Let’s Get Physical: 2019 Making Vinyl Conference Preview

On Oct. 14-15, leaders of the industry’s physical media and recorded-music business will convene at the W Hollywood in Los Angeles for the third annual Making Vinyl Conference. Co-organized by Larry Jaffee, a music journalist and former publicist, and Bryan Ekus, president of the media manufacturers’ organization Colonial Purchasing Cooperative, the annual B2B conference is expected to draw nearly 400 attendees for its first year on the West Coast, following two consecutive runs in Detroit.

In 2019, a two-day consortium — a combination think tank, incubator and classroom — will include panels on the prevailing trends, tech and strategies impacting the retail business’ vinyl sector, with standout sessions on sustainability in production, audio restoration techniques and a “sociological” take on the cassette revival. Further special presentations will spotlight Bandcamp’s new vinyl pressing service, package designer Lawrence Azerrad’s Grammy-winning vinyl box set for Carl Sagan’s Voyager Golden Record: 40th Anniversary Edition and mastering engineer Bernie Grundman, recipient of the conference’s Lifetime Achievement Award. The event’s annual Packaging Awards section also will salute honorees in an expanded 15 categories.

As a group, vinyl fanatics often speak about the format with “reverence,” according to Jack White. “With CDs, digital and streaming, you are in control and can stop [the track] whenever you want, but vinyl is dropping the needle, sitting down and paying attention,” said the Third Man Records founder during his keynote at the inaugural Making Vinyl Conference in 2017, held in Detroit. “This isn’t nostalgia. This isn’t being retro. This is reverence to the beauty of music in a world where everyone is texting every five seconds.”

Three years later, vinyl’s resurgence has only gained momentum: The 12th annual Record Store Day in April yielded sales of 827,000 vinyl albums in the United States, according to Nielsen Music — the third-largest sales week for vinyl albums since 1991, when Nielsen Music began tracking data. Meanwhile, the RIAA’s 2019 midyear report, released in September, revealed profits of $224.1 million (on 8.6 million units) for vinyl releases in the first half of 2019. Given current trends, it’s likely that vinyl will soon surpass overall CD sales, which netted $247.9 million (from 18.6 million units) in the same period.

Ahead of the conference’s West Coast debut, Jaffee and Ekus preview this year’s program and its global ambitions.

What is the state of today’s vinyl album business?

Larry Jaffee: Sales are continually growing, and the records being made are better, generally. The Record Store Day sales numbers are not a fad. And from a retail standpoint, the industry is getting smarter. In the first years, there was a large attention to back catalog. For the format to sustain itself, it’s going to have to produce more current product — but be smart about it. We realize that it’s a digital world. We know we’re a niche, but also a deluxe niche that some music lovers prefer, and we have to keep coming up with ways to serve them.

Why did you want to move the conference to Hollywood?

Jaffee: On the program side, we have people who were certainly aware of the event the first two years but for logistics reasons couldn’t attend in Detroit. Lawrence Azerrad, the packaging designer, won our first best in show award and then won a Grammy a few months later. He’s based in Los Angeles, so he’ll be there and speaking. Jeff Jampol, whose company [JAM Inc.] manages the estate of The Doors, Janis Joplin, the Ramones and others, was interested in attending last year but couldn’t. We’re also able to focus on Blue Note’s 80th-anniversary vinyl reissue series.

Blue Note is re-creating its vinyl heritage in a unique way.

Jaffee: [Blue Note Records producer] Joe Harley will explain what he found in the archives. A lot of these titles have not been available for years. It’s my understanding that they tested a few titles and sold out immediately. They realized they had touched upon a sleeping giant, so they have expanded the number of titles and turned them into two different series for their 80th anniversary. We also have mastering engineer Kevin Gray of Cohearent, who has worked on the reissue series.

How has the new setting influenced this year’s programming?

Jaffee: One of the things we try to do year to year is not repeat ourselves. Ninety percent of the speakers this year are brand-new. We’ve brought in new topics in distribution and merchandising. We also have a presentation from Bandcamp, which started out as a digital platform and is now offering vinyl as well. Another topic that’s new is sustainability — the environmental impact of vinyl records. There have been a lot of technological advancements and more pressing plants, as well as suppliers who are focused on vinyl as an environmentally conscious alternative. We have a professor [Kyle Devine, University of Oslo] coming in from Norway to present research about how the carbon footprint of a vinyl record is less than digital music and Erica Records, in Southern California, which only presses lead-free, PVC records.

