News

Lights out in Gloversville: Universal Music Group's record-pressing plant in Gloversville, NY will shut its doors on May 6, 2005. Founded in 1953 as part of the Brunswick Radio Corporation of America, the plant (and the parent corporation) were acquired in 1962 by Decca, which was itself merged into MCA—and later, UMG, now part of Vivendi Universal.

Interestingly, a UMG spokesperson said that the company will continue to sell LPs, but declined to reveal where they will be manufactured, according to www.themusicangle.com's (and Stereophile's) Michael Fremer.

Anybody at home at Meadowlark? According to an article published in the Watertown Daily Times on April 9, Watertown, NY–based loudspeaker manufacturer Meadowlark Audio is missing in action. Reporter Brian Kelly interviewed James P. Fayle, executive director of both the Jefferson County Industrial Development Agency (JCIDA) and the Watertown Industrial Center Local Development Corporation (WICLDC), who claimed Meadowlark has not made a payment on a loan acquired through the JCIDA in three months and that it has also fallen behind in rent payments to the WICLDC and the North Country Alliance, which hold the lease on the speaker company's industrial space.

Mr. Fayle told Kelly that there has been no evidence of production at the facility for "about the past month and a half" and that the WICLDC and JCIDA have been unable to contact Meadowlark owner Patrick McGinty to discuss the company's status.

Mr. McGinty moved Meadowlark to Watertown from Vista, CA in 2001, taking over its current manufacturing facility after Von Schweikert Research defaulted on a $143,000 JCIDA loan "before leaving the Watertown Center for Business and Industry without telling the agencies," according to the Daily Times.