CITY LIFE

from Providence Monthly April 2023

The Must List

April is for Analog Lovers

Annual event features limited releases for vinyl fans of all ages

The fourth Saturday in April is the most wonderful time of the year – for record collectors, that is. Not only is April 22 Earth Day but also Record Store Day (RSD), an annual event for fans of vinyl who hope to find limited releases and more at their local record shop. It’s a day when serious collectors rub shoulders with first-time buyers (thank you Taylor Swift) lining up outside stores for the chance to pick up the latest release from their favorite artist.

“When Record Store Day started, there was a lot of doom and gloom around record stores,” says Carl Mello, director of brand engagement at Newbury Comics, a Boston-based chain with two Rhode Island stores, in Providence and Warwick. “Everyone was suffering with file sharing and illegal downloading in the early 2000s. Stores were closing left and right; a lot of the big chains went away, followed by the little stores… things were in pretty bad shape.”

Local Stores Participating In Record Store Day

Armageddon Shop, Providence

Newbury Comics, Providence

Newbury Comics, Warwick

Olympic Records, Providence

Kangaroo CD's & Tapes, North Providence

In Your Ear, Warren

Vinyl Guru Record Shop, Newport

Looney Tunes, Wakeﬁeld

The industry responded with what was initially seen as a gimmick, an effort to get customers into stores. “We thought, let’s build a few exclusive titles and see if that gets people to come to the stores,” says Mello. “Each year it’s kind of gone from strength to strength. It’s been transformational for people who sell records, which is not what it set out to do.”

Hundreds of titles are released on RSD, most of them one-time pressings. Many sell out fast and show up on the secondary market before the day is over. The albums range from classic rock acts like Paul

McCartney, The Doors, and Carole King to more contemporary bands like The Magnetic Fields and The 1975. In fact, RI natives The Cowsills are releasing their new album The Rhythm of the World on RSD this year.

In the early years, there were only a couple of dozen releases, a number that has increased dramatically. According to Mello, what set the ball in motion was Metallica. “They were very early in signing on to RSD. They did an in-store performance at an indie record store in San Francisco, Rasputin, that was a really big deal.” Soon, classic rock artists like The Rolling Stones,

Bob Dylan, and The Beatles were releasing albums as well.

Although the vinyl industry has grown steadily in recent years, it took the pandemic to spark an even greater interest. “When the pandemic hit, everybody in the world decided that they wanted to start buying vinyl,” laughs Mello. “Our sales went through the roof. Before, we were selling maybe 10 percent more each year. All of the sudden, we’re selling over 100 percent more annually. In 2020 and 2021, vinyl sales nationally were up over 50 percent, although things have cooled since,” he adds.

One highlight this year promises to break all RSD records: “A ‘not so limited’ Taylor Swift album, which by far, will be the biggest release that’s ever come out on Record Store Day,” says Mello. “Taylor Swift saying ‘I validate Record Store Day’ is just another example of what Metallica was thinking. I love the encouragement of younger customers coming out!”

If you’re planning to line up on April 22, remember to get there early – and that not all titles will be available at all locations, but you’ll certainly find something you love. RecordStoreDay.com

Remembering Theater Innovators Adrian Hall and Eugene Lee

A conversation with Trinity Rep’s Artistic Director Curt Columbus

By Dave Fallon

Adrian Hall, the founding artistic director of the Trinity Repertory Company, died Saturday [February 4] at 95 years old. Just a few days later, Eugene Lee, a Tony award-winning set designer and Hall’s longtime collaborator, died at 83. Together, in partnership with the late composer Richard Cummings, they challenged people to rethink the relationship between the theater and its audience. Afternoon host Dave Fallon spoke with Trinity Rep Artistic Director Curt Columbus about their work, and the impact it had on theater in Providence and throughout southern New England. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

DAVE FALLON: Tell us about Adrian Hall’s impact on the theater and the arts in Providence.

