Saturday is Record Store Day
Since 2007, the third Saturday of every April has been Record Store Day, a day when many of the nation's independent record stores come together with musicians and consumers to celebrate the art of music via limited edition releases, in-store performances, and bounteous swag.
We Austinites love our record stores: there's nothing quite like traipsing down to End of an Ear or Backspin or Breakaway Records, digging through the crates, alternately laughing at or admiring the artwork, conversing with the clerks. Who knows--maybe you'll leave with something you had never heard of before, or rediscover an old favorite. It all fosters a sense of community that's missing from the iTunes store, and this harebrained notion that music can be a physical thing that you own and love.
Those are all reasons to patronize your favorite local vinyl depot any day of the year, but the array of in-store performances make Record Store Day particularly enticing. This year, The Zoltars will play at Trailer Space Records (where, supposedly, owner Spot will give you an addition 50% off if you can shotgun three beers in three minutes), while Apache Dropout fuzz things up at End of an Ear at 5pm. The staff at Breakaway Records will be DJing and dishing out free beer and pizza all day.
At Waterloo Records, Eric Johnson will sign copies of his latest record at 3pm, before The Toadies perform at 5pm. Waterloo will also have a number of limited Record Store Day exclusives in stock. The list is typically extensive, but some of our favorites are an unreleased single by the 13th Floor Elevators, a "test pressing" edition of Big Star's Third (of which 1 in 300 will contain actual test pressings from the original sessions), Daft Punk's Tron: Legacy soundtrack (the vinyl looks like the identity discs from the film), a 78 RPM double 10" pressing of The Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" b/w "Heroes & Villains" with alternate takes of each track on the second disc, and The Black Angels first two EPs re-packaged into Another Nice Pair, pressed on red vinyl. But that is really just the snowflake on the tip of the iceberg. There is so, so much more.
If you're not already compelled to go out and support our local record stores, I'll leave it to this year's R.S.D. ambassador, Ozzy Osbourne, to order your attendance:
A list of participating record stores:
Out of the Past Collectibles (5341 Burnet Road)
Antone’s Record Shop (2928 Guadalupe)
Musicmania (3909 D North IH 35 Suite 1)
End of an Ear (2209 South 1st C)
BackSpin Records (4631 Airport Blvd. Suite 110-A)
Cheapo (914 North Lamar)
Snake Eyes Vinyl (1101 Navasota Ste. 3)
Waterloo Records (600A N. Lamar)
Immortal Performances (1404 West 30th St.)
Encore Records (1745 West Anderson Lane)
Trailer Space Records (1401-A Rosewood Ave.)
