Women in Vinyl

Faith Ventrello is the owner of in Napa California, a record store, wine bar, cocktail lounge and restaurant which also houses a community radio station that she started 6 years ago. Faith and her team are locals, committed to being good neighbors with a love of their town, the lands that surround it and beyond. Folklore represents the intersection of the best in music, libations, and food, from people immersed in these worlds.

Rachel Gardner, is a musician and owner of the record shop in Edmonds Washington. Rachel plays with bands in her community, volunteers with booking festivals and writes a monthly music scene article for the local publication. Musicology is a small record shop selling new and used vinyl, that also has a small stage for performances to support local artists in the community, along with a dedicated selling local artist’s music and merch.

Today we are headed to the beautiful country of Italy, Bologna to be exact, to introduce you to , a vinyl cutting engineer working out of her family business doing and high quality audio transfers. Shortly after graduating with a degree in foreign language the vinyl field called her name, and here she is answering that call.

Design is less discussed but so important in how we consume our records. From how they were first marketed to home owners as furniture pieces, to design innovation with to the pieces we are able to share about in this feature today. Meet Debra Salyer the Co-founder and Chief Design Officer of . Debra leads design for all of their consoles alongside the rest of a team of skilled artisans and sound engineers.

Meet the president of , in Dayton Ohio, Shelly Hulce aka Gladgirl Shelly. Southwestern Ohio Public Radio is a Low-Power FM, (LP-FM), community radio station, 100% listener supported and 100% volunteer staffed. Their format is rock and crossover from the 1950’s, ‘60’s & ‘70’s celebrating their 20th anniversary in September of this year. Besides her leadership role, Shelly hosts a weekly, deep cut, album rock show, “.” 

Meet vinyl DJ and promoter Isabela Garcia, or who is bringing community together through her turntables, and dancing the night away while doing it. Based in Seattle and DJ'ing there for almost a decade, she is a regional promoter, vinyl collector, event curator, and the founder of , Seattle’s girl-powered dance party, as well as co-founder of Seattle’s Danse Macabre .

Meet Melanie Peters, the owner of Poulsbo Washington's first record store since the 1980's . Rockin' Ruby's is a brick and mortar record shop with thousands of top quality new and used vinyl records, plus CD’s and tapes. Melanie is a former wannabe rock star (her words), who as she got older found her passion to keep kids interested in music, and playing it too.

Meet turntablist DJ and music producer Madison True aka , from the US, currently based in London. While getting her MA in Popular Music Practice, with a focus in Turntablism she keeps busy running events and workshops for FLINTA turntablists and vinyl enthusiasts with open decks as .

As we continue on our search to find community throughout the world, we were thrilled to meet someone blazing trails in South America. Daniella Pimenta is a journalist, music researcher, cultural producer and DJ selectress in Brazil. She started her career in music in 2006, first as an independent journalist, and then as a DJ and cultural producer.