A Plethora of Goodies From Record Store Day
T’s Take:
Ah Record Store Day… my favorite of all the holidays. A day where holiday spirit means audiophiles around the country waking up at dawn’s butt crack to line up outside of the few independent record stores left in hopes of buying out all the exclusives before the other nerds do. I promised myself that this year would be better than last. Even though I took on a second job this week and had no time to do anything I would make time, for such a day only comes once a year.
I picked up Brother P at 7am and we took a side trip to my work to pick up timecards for me to work on after lunch (in my life outside FSS I do payroll for television shows). After showing P around some of the sets at my work place we hightailed it down the Garden State Parkway to Vintage Vinyl. (NJ’s best remaining record shop after Pier’s Platters in Hoboken lost the fight to Sam Goody so many years ago.)
We got to the parking lot, egg sammiches in hand around 9:15am. Vintage Vinyl would open at 10am, which I made sure of by calling the day prior. You don’t want to leave room for error on a day like this. The audio whores will eat you alive if given the chance. For the first half hour we waited in the car, listening to Teenage Bottlerocket, and laughing at all the people who got there early and pulled on the locked door only to wander off defeated. Eventually a line of sorts started to form and we left the car to wait outside.
When the doors were unlocked everyone filed in, in an orderly fashion and made their way to the glass enclosed counter that held all of the day’s exclusive goodies. I got all that I asked for but not all that I came for. It seems that Vintage Vinyl got the shaft on the Jesus Lizard Singles Box Set. Both their owner and I were less than happy about this. However, I did still manage to get a respectable pile of other wax treats. Among which include: Epitaph’s reissue of Bad Religions first EP on white vinyl; Matador’s Sonic Youth & Beck split single with each covering the other’s songs (Pay No Mind and Green Light respectfully); Elektra’s MC5 and Stooges 45’s; and American’s Slayer Psychopathy Red 7” on clear red wax and packaged in a brown file jacket style folder.
After picking up your limited exclusives you were set off to wander around the rest of the store before paying at the register. As I wandered through the depths of a truly immense and daunting store I kept noticing other shoppers carrying 12” Pavement singles that looked exactly like the ones that Matador shipped with their recent reissue of Brighten the Corners. The difference being the cover of the ones I was noticing were orange and not purple like the one I had at home. I browsed some more and even helped two patrons find the Oasis 12” exclusive that was hidden in the new release section. I don’t like Oasis but wouldn’t hold that against their fans. Eventually though the war inside my brain regarding whether or not the Pavement albums I’d been seeing where the same as the one I already owned reached a fever pitch and I went to one of the record store clerks to find out. Good news. Bad news. Yes it was different. No they didn’t have any left.
I blew it. I had gotten up a 6am on a Saturday so that I wouldn’t, but I still blew it. I found Brother P to tell him all about it. Not a Pavement fan himself, I think he still felt my pain as he scurried around trying to find out what section housed any Thee Headcoats albums. I quickly took up his cause and continued the search. On my way I saw a young man with the Pavement album and stopped to chat him up and ask what exactly made it different than the one I already owned. My Oasis 12” directing karma came back and this gentleman (in the truest sense of the word) informed me that he had gotten two copies for he and a friend but his friend hadn’t shown up yet and the store wouldn’t let him buy more than one copy for himself. He then gave me his friend’s copy.
P never did find any Thee Headcoats but I have it on good authority that he’s getting some for his birthday from one Brother T this weekend.
Vinyl Junkies helping fellow Record Nerds. The true spirit of Record Store Day!
P’s Take:
Vinyl is making a comeback, it’s undeniable. Companies are going back to the format for releases old and new. It’s getting easier and easier to find records in even mainstream music stores. Even Jay Leno is holding up vinyl sleeves for his musical guests on the Tonight Show. Why is this? I think it’s just a case of people finally getting tired of their music sounding like shit. I don’t hate CD’s. I think CD’s can sound great. I just think records can sound better for a lot cheaper.
Brother T and myself celebrated records resurgence with a bunch of other vinyl nerds on the Second Annual Record Store Day at Vintage Vinyl, an excellent independent store in Fords, New Jersey. We arrived about a half an hour before the doors opened and found that there were already a good ten people skulking around the parking lot waiting to get in. The freebies you got for coming out, a little bag with a couple free compilation CD’s for modest purchases and a big tote bag full of stuff for if you dropped more than 50 dollars, were definitely a draw for some. I’m sure some attendees were going to slap said purchases on eBay for a quick cynical buck but it looked like, for the most part, that those who showed up were just there because they love music and love the format.
Once they opened the doors we were rewarded. Record Store Day exclusive 7 inches were available behind the counter from all kinds of bands: A split from Jay Reatard and Sonic Youth, a live Tom Waits, Mc5 and Stooges re-releases and even Bruce Springsteen. On the store speakers they played Bob Dylan’s new album for the first time anywhere. I didn’t care, but it was still pretty cool. Me and T picked up our albums from the counter than milled about the place for about an hour, just checking stuff out.
Record Store Day is important for a lot of reasons. You have to support your local independent shop, it can’t be Walmart all the time everywhere. Exclusive records are always awesome. But most importantly it is necessary to send a message to the industry that vinyl has been and always will be THE format.
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