CURT COLUMBUS: He was a giant by any measure, Dave, that’s actually how I would describe it. He was a boundary breaker. The very ﬁrst time that I met him, he kind of swept me o my feet, in terms of the stu that we talked about. You know, every conversation with him was punctuated by, “don’t don’t even think about that, darlin!” You know, I mean, he was – he was just larger than life. And I think the thing that is so remarkable about him is, you had this gargantuan artistic ﬁgure – someone who is doing work that would have been outsize on any stage in the world in his time – and he had made a commitment to being here in Providence, Rhode Island; he’d made a commitment to the southern New England community, and he really made a commitment to doing work that spoke to that community about the issues that were that other media didn’t want to talk about. And so that’s, that’s really his genius.

He arrives here in 1964. He’s, you know, there’s a piece called “Eustace Chisholm and the Works.” It had abortion rights in it, it had a gay relationship in it. This is in the early 70s, when these things were not spoken about in public ever, let alone dramatized in the media. So in addition to his aesthetic genius, which was massive and clearly deeply inﬂected by Eugene Lee’s genius, it was his public – how do we even describe it? You know, he was a public intellectual, in the way that Oscar Wilde was a public intellectual, and he challenged people to think about the way they saw the world.

FALLON: I remember when things ﬁrst started at the actual church. Trinity Church on Broad Street. There were not only plays done by the original company, which also kind of cleaned the auditorium and took the tickets and parked the cars, whatever, there were also lectures going on, about plots, about theater, open to anyone who was interested. And then, as they moved to bigger and bigger theaters, RISD theater, and then ﬁnally the Lederer Theater – that had to show community support, didn’t it?

COLUMBUS: Yes, he understood that the event of theater extended beyond the events on the stage, right? That if you didn’t have a holistic approach to everything, what you were doing on the stage actually didn’t make a lot of di erence. And, you know, that was so distinct from the way that other theaters thought about, everything was ticket sales, everything was what actor can we get from television, washed-up TV actors to put on stage. And Adrian just thought about it di erently. He thought about the conversation that he was having with his community. So that legacy is one of the things that he left us that is so important to me. And I talk to colleagues around the country all the time and say, you are so lucky that that’s how your theater started.

FALLON: Project Discovery opened up the world to thousands of high school students.

COLUMBUS: Absolutely. Well, you know, there’s a famous story. And it has some salty language in it, so I’ll try to edit it for radio. But the famous story is, Adrian, one of the first shows that he did for Project Discovery, right? They got a million dollars from the NEA and Adrian was like, “I’m not making plays for children. I’m going to show the children the plays that the adults are seeing.” And so he brought them to see an adaptation of Herman Melville’s Billy Budd. And so they, you know, you’re showing this to high school students. Billy Budd, which is a rough sled for us as adults. And so the kids were talking and talking, and Barbara Meek, bless her beautiful soul, was out there doing the first monologue in the play, and they weren’t paying any attention. They were talking and shouting and laughing. And after the first audience of children, Adrian said, you know, “I’m gonna make those little jerks listen to” – he didn’t use jerks, but – “listen to what she’s saying. Bring, roll a cannon out and fire it at ‘em. And then they’ll shut up.” And he rolled the cannon out. The kids screamed, and then they shut up and listened. And that again, that was his genius, right? He would take the situation, he understood that the audience was part of the event. And he took the situation and made an aesthetic choice based around that.

FALLON: As we unfortunately mentioned, Hall’s friend and longtime collaborator Eugene Lee passed away just a few days after Adrian Hall. Beyond Lee’s impact on the local theater scene, he was also known for his work nationally – the Tonight Show, SNL Some memories of Eugene Lee?

