Day 1: Vinyl Revival

Vinyl record collecting is progressively becoming more and more popular as the years go by. Since 2008, vinyl sales have steadily gotten higher and higher.  In 2014, vinyl record sales reached a historic high by growing 52% and selling around 9.2 million records. 2015 is expected to be much higher.

Not only are the retail sales going up, but people’s collections are growing as well. People are paying ridiculous amounts for used out of print records. Brand New’s “Deja Entendu” and Gorillaz’ “Demon Days” are both selling for an average of about $300 on vinyl trading websites.

Most bands nowadays are offering vinyl records as parts of pre-order bundles for new albums. These first pressings end up being much more sought after in the vinyl collector community, especially if it is a colored variant.

Colored variants are an extremely popular way a record is pressed. Instead of the standard black record like most people are used to, it can be pressed onto any sort of color combination one can imagine. These variants have sparked a specific kind of vinyl collector: the variant collector. The variant collector’s goal is to collect every press of a particular band they’re a fan of. Usually these collectors will try to get every press of their favorite bands.

Vinyl collecting is doing great things for the music community. It’s bringing people together more through online trading groups and websites. It’s giving bands more publicity. Perhaps most importantly, it’s causing people to go to independent record shops more, slowing the end of record stores. Independent record stores have been on the fast track to becoming obsolete, but the vinyl revival is revamping people’s interest in physical copies of music.

If you want to get started on a record collection, I advise going to a local record store. If you want to go online, follow the link below.

Discogs – Database and Marketplace for Music on Vinyl, CD, Cassette and More

Day 2: Black Veil Brides Vocalist

Black Veil Brides is an almost universally hated band. Unfortunately, this leads to people going to their shows just to heckle them. Vocalist Andy Biersack has to deal with is so often that he slipped the other night at a show. He called out the guy in the audience who was saying bad things about them, and it lead to Biersack jumping off the stage and attacking the guy. I’m not a fan of the band, but heckling at a show is totally uncalled for, but so was attacking the heckler. Check out the video below. Warning, there is a lot of language in it.

Black Veil Brides frontman Andy Biersack stops song to fight audience member *FOOTAGE*

Day 3: Warped Tour Update

This batch of Warped Tour bands are both exciting and disappointing. The bands are HO99O9 (Which I am extremely excited for), Major League, New Years Day, Set it Off, and The Kenneths. The disappointing part of this is that Motion City Soundtrack was also announced, but only for three days and exclusively in California. Check out the full list below.

Vans Warped Tour