Retail Trade

Remembering Napster

Amoeba's Vinyl Vault: Treasure Trove or Legal Sticky Wicket?

While the corpses of corporate music retail chains litter strip malls where outlets like Tower Records and Blockbuster Music once stood, Amoeba Music is an independent juggernaut with three California-based stores the size of supermarkets. They've been a destinations for music aficionados for more t ... More >>

101 Essential Rock Records: The Golden Age of Vinyl From The Beatles to The Sex Pistols,

Record Store Day 2012: What the Employees Are Buying

See also: Record Store Day 2012: Our Comprehensive Guide to Steals and Deals, Free Grub and Live Performances Listen, we're sure you're a crate-digging ninja and your vinyl collection is a wonder to behold. And we're sure you've been talking everyone's ear off all week about how you're gonna clean ... More >>

Record Store Day 2012: Our Comprehensive Guide to Steals and Deals, Free Grub and Live Performances

Record Store Day is this Saturday. Because there are almost as many record stores in L.A. as there are donut shops, we compiled a handy guide to help you get your hot little hands on as much vinyl as possible. We called every record store in a 40-mile radius and made a list of all the day's deals ... More >>

Trader Joe's Signs Deal With Tomato Workers

After years of nudges, calls to action and protests, grocery chain Trader Joe's has finally signed on to the Fair Food Agreement. Spearheaded by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, it's a major step forward in the decadelong campaign to improve working conditions for pickers in Florida, where nearly ... More >>

Village Books in Pacific Palisades, From Its First Book to the Last

Countdown to Record Store Day: Neil from Origami Vinyl in Echo Park

​You have seen the storefront of Origami Vinyl if you have ever gone to the Echo or had a slice of pizza at Two Boots. The store is packed with an impressive mix of local (and not-so-local) releases in a variety of genres, and host some amazing all-ages in-stores on a pretty regular basis. T ... More >>

Porn Legends Who Love Vinyl, Part 2: Jasmin St. Claire on Record Store Day (and Being Metal 4Ever!)

Diamond Bodine-FischerJasmin St. Claire at The Rainbow Room​Yesterday we found out where crossover porn queen/indie musician Shash Grey goes to get her vinyl (read "Countdown to Records Store Day: We Found Sasha Grey's Favorite Record Store!") Today we were lucky enough to corner one of West ... More >>

Countdown to Records Store Day: We Found Sasha Grey's Favorite Record Store!

​ Wombleton Records sells an amazing collection of rare- and not-so-rare imports--though its stated mission is to further cultural exchange between Los Angeles and Glasgow, it does all that and more carrying everything from Suzy Quattro and Zounds LP's to original pressings of Dutch freakbeat ... More >>

Countdown to Record Store Day: An Interview with RSD Co-Founder Michael Kurtz

​We've been looking forward to Record Store Day (or RSD) for awhile now. For one, it provides a welcome diversion for those of us not going to Coachella. Also, we are looking forward to all of the limited-edition vinyl releases, in-stores, and sales that come along with RSD. We keep hearing a ... More >>

R.E.M and Eddie Vedder Team Up for New Song (Listen)

​This would have made people run to Tower Records circa 1993 (we miss Tower Records...), but thanks to the Internet (because we live in the future) you can stream the brand-new R.E.M.-Eddie Vedder collaboration right in the comfort of your own gadget. Listen:

Los Angeles Gets 4G Network Via Sprint: iPhone Users Are Out Of Luck

AppleMore 'G' please.​Los Angeles is finally getting a 4G network. Yay! It's on Sprint. Pout. It's cool though. It looks like, if you're geek like that, you can buy a router and get 4G speed on your nearby iPad or laptop. But iPhones, despite being in version 4, are out of luck for now. Spr ... More >>

Synthetic Marijuana Makers Are Working Around DEA Ban (For Your Holiday Shopping Pleasure)

Man-made or synthetic?​This week we told you about how the DEA is essentially outlawing the synthetic pot known as K2 and Spice. A commenter who claims to represent an online retailer of Spice says no big: Makers are churning out new "blends" as we speak, with recipes that will sidestep the D ... More >>

New L.A. City Rule Would Allow 180 Pot Shops To Stay Open

Kind For Cures: Best pot-shop retail concept ever.​At least some of the hundreds of pot shops that were outlawed by the L.A. City Council are probably out of the woods: The body on Friday voted to start a process that will amend its dispensary ordinance so that about 180 cannabis retailers wou ... More >>

Could Marijuana Legalization Save The Pot Shop From Would-Be State Attorney General Steve Cooley?

