Anyone who missed last Thursday’s special V.I.P. Records episode of Greater Long Beach Radio with Dave Wielenga can now listen to the program at any time of any day via computer or as a podcast downloaded to a personal device.
Simply follow this link to the website of KBEACH.org, the Long Beach State online radio station that co-produces Greater Long Beach Radio.

Of course, you don’t have to have missed the Sept. 29 program to take advantage of these listening options.

In fact, to have heard V.I.P. Records founder Kelvin Anderson recount stories from the 34-year life of the Long Beach neighborhood records-and-tapes shop that became a truly world-famous musical force—including the never-before-told tale about the origin of that iconic sign—is probably to want to hear him tell them again.

The program was occasioned by Anderson’s recent announcement that he will close V.I.P. Records due to sluggish business and mounting debt. But his comments throughout the hour kept sparking flickers of hope that Long Beach may not lose another landmark—including plans for an Oct. 23 fundraising show at The Laugh Factory downtown. More on that later this week.

Anderson was joined in what became a very crowded studio by his wife, Michelle, one of V.I.P.’s original employees, Keith Hollis, comedian Ricky Harris and local attorney/erstwhile punk Alex Cherin—all of them drawing from their personal experience to foreshadow what would be lost if V.I.P. disappears.

Greater Long Beach Radio with Dave Wielenga is an hour-a-week of what makes The Most Diverse City in America so amazingly, aggravatingly, appallingly, admirably great—and how, perhaps, it might become greater. The program goes live every Thursday evening at 7 p.m. on KBEACH.org.

Link to all Greater Long Beach Radio podcasts here.