Londonderry, VT | Electric Mayhem expands on record store with coffee, gear, gifts: Electric Mayhem is a dream for coffee and music enthusiasts. At the end of April, the business opened by joining forces with In the Moment Records. The record shop had moved from Brattleboro to the Mountain Marketplace on Route 100 in Londonderry about three years ago, and the back room is home to Rusty Door Recording Studio and Sound. “We like to think of it as these businesses are roommates in the same space, cohesively working together,” Martha Jordan, co-owner of Electric Mayhem, said during a recent interview in the store. “Electric Mayhem is sort of the umbrella term.” Martha’s husband Joel Jordan and their friend John Pennington run the recording studio and sound business. Joel and Pennington started using space at In the Moment Records when their band needed a place to rehearse. Sujay Patel, co-owner of In the Moment Records, offered up a room in the back. Joel said he cleaned it out and painted it.
Fresno, CA | Local record store closes Fresno River Park location: Fresno’s Ragin Records has closed its store in River Park and will be combining that location and its Tower District store into a bigger store at a different location, the store posted on social media Monday. Ragin Records posted on social media, saying that both of its stores will be merged into one larger store. The franchise had a location at River Park and another in Tower District. According to their social media, the one in Tower District at 118 N. Fulton St., is still open and will continue to be open until the re-opening of their larger store, which will be located at Olive and Van Ness avenues. Ragin Records says that the larger store will allow them to have three times more records, small shows for free, a user-friendly layout and more. According to Ragin Records’ social media, the new store will open in November.
Louisville, KY | Electric Ladyland renovating after considering selling property on Bardstown Road: An eccentric shop on Bardstown Road is undergoing some changes after being in business for nearly 50 years. Electric Ladyland is a smoke shop, record and metaphysical supply store in the Highlands Douglass neighborhood. The shop put the property up for sale for a few months but didn’t plan to close. “If the property sold, we would have moved our business to another location in the Highlands,” Electric Ladyland posted on Facebook. “Throughout our 46 years of business, we have had several locations in the Highlands.” The store is being renovated. “We are changing some inventory and carefully trying to craft Ladyland to that style,” Electric Ladyland posted. “The property is no longer for sale and we are working on updates and some new exciting changes within the business.”
Seoul, KR | Seoul Record Fair Expands, Bridging Generations Through Vinyl: The 13th Seoul Record Fair, which opened on September 21 at the Oil Tank Culture Park in Mapo-gu, Seoul, has grown into a full-fledged festival, boasting its largest scale to date in terms of space utilization since its inception in 2011. This year’s event, adopting the slogan “The Biggest Record Store,” has transformed into a more comfortable and spacious affair, making use of both indoor exhibition and performance spaces as well as outdoor park areas. The change marks a significant improvement from previous years when the fair was held at various venues that often felt cramped when crowded. The expanded layout was evident from the entrance, where a large Seoul Record Fair advertising balloon greeted visitors. Inside, popular R&B singer-songwriter Zion.T held a well-organized signing event, while singer-songwriter Lang simultaneously hosted her own meet-and-greet indoors without overcrowding issues.
What happened to the Rokblok record player from Shark Tank Season 9? On December 3, 2017, the 13th episode of the ninth season of “Shark Tank” premiered on ABC, with 3,695,000 viewers watching live or later that night. The third of four pitches that week saw inventor Logan Riley pitching the panel of investors on Rokblok, his Bluetooth-enabled, turntable-less vinyl record player. Armed with numbers from a very successful Kickstarter campaign, he had all of the “sharks” impressed by the device itself. As a product, though, they seemed skeptical that, though there are turntables for all budgets, many people would want to buy a $99 record player of questionable quality that, to be heard at its best, required digitization via Bluetooth.
Should you upgrade your TV room to a listening room? Everything you need to know about the emerging trend: We all know what a TV room is, but could a listening room be a better fit for your home? A few decades ago listening rooms were all the rage, when listening to vinyl records or the radio was the norm. However, they are growing in popularity once again. Like a cinema room, you can set up a dedicated listening room in a spare room in your home, unfortunately not all of us have the space for that But, if you’ve found yourself turning to podcasts rather than Netflix lately the other option is to upgrade your exsisting TV room into a listening room, and let the trend inspire your living room ideas. What is a listening room While any room can technically be called a listening room—if it’s where you listen to your favourite vinyl records, tune into your favourite podcast, or even watch movies—a listening room is designed to maximise the listening experience.
Haarlem, NL | Claude Vanheye’s Exhibits His Favorite Record Covers at the Haarlem Vinyl Festival: The renowned Dutch photographer Claude Vanheye will celebrate his 60th anniversary in 2024-2025 with a series of different exhibitions. His first exhibition in this anniversary series ‘Every Picture Tells MY Story’ will take place during the second edition of the Haarlem Vinyl Festival from September 27 to 29 in Haarlem (Netherlands). Vanheye will exhibit his favorite record covers, for which, in addition to photography, he often also took care of the design. It is a modest choice from the many hundreds of LP, single and CD covers that he has designed since the 1960s. In addition to his record covers, a few photos from his international Rock Icons Collection are also exhibited in the equally iconic PHIL in Haarlem. Vanheye will also give his exclusive lecture ‘Every Picture Tells MY Story’ there on Saturday September 28, with the best stories about his work and talk about his photo shoots and relationships with iconic rock stars such as Mick Jagger, David Bowie, John Lennon, Frank Zappa, Chaka Khan, Kate Bush and Michael Jackson.
NZ | Revolutionary Māori hip-hop album reissued on vinyl: One of the most influential albums in Aotearoa’s history has been re-released—years after hard copies went out of production. The revolutionary Māori hip-hop album Kaupapa Driven Rhymes Uplifted has been so popular, people have been paying more than $320 for old CDs. The album has never before been released on vinyl until now – and it’s also now on streaming platforms for the first time. The fusion of tikanga Māori, te reo Māori and hip-hop lyricism changed the direction of New Zealand music, cementing Maori hip-hop as a highly acclaimed genre. The music’s themes focussed on being Māori, with the rapping incorporated te reo. The album cover featured a tokotoko (carved walking stick). The group’s founding members never expected the recordings to have such a lasting resonance but it has given them pride. “You know, ain’t sh*t changed but the political parties in power—and the fact that the album still rings today, still is relevant today—it’s astounding…”
Unpacking Vinyl’s Remarkable Revival: A Statistical Analysis. Vinyl hasn’t always served as an emblem of cultural authenticity; in fact, the introduction of the phonographic record was initially met with controversy. Live music advocates like composer John Phillip Sousa warned that phonographs would diminish the value of live performance and discourage people from learning instruments. He famously referred to recorded works as “canned music,” arguing that they lacked the personal connection of live performance. Similarly, the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) led strikes in the 1930s and 1940s to protest the growing use of recorded music in radio and public spaces. Today, these protestations read as quaint: can you imagine if John Philip Sousa lived to see Spotify or TikTok (or AI-generated music!)?
