Salina, KS | Bygone Record Store Still Echoes in Heart of Kansas: House Of Sight And Sound Was A Hippie Outpost On The High Plains. Every year, retailers face a dreaded task: inventory. At the House of Sight and Sound in Salina, though, this was a hallowed time. Loyal customers would flock to help count records, CDs and packages of incense. It wasn’t considered tedious work so much as an opportunity for hours of conversation, laughter and memories with owner Tom Headlee and his equally charismatic employees. This was the atmosphere Headlee cultivated in his store every day for the almost 40 years it was in business. The shop closed in 2011, but dedicated customers and former employees keep its memory alive. One loyal record buyer created a tribute song to the store. Someone else started a Facebook page in the store’s honor, where former customers still wax nostalgic about the hippie outpost on the High Plains, which some dubbed the “House of Song and Bong”…
New York, NY | This Under The Radar, Black-Owned Business Is NYC’s First-Ever Vinyl Record Craft Beer Bar: Where music and beer connoisseurs unite! Looking for a new weekend spot? Head to Prospect Heights for NYC’s first-ever vinyl record craft beer bar. Upon envisioning the bar’s creation, owner Chris Maestro had discovered that a similar concept had already existed in Japan called jazu kissa (jazz cafes), according to Blackownedbklyn. Maestro knew that this type of space was needed in NYC and went on to establish his very own shop in 2017—being the first vinyl record craft beer bar across the boroughs! The establishment has over 5,000 vinyls on-site ranging from hip-hop, funk, soul and jazz. On top of their wide music collection, the bar offers an extensive, yet carefully curated tap-list with a large portion of their beers sourced from local breweries found in North Fork, LI or in upstate New York.
Boise, ID | My Idaho: Record Exchange keeps spinning on: It’s all in the family at the Record Exchange in downtown Boise. The long-time owners have decided it’s time to retire, but not before working out a deal with four of their employees to keep the records spinning, so customers can continue making musical memories. Michael Bunnell says when it comes to the nostalgia of records, everyone fell in love with the romance of the ritual. “You take out the sleeve, you’ve got album notes to read, big artwork on the cover. If you’re going to the problem of putting vinyl on your focused on music, it’s not background noise.” So, it’s bittersweet for Bunnell and his business partner Jill Sevy that it’s time to hang up the records. Glen Newkirk, Catherine Merrick and two other new owners believe it’s good for them and Boise. “The alternative for us wasn’t something we wanted. We didn’t want somebody else who wasn’t from the community, who didn’t understand the culture of the store to take over. That was really our motivation. We want this to remain in the hands of people who love it.”
“It’s unmanageable”: How the vinyl industry reached breaking point: When Colin Morrison founded his independent record label Castles in space in 2015, it took three to four months to make a vinyl record. He placed an order at the press plant, the trial presses came back within a month, and once they were approved, he waited another 10-12 weeks for the production run to be completed and delivered. His artists were releasing their recordings according to the schedule they had planned, and Morrison, with prepaid production costs, quickly recouped his investment. “Since then, things have gotten worse as demand rises,” said Morrison, who now expects to wait almost a year for his vinyl records to be produced. In particular, over the past 18 months – since the start of the pandemic – “it just became unmanageable.” Even an influential artist like Taylor Swift had to wait months for the release of her vinyl: her album Forever was made available digitally on December 11, 2020; it was released on vinyl on May 28, 2021.
Johnson City, TN | The sounds of music: Vinyl Show returns to the Tri-Cities: The Vinyl Show Promotions returned to the Tri-Cities for its annual Vinyl Show. Record dealers came from across Tennessee and other states to sell CDs, records, cassette tapes and other music pieces. The music selections ranged from the early 40s to the present era. Genres such as classic rock, jazz and blues were featured. “It’s a good way to learn about new music that you might not have heard before,” said Greg Biggs, the owner of CVC Collectibles in Clarksville. “You see something and are like, ‘I meant to pick that up 10 years ago, 20 years ago; now I can get it.’ It’s a great place to come and have a good time and fill up the holes in that music collection at home.” Organizers plan to have an additional Vinyl Show on Nov. 21.
New Orleans, LA | Annette Smason, concert promoter and influential record store proprietor, dies at 89: Annette Smith Smason, who parlayed her lifelong love of music into careers as a concert promoter and the well-informed proprietor of Smith’s Record Center, died Sunday at Faith Presbyterian Hospice in Dallas. She was 89. Her son, Alan Smason, editor of Crescent City Jewish News, said she died of complications of a stroke and heart disease. A lifelong New Orleanian, she evacuated to Dallas after Hurricane Ida struck, he said. For more than four decades, music buffs knew that her record store, just down the block from the Pontchartrain Hotel, was the place to patronize, especially for hard-to-find opera and classical recordings, as well as Broadway cast recordings and the works of such local musicians as Al Hirt, Pete Fountain and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Presiding over this eclectic inventory was Smason, who possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of who performed what and when, and on which record label.
Burlington, VT | Dedalus to Create Vinyl Bar in Burlington: Jason Zuliani, owner of Dedalus Wine Shop, Market and Wine Bar, which has locations in Burlington, Middlebury and Stowe, is planning to open what he believes will be Burlington’s first vinyl bar in late winter or early spring 2022. “Vinyl” refers to old-school records that will be spun by a roster of top local DJs on a state-of-the-art sound system. The yet-to-be-named bar will occupy part of the space behind Dedalus’ Pine Street shop and wine bar that was occupied by Green State Gardener before it moved a half-mile south. “We’re taking inspiration from what is sort of a tradition in Japan of small listening rooms with neat cocktail lists,” Zuliani said, referring to intimate record bars for musicophiles that have become institutions in cities such as Tokyo. The new project also indulges one of Zuliani’s personal passions. “I’ve been a vinyl collector for a long time,” he said.
