The one factor higher than music is music served with free beer and pizza, which you’ll get pleasure from at Cactus Music’s common listening events.
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Cactus Music has been promoting Houston audiophiles their favourite albums for the previous 50 years. Even within the age of streaming, the enduring Montrose/Higher Kirby document retailer offers one thing giants like Spotify and Apple Music can’t: a group centered round hyper-localized music occasions, together with listening events and stay performances by native and touring acts. The listening events, which gained recognition in February 2023, provide attendees the prospect to preview new releases both on the day of or shortly after their official launch.
“How we hearken to music now may be very insular. Individuals are listening to music of their earbuds, or they’ve obtained headphones on. It’s seeming like having fun with music is changing into a singular expertise, until you’re at a live performance or one thing,” says Cactus proprietor Quinn Bishop. “This can be a method so that you can be in a single spot with a bunch of kindred spirit music followers that love the identical artist.”
Coordinated with studios, these occasions present followers with an opportunity to listen to the newest albums as quickly as embargoes raise and NDAs expire. Many additionally embrace merchandise and giveaways, akin to buttons and posters, supplied solely at Cactus and different collaborating document retailers throughout the nation. Relying on the promotions, followers who preorder and decide up their copies of the featured album can also rating just a few unique freebies. Bishop says the little extras typically get prospects extra excited than the brand new music itself, and crowds can typically attain 500 to 700 individuals.
Even when guests solely present as much as pay attention, there’s nonetheless lots to get pleasure from about these events. Very like its inventory, Cactus is genre-agnostic with regards to the music it options. All music deserves to be celebrated, so the store celebrates all sorts of music every time the chance presents itself. A listening celebration this previous July featured singer-songwriter Gigi Perez’s soulful, folksy debut album On the Seashore, In Each Life, which was launched in April. Hardcore punk outfit Turnstile’s fourth launch, By no means Sufficient, was the centerpiece of a June occasion that additionally included a poster giveaway, a T-shirt drawing, and unique black-and-white efficiency photographs for followers who preordered. For pop star Melanie Martinez, an worker and instructor utilized her classroom adorning abilities to create a photograph sales space for followers to commemorate the day. Electropop/hip-hop hybridizers Twenty One Pilots recorded an unique video message for his or her followers, out there solely to these attending the listening events.
“It’s sort of magical. The band [was] talking on to you in a spot that you just’re conversant in,” Bishop says. “It’s a spot of pleasure, your conduit for music with individuals that you’ve one thing in frequent with.”
Cactus Music’s listening events typically contain just a few unique freebies for followers.
And attendees received’t go away hungry or parched, both. Free Saint Arnold beer and slices from Star Pizza are normally a assure on the occasions—a product of a long-running relationship with each companies. Cactus initially ordered Domino’s for an occasion after receiving some beneficiant monetary backing from “Havana” singer Camila Cabello’s label, however when Star bore witness to the strains of hungry music followers snaking out the door, they supplied to feed future crowds. They even whipped up a particular one-night-only pizza solely for followers attending the August 2024 launch celebration celebrating Submit Malone’s F-1 Trillion.
In contrast to the in-store performances, that are additionally free, attendees don’t congregate in a single place to jostle for the very best view. As an alternative, they have a tendency to unfold themselves across the store to browse the in depth assortment of CDs, vinyl, cassettes, and music memorabilia on the market. Among the many cabinets, friendships develop.
The listening events entice a mixture of Cactus regulars—some conversant in the featured artist, some not a lot—plus established followers getting into the house for the primary time. It’s fertile floor for music buffs to start out speaking and sharing their tastes and insights with each other.
“You see individuals—strangers—get collectively to hearken to and admire an artist and their new music,” Bishop says. “Then, you get the sensation once they’re leaving…[that] these persons are going to maintain on understanding one another.”
Know Earlier than You Go
Cactus Music hosts listening events as common occasions, however they’re not scheduled for any particular time of the week or month. To remain up-to-date on these and different occasions, go to the web site.