Americans for Safe AccessWould Steve Cooley as A.G. spell the end of the pot shop?​Here's a scenario: Prop. 19, the marijuana legalization initiative, loses. Steve Cooley, the Los Angeles District Attorney who wants to become Attorney General, wins. Cooley has been no friend of the L.A. pot ... More >>

LAX Concession Clash: Councilman Bernard Parks Hands $30 Million To Magic Johnson's Company

Ka-ching! Magic Johnson cashes in.​Overturning the wishes of LAX staff, a five-member council committee on Monday awarded an airport retail contract worth $30 million a year to a business group that includes Magic Johnson. Councilman Bernard Pa ... More >>

Medical Marijuana Entrepreneurs Aren't All For Legalizing Weed Via Prop. 19: For One Thing, It Might Take Them Out Of The Game

​You would think that Prop. 19, the November ballot initiative that would fully legalize marijuana possession, would find some of its most ardent backers among the medical-pot trade, which relies on people coming to dispensaries and possessing weed, sometimes at their own peril when it comes t ... More >>

INDEPENDENT'S DAY

How I Celebrated National Pig Day

"What did you do today, Daddy?" squealed the children. "What did you do to celebrate National Pig Day?'' "Why, the same thing I do every day," I said. And you know something? It was true! Yesterday at Ford's Filling Station, a restaurant whose specialty is nominally the $400 whole-pig dinners you h ... More >>

Chain Of Fashion Stores Lets Customers Tweet For All To See (Are They Asking For Trouble?)

​In what could be seen as visionary or monumental blindness, a Los Angeles-based fashion retailer is putting tweets about its brand up for all to see via LCD televisions in its 68 stores nationwide. Metropark this week announced the launch of its "Reverb" Twitter interface that allows tweets ... More >>

National Record Store Day in LA and at Coachella: Celebrating Brick, Mortar, Mom, Pop

Patrick O'DellFatbeats' DJ Rhettmatic Celebrating record stores as part of the second annual National Record Store Day, which is tomorrow, should be a no-brainer for Southern Californians. After all, the region is the undisputed center of the vinyl industry, with RTI, Rainbo and Erika all pressing ... More >>

Celebrating National Record Store Day: Employees at Houses of the Holy

Featuring members of Abe Vigoda, the Beat Junkies, Pocahaunted, the Sandinistas, and Black Blue, along with DJ Nobody

Death Row Records, Post-Suge Knight, Returns with Petey Pablo to Say What's Up from Canada

It's hard to even write this: Toronto-based Death Row Records announced today that the company will be issuing a sampler in conjunction with National Record Store Day, which takes place around the country on April 18. The label, founded in LA by Dr. Dre and Suge Knight, released some of the most i ... More >>

It's the Economy, Moron

No one shops till they drop anymore. That's because the only thing dropping these days is the economy. Yet you wouldn't know this from bus-stop billboards across the city advertising a film called Confessions of a Shopaholic. The movie, starring Isla Fisher, is based on one of British author Sophie ... More >>

Scenes at the Mall: Angry Black Friday

America did its patriotic duty to stimulate the national economy at the malls this past Thanksgiving weekend. Black Friday sales, you may have heard, were up 3 percent from last year, topping out at $10.6 billion. Shoppers spent $372 over the Black Friday weekend. Nevermind that nasty little busine ... More >>

It's Record Store Day!

Go out and visit your local independent record store today, if there is still one within 100 miles or so. You know your business model is in trouble when you get a "day" devoted to it. Why, I remember celebrating "Floppy Disc Day" and "Blacksmith Appreciation Day" as if they were yesterday. Ther ... More >>

Los Angeles Art Show

The Eames Film Festival

A Love Song for Aron's

Darwinian days for indie L.A. record stores — but maybe that’s okay

No Finer Place for Sure

Everything’s waiting for you downtown

Goliath Down

Inglewood voters kick Wal-Mart’s ass

More Than a Food Fight

The deeper meaning of the grocery strike

Sam and His Pals

L.A. is a Wal-Mart town. Get used to it.

The Wal-Mart Equation

It all adds up to a supermarket strike

The Big Dirt Napster

A digital new era finds the labels asleep

Power to the Peer

you can lead consumers to music, but can you make them pay?

This Is Our Music

The Napster museum of cultural heritage

404, Host Not Found

The end of the Web as we know it

Scrooge Inc.

A Pirate’s Life for Me

How Napster restored my faith in the Internet (and why the RIAA can’t take it away)

Thieves Like Us

MP3: Recontextualization is your best entertainment value

Killer Clones and the MP3

Blacklisted by Metallica

Pandora’s Box

Napster unleashes whole new Net ball game

Stamps.com

Is there an easier way to send snail mail -- online?

My Favorite Pirate

Record biz romances some tech sites, clobbers others. What gives?

Heavy Breathing

Air police are failing to inspect the fancy vapor-recovery nozzles at your local gas station

Success in Excess?

Santa Monica ponders the future of its Promenade

Wal-Mart Knocks on Crenshaw’s Door

But the news inspires catcalls as well as cheers