COLUMBUS: Oh, gosh, this one’s going to be a little harder to talk about. Eugene and I were working on a set design together for “Sweeney Todd,” the upcoming production that we’re going to be doing. We’ll be able to implement his design because we got far enough. You know, that design is particularly inﬂicted by, my 17-year-old self saw “Sweeney Todd” when it was on Broadway in the original incarnation. And, you know, Eugene’s design for that changed my, the course of my entire life aesthetically. I saw that and went, I want to make theater like that. And so over the years, it was just such a privilege and an honor to have him as a collaborator and as a friend, you know, later in my life to be able to work with him on so many projects. And he always made my work richer, more true. I think that’s the phrase that I would use. I mean, he made theatrical imagining happen with almost nothing. He could take a pen and make you imagine a spacecraft, and that was his genius. Eugene was very much about – I remember him once saying, “less is more until more is better.” And he loved just having one element that dictated so many things on stage, and to be able to use it in many, many surprising ways.

Richard Jenkins will talk about Ethan Frome, which he did with Adrian and Eugene, and there’s a whole sequence where Ethan Frome goes sled riding. And they took a couple of pieces from the set, held it up into the air and they did a sled ride. And Richard said, “and in that moment, I realized this was greater than anything that movies could ever imagine because it all happened in the audience’s mind.” And that was his genius.

FALLON: Hall, Lee, also composer Richard Cumming, they were quite the force, even when things were just beginning.

COLUMBUS: Yes, yeah. And Deedee [Richard Cumming] was the sweet wonderful heart. You know, you would always go to him for a smile and a laugh, was the sweetest, kindest man. And I had, you know, I was very upset when I heard about Eugene. And a friend said, you know, I just don’t think Adrian could imagine going on to his work in the next world without his designer. And so, you know, maybe that’s the good news, is that they’ll do that forever together.

FALLON: You personally – not only agreeing with their approach, but perhaps sometimes disagreeing.

COLUMBUS: Yeah, I think that the main, there are two main inﬂection points. The ﬁrst and most important is this notion of the theater as a public square. Right? You referenced that, Dave, when you’re talking about the lectures, the conversations, and not just the events on stage. Adrian and Gene were all about the life that happens at a theater. And that it is truly one of the last places in our culture where we can come together around ideas and have disagreement and conversation. So that’s one important thing. The second is that their aesthetic was always challenging, and it was never the same twice. And so I’ve actually learned to embrace that in my own work. I try to not do the same things over and over again, it’s easy for theater artists to go, “Oh, I know how to do that. I’m going to do that.” But both Adrian and especially Eugene, were just constantly challenging. “What can I do now? What’s my aesthetic now? Today’s Tuesday. My aesthetic is di erent than it was on Friday, and it’s di erent than it will be next Friday.” So that’s, that’s the great challenge and the great gift that I hope I’ve gained from both of them.

This article was originally posted on February 9, 2023. Dave Fallon can be reached at ThePublicsRadio.org/sta /dave-fallon

By Elyse Major

Tall Tumbleweed Modern + Vintage Clothing Boutique

We’re on the hunt for Rhody Gems! Every neighborhood has that secret, hidden, cool and unusual, or hole-in-the-wall spot that locals love. Email or tag us on social media using #RhodyGem to suggest yours, and we might just feature it!

What it is:

A brick-and-mortar shop stocked with clothing and accessories, locally made jewelry, and beauty products.

Where to ﬁnd it:

Over the bridge in the Riverside section of East Providence, housed inside the ﬁrst ﬂoor of a long two-level mixed-use building. Look for the wood front door!

What makes it a Rhody Gem?

Owner Amelia Olson describes her shop “as a patchwork quilt of small treasures,” with a constant rotation of vintage and modern size-inclusive clothing. “With a magpie’s eye, we make gift buying and personal style cohesive in a warm, welcoming, and vibrant space. We think getting dressed can be a fun, radical act of political expression and self love! If you’ve ever felt like a misﬁt in a traditional boutique setting, you’ll feel loved and at home in our Riverside shop,” says Olson. “Getting dressed is a feeling, and we are reimagining the experience of shopping by encouraging folks to try on clothing they’ve been told wasn’t for them or their body type, profession, or lifestyle. Clients quickly become friends, and we know that when we serve the community we’re in, we all feel and look more beautiful, empowered, and liberated.”