Kelowna, BC | For Kelowna record seller, it’s time to face the music: Vinyl’s on the upswing, but the proverbial series of unfortunate events means Milkcrate Records will be closing forever at the end of the month. “We’re being forced out by our landlord (at 527 Lawrence Ave.),” said Milkcrate owner Richard Rafton. “And then, we signed a deal for a location in the North End for October, November and December to get us through the busy and important Christmas season, but the landlord there reneged. Plan C was a location on Pandosy, but that fell through too.” With only 13 days left in the month and all options exhausted, Rafton has no choice but to reluctantly shutter the business. “My wife and I are both turned 65 this year and she was going to retire,” said Rafton. “Instead, she’s going to have to continue working. And I’m going to have to sell off all the inventory because we’re deeply in debt and find another job, probably something in commercial construction, which is what I did before.”
New York, NY | Bushwick’s Daptone Records Will Host a Stoop Sale Friday With Free Beer: Vinyl collectors, fans of soulful Daptone Records, and beer-drinkers will have a field day at this Friday’s Daptone Super Soul Stoop Sale. The record label is credited with the soul and funk revival of the last decade and a half. One of the label’s first major successes was recording the backing music to Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black” as the Dap-Kings. You may also remember the Dap-Kings as Sharon Jones’s permanent backing band, recording seven full-length albums with her before Jones’ untimely death in November of last year. The recording studio is nestled into an unassuming converted house at 115 Troutman St., making it possibly the most unlikely hub for world-class soul and funk out there. This Friday, June 30 between 4 and 8 p.m. come down to the studio for $10 LPs, a 5 for $20 deal on Daptone 45s, and a deal on a limited Sharon Jones Record Store Day recording. Plus, there will be free beer courtesy of local Braven Brewing to sweeten the deal.
Bury, UK | Record store launches blue and white milkshakes to help fundraise and save Bury FC: A record store is “shaking things up” to help save Bury FC. Wax and Beans vinyl and coffee shop has added a new limited edition blue and white milkshake to its menu to show its support for the town’s football side and raise vital funds. All profits made by the shakes over the next week will be donated to the club by the shop. Owners Ben Soothill and Louise Jackson came up with the concept together with a customer who is a huge Shakers fan, and thought it would be a great idea for businesses to get behind efforts to save the club. Mr Soothill said: “We’re delighted as a business that is very close to Gigg Lane to be able to contribute in some positive way to help highlight the fight to save the club. “We have conversations every day with customers that are really hurting about the current situation and we need as a community to join together in support to fight this.”
Anthony Bourdain’s Chef’s Knife, Records & Other Belongings to Be Auctioned: Over 200 items will be on the block this October. Nearly 200 items personally accrued by the late Anthony Bourdain will go to auction next month including a custom chef’s knife, some of his personal record collection, apparel, art, and more. The auction—set for October 9 through October 30—is broken into categories the reflect Bourdain’s varied interests in film, music, art, travel, and cooking. Among items up for auction, via online auction house iGavel, are a custom Bob Kramer steel and meteorite chef’s knife, a U.S. Navy bomber jacket Bourdain received while “leaving Beirut in a hurry in the midst of the Israeli-Lebanese conflict in 2006,” and a small record case with vinyl records from Bourdain’s collection including The Kinks and The Velvet Underground… Per the official auction page, 40 percent of the proceeds will benefit the Anthony Bourdain Legacy Scholarship at The Culinary Institute of America (his alma mater) with remaining proceeds benefiting Anthony Bourdain’s personal estate.
UK | National Album Day announce vinyl auction to raise funds for the Brit Trust: Collectable LPs by artists like David Bowie, Dusty Springfield, Ed Sheeran, Arctic Monkeys, Oasis and Manic Street Preachers will be included in the ‘white label’ vinyl auction. National Album Day is set to take place on 12 October and the auction will form part of the week-long build up to the celebrations. The ‘white label’ auction will take place on 5 October at 11am and will feature around 300 white-label test pressings. The event will be hosted live onsite/online for UK and international collectors by music memorabilia and vinyl records specialist Omega Auctions from their base in Newton-Le-Willows, Merseyside. The auction will also be supported by Record Collector magazine with a wide range of British music being represented. The records include early sixties and seventies recordings from David Bowie (Decca), The Who (My Generation), Eric Clapton (Slowhand), Dusty Springfield (Dusty Memphis) and The Specials (The Specials, signed).
Do you have this $354,000 vinyl record in your garage? Music is bought and sold digitally these days but there was once a time when Australians carried around massive, delicate discs home for their aural pleasure. And as original vinyl records become more scarce as the years pass, their rarity is pushing up their value to incredible levels. Now life insurance firm Noble Oak has revealed one particular record can now fetch an amazing $354,000 on the market. If you have That’ll Be The Day by UK band The Quarrymen in your attic, congratulations – you have a very valuable asset. Unfortunately, you probably don’t have it. There is only one copy of the 1958 disc in the entire world. “The Quarrymen – then including members Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and George Harrison – shared the record for a while, with McCartney finally buying it from Duff Lowe in 1981,” stated the report.
MeTV FM Presents the First K-TEL and Ronco Weekend: Beginning at 7:00 p.m. on Fri., September 20, and running through midnight on Sun., September 22, MeTV FM presents its first-ever “K-Tel and Ronco Weekend,” a salute to the eclectic music collections issued by these record compilation companies in the ‘70s and early ‘80s. Long before Time Life Music and Now That’s What I Call Music, the collections issued by K-Tel and Ronco on vinyl represented the easiest way for pop music enthusiasts to add a boatload of new songs to their collection at an affordable price. From the middle 1960s through the early 1980s, K-Tel and Ronco released one to two albums every year. Each record featured 20-24 songs with a list price of $2.99 to $4.99 for the album. To the budget-conscious music fan, this represented a significant cost savings over purchasing each song individually as a 45-rpm single.
