Apollo laquer fire

For those of you who follow postings on Michael Fremer’s site, this may be old news. For those who don’t here is an potentially serious development for vinyl music fans:


Worldwide Vinyl-Record Supply May Be in Danger After "Catastrophic" Fire:
California’s Apollo Masters, one of the only manufacturing plants in the world that produces the lacquer used for the master disks necessary to press vinyl records, has suffered “catastrophic damage” after a three-alarm fire Thursday night. “It is with great sadness we report the Apollo Masters manufacturing and storage facility had a devastating fire and suffered catastrophic damage,” a note on the Apollo Masters website reads. “The best news is all of our employees are safe. We are uncertain of our future at this point and are evaluating options as we try to work through this difficult time.” Prominent figures in the industry are already expressing concerns about the shortage of lacquer, including Ben Blackwell, co-founder of Third Man Records. “There are only TWO companies that make lacquers in the world, and the other, MDC in Japan, already had trouble keeping up with demand BEFORE this development,” he wrote to Pitchfork (the emphasis is Blackwell’s). But David Read, a vinyl-production and sales coordinator at Duplication, a vinyl, CD, and DVD duplication, pressing, and printing company, offered some optimism: “In my almost 40 years’ experience, the vinyl industry as a whole is incredibly resilient and filled with talented professionals who will, and already are, teaming together to find a way out of this current problem.”