Why is Bernie Grundman the best choice for the Lifetime Achievement Award?

Jaffee: He’s the guy when it comes to vinyl mastering. He has done a who’s who of popular music — Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Prince, Steely Dan, Barbra Streisand, on and on. It just made sense to give it to him, and we were very lucky to get him. He’s another example of someone we have been trying to get for a few years but he couldn’t get to Detroit.

Bryan Ekus: Another wrinkle: After we announced Bernie’s Lifetime Achievement Award, I saw [musician, actor and Sirius XM DJ] Michael Des Barres offer him congrats online. I knew he was based in Los Angeles, so I asked if he wanted to get involved. Now he’s going to open up the event. And the kicker, totally unexpected, is his latest single, “Crackle & Hiss,” was released on Little Steven’s label, Wicked Cool Records. Little Steven [aka musician-actor Steven Van Zandt] was last year’s keynote speaker, so there’s a little bit of continuity there.

What’s new in the awards portion?

Jaffee: We have put more focus on jazz and classical because we realized the aesthetics for those genres might make for unfair comparisons in pop-rock. And the “They Said It Couldn’t Be Done” category comes from the idea of how do you top yourself. Last year, the winner was “Weird Al” Yankovic’s Squeeze Box, which put his entire recording career in a replica of an accordion. This year’s winner really wowed the judges.

Will you stay in Hollywood?

Ekus: It’s a great place to be, but I don’t know if it will be home forever. We could wind up in other music–related cities — other places in L.A., or even going back to Detroit again. We’ll just have to see. The idea is not to make this a moving carnival.

You launched Making Vinyl Berlin in May. Why?

Jaffee: I think of the Leonard Cohen song — “First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.” The vinyl comeback was plotted in New York and then crossed the Atlantic, so it made a lot of sense to have something in Europe.

Ekus: It was great. We did it at Hansa Studios, where so many artists [like David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Nick Cave, R.E.M., U2] have worked. For the same reason we’re doing it in L.A. this year, if you bring a product like Making Vinyl to a new area, different people attend who might not have done so before. We got a pretty good representation of people from Europe in Detroit, so we got some of those people to Berlin.

Are there any other continents on your radar?

Ekus: Certainly. Asia could be a strong possibility. There’s a huge vinyl market and manufacturing community in Japan. There would be some language barriers, but that would be something I would love to explore for the next Making Vinyl.

 

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Lifetime Achievement: Bernie Grundman

As CDs replaced vinyl in the mid-’80s, mastering studios that had specialized in 12-inch LPs turned their attention to compact discs. Out went the cutting lathes, in came the digital audio workstations. But a handful of facilities bucked the trend, notably Bernie Grundman Mastering, the 20,000-square-foot studio complex in Hollywood named after the venerable engineer, whose credits include Carole King’s Tapestry, Steely Dan’s Aja and Prince’s Purple Rain. Making Vinyl will recognize Grundman with its lifetime achievement award in October.

Born in Minneapolis and raised in Phoenix, Grundman first trained locally while at Arizona State University before stints at Los Angeles’ Contemporary Records and as head of A&M’s mastering division. He launched his own studio in 1984. “We’ve always had vinyl, and there’s always been a certain amount of it, regardless of how unpopular it was for a while,” says Grundman. “But for about six or seven years now, we’ve been slammed all the time — with new products, special packages or catalog releases.”

Grundman first saw the beginning of a vinyl resurgence in the mid-’90s, when a small but fervent group of audiophile clients asked to reissue jazz and rock classics on high-grade vinyl. Then came another wave in the 2000s, and this time it was as much about new releases as reissues. In both cases, clients were reacting to the sonic limitations of digital, as well as the downsizing, or complete lack, of album art.

“The industry underestimated the public because all this stuff that started coming in, like iTunes and then a lot streaming, were inferior formats,” says Grundman.  Those customers hankered for what they perceived was the analog format’s warmer, more intimate sound. “There was a nostalgia for that,” he says. Despite the widespread belief that vinyl is always higher quality, Grundman says it can be just as “poor” as digital “if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

— PAUL VERNA

A version of this article originally appeared in the Sept. 28 issue of Billboard.