Joburg`s premier recorded music event, The Spin Music Fair, is set to hold it`s first Fair of 2020 on Sunday 23^rd February at a brand new venue. Twelve of Gauteng`s top dealers will showcase thousands of new and pre-owned vinyl records, CDs, cassette tapes, music memorabilia and audio equipment & accessories at the Pirates Bowls Club, 4 Cruden Bay Road, Greenside (across the road from Pirates Sports Club) from 10am to 2pm. The following dealers will be there:

Vinyl Junkie…Clover Records…Black Wax…Record Mad…Red Dot Records…Groovy Records…Mango Grave…Croak Audio…Zeppelins…Art Rock Café…West Rand Vinyl and Turning Times.

Pirates Bowls Club boasts an amazing restaurant ,The Green Room, which offers a selection of mouth watering meals; a fully stocked gem of a pub with a deck overlooking lush green bowling fields, an outdoor area and a kiddies play section for the little ones which includes a jungle gym, jumping castle and kiddies fun corner with a weekend child minder on duty. It`s dog friendly and has free wi-fi.

Dealer Spotlight-Clover Records

Clover Records was founded in 2011 by TJ DU Plessis. It was initially an online store selling on internet platforms such as Ebay, Discogs and Bid or Buy. After being approached by fellow dealers to participate in one of the earliest Fairs at Katy`s Palace, Clover Records joined the vinyl dealer community and has been an active member since. How did Clover Records get their name? TJ was asked at a fair what was the name of his stand, tongue-tied he looked down at the Clover milk crates full of stock and said….Clover! The name stuck. They stock previously loved cleaned and graded vinyl records from the 50`s onwards as well as new multi genre 180 gram releases. Clover Records sells record cleaners, vinyl record sleeves, vintage record players and sound systems and they specialise in collectable iconic music and film model figurines and music memorabilia. 

 

Music News

A copy of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band signed by all four band members has sold in Texas for $290,500, smashing the previous record by almost $150,000. Sold at Heritage Auctions in Dallas to an un-named buyer from the Midwest, this copy of The Beatles’ 1967 album is thought to have almost double the price previously paid for an LP signed by the Fab Four, a copy of Meet the Beatles which went for $150,000 in 2011.

‘Hipster kryptonite’: will CDs ever have a resurgence?

 

Compact discs don’t have the romance of vinyl – but as a generation of tastemakers reconnect with their youth, that could be about to change. High-street UK shops such as the hipster haven Urban Outfitters have made vinyl and cassettes available to a younger demographic, and the popularity of the annual Record Store Day shows that vinyl has had a full-scale revival. But while CDs make up only 30% of the total global market for recorded music, 42% of the UK population still choose CDs as their preferred format.Of this 42%, two-thirds said they would probably still be listening to them in five years. Secondhand CDs are proving just as popular: it is the fastest-growing sales format on the music marketplace Discogs, chalking up 28% growth last year. Like so many others, the hipster is at the helm of these revivals. “Something that was once the dominant format fades from the zeitgeist, before someone of a hip-inclined nature rediscovers it to differentiate themselves from the rest of the crowd.

It’s cool to spool again as the cassette returns on a wave of nostalgia !

Pause. Stop. Rewind ! The cassette, long consigned to the bargain bin of musical history, is staging a humble comeback. Sales have soared in the last year – up 125% in 2018 on the year before – amounting tomore than 50,000 cassette albums bought in the UK, the highest volume in 15 years. It’s quite a fall from the format’s peak in 1989 when 83 million cassettes were bought by British music fans, but when everyone from pop superstar Ariana Grande to punk duo Sleaford Mods are taking to tape, a mini revival seems afoot. But why? Retromania is nothing new. The fondness for recycling pop culture’s past has become a defining marker of millennial culture: the industry for “nostalgia marketing” has boomed for brands selling to the under-35s. And so Instagram is awash with #vintage #cassette posts, and over on Etsy, a replica plastic Sony Walkman(one that can’t actually play any music) is being sold for £79Cassettes are an exciting way to put music out, in the same way that seven-inch singles were exciting for punk. They have always been a crucial part of the DIY scene. 

For more information on the Spin Music Fair contact Benjy Mudie at vinyljunkie@icon.co.za or 082-4902743.

Visit us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/spinmusicfair/

Issued by Tamaryn Nicholson at TPW on behalf of The Spin Music Fair.