down to Telegraph Avenue to Amoeba or Rasputin Music to hunt for more used albums to add to his growing treasure trove.
Portland, OR | Jackpot Records 25th Anniversary Party set for September 2: One theory about the concept of time is that the past and present both exist, and the future as yet does not. It seems an apt description for the state of the record store. Beloved, but easily taken for granted, in an industry that pushes against itself as much as it values it. So for Jackpot Records to remain a fiercely independent business after twenty-five years is a monumental achievement in any era and a grand reason to celebrate. The store was started by Portland native Isaac Slusarenko, who blasted his ears out at the long-defunct, but beloved Djangos Records while in college. There was no other choice and obsession for Slusarenko than opening his own store, and he found a neighborhood that would support his unique vision. It’s still such a treat that the original store still lives on the beloved Hawthorne Blvd after all these years.
Floyd, VA | When everyone is streaming music, how can a record store survive? Bluegrass outlet County Sales, celebrating 50 years in Floyd, shifts to nonprofit. The green room is where musicians ranging from headliners to local pickers have tuned their banjos, fiddles, mandolins, guitars and basses before taking the stage at the Floyd Country Store. On a recent weekday, store co-owner Dylan Locke sat in the green room talking about changes in the music business. While audiences will still pay to hear their favorite acts live, it’s a different story when it comes to the recordings that songwriters, musicians and engineers work so hard to create. “Nobody buys music anymore,” said Locke, who’s a musician himself as well as a businessman. “This is a world where consumers get their music for free. We live in a world where a plumber gets paid, a mechanic gets paid, but a musician and a songwriter does not.”
Phoenix, AZ | Stinkweeds is expanding its iconic Phoenix record store. Here’s what’s new for customers: It’s been 18 years since Kimber Lanning moved Stinkweeds, her independent record store, into its current location on Camelback Road just west of Central Avenue in Phoenix, a much smaller space than its previous home in a Tempe strip mall at Apache Boulevard and Dorsey Lane. “That store was 1,800 square feet,” Lanning says. “And this store is just shy of 1,000. So it’s a tight fit. And it’s always been a tight fit. But I think that we’ve done a great job of thoughtfully designing a store that fits a lot of merchandise in for a store its size.” Now Stinkweeds is expanding. It’s enclosing a courtyard to add 300 square feet of space for customers and merchandise, with an additional 300 square feet of office space above that. Lanning, who’s also the founder and CEO of Local First Arizona, a nonprofit focused on strengthening local businesses, opened her first Stinkweeds in an unassuming Mesa strip mall at Dobson and Guadalupe roads next to a Little Caesars Pizza. That was 1987. She was 19.
Baltimore, MD | Baltimore Vinyl Roadshow: Baltimore Jazz Conference, April 22, 2023. …During this session-turned-conversation, we learned about two worlds of record collecting: high-end vinyl, and record store vinyl. Wagoner and Manning elaborated on the art of jazz vinyl collecting. Jazz vinyl collecting is very popular in England and Asia; “Jazz is popular internationally, and there is a market for it,” says Wagoner. Blue Note Record Label vinyls are one of the most popular and valuable jazz vinyls to collect, especially those produced before 1966. One vinyl can be worth $5,000 to $10,000 because so few of them were made. Many jazz vinyls are rare because at the time, you had to be “hip” to know the jazz artists releasing records at the time. For example, John Coltrane was not popular in the early 1950s, as he was just beginning to play with Miles Davis and was not as well known as he would soon be in the early 1960s.
Montreal, CA | Neighbourhood Watch: Low-key Beaubien St. E. captures Mile End’s old vibe: “I call it Mile East,” says one business owner. “You could just tell that things were coming toward here. You could just tell it was going upward and not downward.” The strip of Beaubien St. E. from St-Laurent Blvd. to St-Denis St. is booming, but in a cool, low-key way that’s much more organic than other buzzy Montreal streets that get written up in the international media. “It’s been transformed, but not in an obscene way,” said David Ferguson, who has run restaurants on Beaubien for a couple of decades. “You don’t get the feeling that the people who were here before are no longer welcome,” said Ferguson, chef-owner of Restaurant Gus, an intimate steakhouse on Beaubien just east of the Main. “The thing about Beaubien is that we’re in this odd location in the geography of the city. Technically we’re not in Little Italy, so there’s not a mindset about what the area is. And we’re not Mile End, so there’s not that mindset. I think because of that, it has attracted businesses that are not trying to fit into a neighbourhood. They can just be their business, and that has made the businesses feel more individual.”
Minneapolis, MN | Vinyl records are back and ‘here to stay’: Pop-up record show draws nostalgics, new fans alike: The Minneapolis Record Show began with two Minnesotans’ passion for collecting music, and about a decade ago, co-promoters Richard Franson and Tim Schloe decided it was time to bring vinyl records back. “I think vinyl is here to stay, definitely for a long period of time,” Franson said at a Saturday pop-up Minneapolis Record Show, which was at the Midtown Global Market for the first time. “I’m in stores from here to Omaha, Nebraska and my vinyl is selling. And I can only tell you what I’m seeing and it’s flourishing. People are buying vinyl,” Franson said. The duo puts together a group of vinyl dealers for each show “to keep vinyl alive,” Franson told 5 Eyewitness News. Aside from the usually popular classic rock, jazz and blues tracks, the Midtown Global Market venue inspired “more of an international flavor,” he added. The Minneapolis Record Show began with two Minnesotans’ passion for collecting music, and about a decade ago, co-promoters Richard Franson and Tim Schloe decided it was time to bring vinyl records back.
Carthage, MO | Four states record show hosted in Carthage Missouri: The Four States Record Show took place at Carthage Memorial Hall today. The record show is a chance for vinyl lovers across the four states to meet new people and find that rare edition for your collection. The vinyl’s you can find can be from the sixties all the way up to modern day. According to Daniel Olsbo the co-host of the event. It’s the perfect way for music lovers to get together and share their experiences. The Record show happens twice a year and will be coming back in Spring of 2024.
