Selectors’ Records closed their doors today after a near three-year run. The brainchild of artist/musician Brady Cranfield and his musician brother Josh Rose, Selectors’ began as a record store and performance space dedicated to electronic, dub, and experimental music. Over time it grew into more of a social space with Publication Studio Vancouver moving in in the summer of 2016 and even a community centre, as at one time Brady moved some of the record bins to the side to make way for Jean Swanson’s 2017 city council campaign office! Yes OK, perhaps record and book sales weren’t as robust as was needed in order to make the steep Vancouver storefront rent, but how cool was it for an experimental record and book space to house the office for Swanson, a candidate with a long-standing commitment to social justice and to fighting homelessness and poverty in the Downtown East Side.
Selectors opened in June of 2015 with a party with DJs Local Artist, Bobby Draino, Robin Banks and Nervous Operator. Since then a long list of artists, musicians, DJs, writers, poets, politicians, and other thinkers presented and performed.
This long list includes: Joseph Gaard, Friendly Chemist, Max McFerren, Nicolas Guerrero, aka White Visitation, Luke Fowler, Sarah Davachi, Joshua Stevenson, Jean-Sébastien Truchy, Black Givre, Charles Barabé, Ross Birdwise, Hazy, S1UGS, Aileen Bryant, Bkiss, Stefan Maier, N.213, Magneticring, Aaron Dae, HRISTO, On High, Tomas Jirku, Chambers, J. Ryan, Marcus Price, Aileen Bryant, Joda Clément, Kevin Schmidt, Sam Beatch, Daniel Majer, Truncate, Derivatives, George Barrett, Crawling Human, forever&sunsmell, Phantom Head Trip, Rinaldo Walcott, Certain Creatures, Angus Tarnawsly, Nathaniel Young, Hom, Sarah Davachi, V.Vecker, Gretchen Snakes, Secret Pyramid, Bastet, Mark. R, Rettir Leinahtan, Crawling Human, burrow owl, Roger “Crooked Walker” Allen, Same Same, Dream Cars, R23X, Fader, Crooked Mouth, C.Diab, Juliane Okot Bitek, Jordan Abel, Cecily Nicholson, Old Girl, Stefana Fratila, Heavy Mellow, Datataste, NAP, Sara Gold, Alex Blumen, Abdallah Taher, Spectrum Interview, Death Drive, Goo, Desolating The Curse, Rusalka, Cost, Tertrad Veil, Terror Apart, Mass Marriage, Niki Ashton, Morgane Oger, Mood Tattooed, S.P. Davis, Serpentent, The Nausea, Gran Am, L.L., Neon Annex, Emma Tomic, Roarke Menzies, Samson Stilwell, Black Market, Hitori Tori, Nathan Marsh, Matt Horrigan & David Storen, Alanna Ho, Jordan Strom, Casey Wei, Rae Armantrout, Anne Boyer, Caconrad, Mercedies Eng, Jasmine Gibson, Lief Hall, Gordon Ashworth, Primordial Wound, MK9, Molena, Patrick Cruz, Kimortal, Opponent Processes, Jean Swanson, Post_NFF, Eric Fraser, Teo Mattress, jijijijijjiij, Geoff Berner, Gram Partisans, Sean Hamilton, John Teske, Chris SW Anderson, Turning Torso, Ivory Towers, Lavender, Marc Kate, Derek Beaulieu, Judith Copithorne, Jamie Hilder, Shyla Seller, Clint Burnham, Chik White, Maskara, Eschatons, Joan Braune, Rob Heenan, John Lotman, Shane Breen, The Now Society Ensemble, Jo Burzynska, Alfred Jarry, Mr. Musebot, Lee Hutzulak, Brady Marks, Daniel Ruiz, Dave Leith, Sour Gout, Ross Birdwise, Dan Potter, Andrew Uma, Jeff Younger, Alexandra Spence, Absorb & Erin McSavvy, Len Paul, Post Drag, Sammy Chein, Tomas V, Michael Rohaly, Stefan Smulovitz, MegaSetMashUp and monthly programs such as Natural Selection with roots/rocksteady/reggae/dub historian Joda Clément and Synched Sundays dedicated to improvised experimental electronic music, organized by Metal Machine.
Selectors’ partnered with diverse groups and institutions such as Sacred Sound Club, Projection Room, UBC Liu Institute for Global Issues, Black Canadian Scholars Series, Music Waste, Quiet City, Institute for the Humanities at SFU, SFU Department of English, Unit/Pitt Projects, and the Western Front.
It is fitting that today, on their closing day, Selectors’ promoted the event Rally for the City We Need to the launch a new political platform, The City We Need, which is spearheaded by Swanson to fight developer-run political parties.
Congratulations and thanks to Brady and Josh. Vancouver will feel the loss of Selectors’, a unique social space that hosted and fostered music, art, poetry, publishing, politics, philosophy, and real-world organizing for change, and that also sold records and books.
Publication Studio Vancouver will carry on but will dearly miss being a part of Selectors’. We miss it already.