Historic Leeds building becomes bar and record shop: The building at 93 Kirkgate is now open as The Doghouse cafe and bar, with Paula’s Vinyl record shop above it. It comes after developers were given a £110,000 grant to support repair work at the city centre building, through the Kirkgate Townscape Heritage Initiative. The project has brought all three floors of the previously vacant building and its basement back into use. Jacob Kelly, who owns the building with business partner Stuart Dixon, said they had tried to keep its historical identity in tact where possible. He said: “We know that the street [Kirkgate] is known for being a really cool and independent street for industry. We have kept as much of the original building on show as possible.”
Record Shop Flashback Plans 20th Birthday Celebration: 20 years ago, Mark Burgess founded record shop Flashback Records at its original location of Essex Road in Islington, and the store still stands there today, alongside two further Flashback branches in Crouch End and Shoreditch. To celebrate the passing of two decades since Flashback first opened at Essex Road, the shop will host a birthday party at The Lexington on October 7. A number of Flashback staff members will be supplying music, while psychedelic band Dead Coasts will play live with support from Deathcount in Silicon Valley’s Andi Nixon and Lindsay Corstorphine of Cold Pumas and Sauna Youth, who will pair up for some live analogue synth experimentations.
Vinyl records help Flat, Black & Circular party on: EAST LANSING – The entrance is an archway made of 45s, but finding it isn’t always simple. Flat, Black & Circular is upstairs in the Campus Town Mall on Grand River Avenue in East Lansing, across from the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum. “A lot of people don’t know where we are, we’re hidden,” said owner Dave Bernath. “Every day I get a call asking ‘where are you, I’ve been up and down Grand River.'” But enough folks have found them to keep the independently-owned vinyl and CD store in business for 40 years. Flat, Black & Circular will celebrate its 40th anniversary with an all-day, pre-party celebration from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday in the store. Customers are invited to come help celebrate.
Record shop Vintage Trax joins in with BBC Radio 1 celebrations to mark the station being on air for 50 years: Redditch’s only dedicated record shop will be joining in with BBC Radio 1 celebrating 50 years of being on air. It will broadcast on DAB and iPlayer for three days from Saturday, September 30. Tony Blackburn, who was the first voice ever heard on the station, will team up with current breakfast show host Nick Grimshaw, to launch the project. Independent vinyl record shop Vintage Trax will be marking the special birthday with its own 60s themed event at its Birchfield Road, Headless Cross, shop between 10.30am and 5pm on Saturday.
BBC celebrity Jeremy Vine: ‘I’ve just found the best record shop in Britain’ – and it’s in Stoke-on-Trent: BBC celebrity Jeremy Vine has declared a Stoke-on-Trent music store as the ‘best record shop in Britain’. The Radio 2 DJ handed the unofficial title to Rubber Soul Records after visiting the Hanley store on Saturday. Jeremy was in the Potteries to watch Chelsea beat Stoke City in the Premier League. Owner Robert Barrs has recently moved his record shop from Stoke to Hanley. He is now planning to open Lemmy’s Bar – in tribute to Potteries-born rock legend Lemmy – within his Marsh Street shop. In a tweet to his 642,000 followers, Jeremy wrote: “I think I have just found the best record shop in Britain.”
Meet Your Merchant: Ron Quintana rides the wave of the vinyl revival: Ron’s Real Records has experienced a number of incarnations within various Nevada County storefronts over the decades, as Quintana seems always in search of enough space to showcase his massive personal collection of vinyl, boasting 150,000 records at last “guesstimate,” he said. Today, Ron’s Real Records on Mill Street in Grass Valley (only open 4 to 7 p.m., Friday through Monday), houses roughly 5,000 records from his eclectic collection, with another 10,000 at his rented space at nearby Booktown, a Bank Street cooperative of independent sellers of books, ephemera, CDs, DVDs, LP records and art. But he’s not ready to stop there — he’s looking for a larger space in downtown Nevada City.
The Doors Announce 50th Anniversary Edition of ‘Strange Days’: The Doors are marking the golden anniversary of their second album, Strange Days, with a 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition. And like the 50th-anniversary reissue of their debut album that came out earlier this year, the remastered Strange Days includes no bonus tracks or extras. Instead, the focus is on the original mono mix of the album, which has been unavailable to fans for years. The set will be available on Nov. 17…The 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition will include two discs — one with the album’s original stereo mix, the other with the original mono — as well as a vinyl LP featuring the original mono mix. It will also be available as a two-CD set, as vinyl only and as a digital download.
