Portsmouth, UK | Why this Gosport High Street store is moving to Southsea next month: After more than 30 years in Gosport High Street, a record store is moving across the harbour to Portsmouth. Reflex Records will be moving to Palmerston Road, Southsea, in October, with the manager citing a ‘dying high street’ as the reason behind the move. Paul Potter, 56, who has managed the shop for just under 10 years, blamed online retailers such as Amazon for undercutting high street shops, causing damage to shops across the country. Mr Potter said: ‘The high street is dying. ‘The unspoken truth is that Amazon doesn’t pay tax and can afford to undercut the high street.
Nashville, TN | Grimey’s Moving To Transforming Trinity Lane: years, but with the possibility of their building being sold and their rent being significantly increased, owners Mike Grimes and Doyle Davis decided to find a new location for the legendary record shop. While the two looked all over Nashville, they settled on an old church building on Trinity Lane in East Nashville between Gallatin Road and Ellington Parkway. “When we walked in here, we were like, ‘Oh my God. This is it,'” Davis said of the new location. “It’s beautiful, it’s gorgeous. It’s a former church for us to build our temple of music.” The new location provides more space than Grimey’s and Grimey’s Too combined. It has significantly more parking for customers, a larger performance area for in-store performances (and an actual stage), and it still has the great vibe that people have come to expect from the record shop.
Raleigh, NC | Raleigh Beer Week means Bojangles’ and rare beers. Here are 5 can’t-miss events. An awful lot of great beer comes and goes at State of Beer, but some of it sticks around and hangs out for awhile. The folks at the bottle shop are reaching into their cellar and bringing up past vintages that have been taking some age and developing flavor. On Tuesday, Oct. 2, the chefs of Trophy Tap & Table and Trophy Brewing on Morgan will also have a grilled cheese throwdown, while mobile record store Record Krate sells vinyl at a pop-up record shop. The shop is at 401a Hillsborough St.
Bromsgrove, UK | Next Bromsgrove vinyl record and CD fair takes place this Sunday: The next vinyl record and CD fair returns to the Bromsgrove Hotel and Spa, Birmingham Road, this Sunday, September 30, between 10am and 4pm. It is a sell-out with traders coming all over the UK, meaning there will be more than 40 tables from chart classics to real obscurities and bargains from 50p a record. Visit www.midlandsrecordfairs.co.uk for more information. Ben Frizzell has also launched his own vinyl record stall on Bromsgrove Market which runs every Saturday throughout September. For more on that click here.
St Albans, UK | St Albans music shop features in new work by record-breaking vinyl lover: Graham Jones published his first work, Last Shop Standing: Whatever Happened to Record Shops?, in 2009 after visiting thousands of music stores around the country. He believes he should be in the Guinness World Records book for visiting so many record shops. Since his first work, which documented the decline of vinyl, the situation has taken an unexpected turn and record sales have started to thrive. His second novel, Strange Requests and Comic Tales from Record Shops, reminisces about the anecdotes he picked up in his role as co-founder of Proper Music Distribution. The newest work highlights all 220 shops in the UK which stock new-vinyl. It is called The Vinyl Revival and the Shops That Made it Happen. It features Empire Records on Heritage Close, which is described as an “impressive” site where you are encouraged to “sit, chill out and listen to some good music”.
