Zia Record Exchange prepares to move its west-side Vegas location: For the past decade, Las Vegas’ two Zia Record Exchange locations have been colloquially known as “Eastern” and “Sahara,” for the streets on which they are situated. By summer’s end, customers will need to get used to referring to them as “Eastern” and “Rainbow.” The Arizona-based chain’s west-side Vegas store, housed at 4503 W. Sahara Ave. since opening in June 2008, has secured a larger space at 1216 S. Rainbow Blvd., just south of Charleston Boulevard. The City of Las Vegas recently approved the move, along with a secondhand dealer permit for the new spot, and store manager Karl Hartwig expects the Rainbow Zia to be fully operational by the end of July.
Record store puts new spin on old sound: Traditional music format vinyl records are enjoying a resurgence in Albany at Paperbark Merchants. Since December the store has been selling the albums of more than 300 artists and a range of turntables as Woof Dog Records. Hamish Cameron from Paperbark Merchants said vinyl has no equal in terms of quality sound. “Woof Dog Records had been a thought bubble for quite a few years now, driven simply by the lack of a record store in Albany and my preference for purchasing music in the best format,” he said. “The Great Southern has a deep appreciation for music with many talented artists and I feel there was a void that needed to be filled.”
Lance’s Journal: Return to Records, Feb. 26, 2018: People first started listening to music on records way back in the 1890’s. The first flat, circular records were made of glass, then zinc, and then hard rubber. It was in the 1950’s, that manufactures started using polyvinyl chloride…otherwise known as vinyl to make records. And buying vinyl records was the thing to do throughout most of the 60’s, 70’s & 80’s…until tapes, CD’s & digital downloads replaced records. But don’t look now, but vintage vinyl is making a comeback. Doug Frank was in high school when he got his first taste of the music business while working at Budget Tapes and Records in Scottsbluff, “I’d go in there and hang out for hours and just talk to the owners who were nice people and very knowledgeable about music.”
Put the Needle on the Record: Where to shop for vinyl around Intown: If you thought vinyl records were musty and dusty old relics from your parents’ or grandparents’ generation, think again. Billboard magazine reports that nearly 15 million vinyl albums were sold in the U.S. alone during 2017. In the United Kingdom, vinyl is now outselling digital music downloads. Vinyl virtually disappeared in the 1990s as new albums were released on CD. In the last decade, vinyl has made a huge comeback as music fans discover the richer sound, the large sleeve artwork and the satisfying crackle and pop as a turntable needle drops on the record. Most new albums by major acts now get a vinyl release along with the CD and push to streaming services.
The Record Loft reopens in Berlin: Berlin vinyl store The Record Loft has reopened. The new shopfront is on Sonnenallee in Neukölln, a neighbourhood in the city’s southeast. (It sits just a few metres from popular club Griessmuehle.) Founded in 2013 with a focus on used vinyl, The Record Loft was one of Berlin’s best-loved stores until its rental contract was terminated in late 2016, leaving owner Christian Pannenborg without a shop. In an interview with Electronic Beats, Pannenborg says there are positives that come with leaving the old Kreuzberg location. “There were all these teenage gangbangers and this obnoxious behaviour towards girls,” he said of the area, Kottbusser Tor. “It was [the] opposite of what the shop tried to represent.”
Public broadcaster music library closing, CDs to be digitised, destroyed: …In addition the library houses a multitude of rare and extremely rare musical scores and books It is not known at the point of this writing what will happen to the vinyl LPs the 78s, or the vast collection of music books and scores, but it was revealed that there is pressure to move quickly on the closure of the physical library and collection. Staff said they themselves did not know what would happen to these items, although it is possible they may end up in some cultural museum or educational institution context. In a memo dated December 12, 2017, Radio-Canada said it was consulting with Library and Archives Canada about the thousands of manuscripts and books.
Vinyl Revival: Why Record Albums Are Coming Back: Shake it Records, a vintage record shop, is enjoying the vinyl revival at the same time stores like Best Buy are dropping music CDs (Best Buy says it will no longer sell them after June). Co-owner Jim Blase says he has been watching the vinyl revival for the past five years. “The vinyl albums have been selling a little bit more and a little bit more, and now it’s kind of steamrolled. It’s probably two-thirds of what we sell now,” he said. Blase says vinyl used to appeal primarily to older customers reliving their youth, snapping up Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Simon and Garfunkel, and other ’60s and ’70s music staples. But now millennials like Jake Dennis make up the biggest vinyl buyers, buying new releases from alternative bands like Imagine Dragons and The Killers and rap artists like Kendrick Lamar, even though they are streaming those same musicians on Spotify and Pandora.
Flashback: How your pretentious local record store asshole got that way: The smug, judging record clerk is a sad cliche, but the stereotype exists for a reason. Not all of them start out that way. Sometimes it’s a process of grinding down that takes place over several years. I’ve been working in and around record stores since 1991. Anyone working retail knows dealing with morons and nutjobs comes with the territory, but music retail people will tell you they deal with a completely different breed. There’s something special about a record store that attracts a fringe class one might never encounter any other place, save the emergency room or the DMV. Ask anyone who has worked in music retail, especially the old-timers, and they’ll tell you. We all have a story to tell.
