Stephen Mejias

At this moment in time, there’s honestly no way I can justify spending more money on sweet, wonderful, soul-stirring vinyl records. I just can’t do it. I have bills to pay. I have records at home that I haven’t listened to yet. I have laundry to do and groceries to buy. But, damn, am I tempted to go to the First Annual Collect-i-Bowl Record Show at Brooklyn Bowl this Sunday.

Good news for jazz and vinyl lovers: The world’s greatest record store (at least in New Jersey), the Princeton Record Exchange, just received a collection of over 2000 carefully maintained jazz titles, and they are now on sale, most priced between $1 and $4.99.

I’ve told you a bit about my favorite cassette label, Al Bjornaa’s Scotch Tapes, out of Batchawana Bay, Ontario, Canada. In this Impose article, Al goes into more detail, explaining how he built the label, and revealing some of his big plans for the remainder of the year, which include 60-70 new tapes, 4-5 vinyl releases, approximately 20 lathe cuts, a dozen zines, a couple of 8-tracks, and a monster summer compilation. (You can also download a Scotch sampler.)

“What does it mean to love your father?” the therapist asked.

We were bummed out when we heard that Steve Gritzan was closing down his wonderful and dusty record shop, Iris Records, in downtown Jersey City, but heartened in knowing that he’d continue to sell albums at street fairs and at his outstanding Brooklyn Record Riot conventions.