Happy Record Store Day, readers! This day of celebration is something near and dear to my heart: I worked in record stores for nearly a decade, first at a chain called Record Factory here in Northern California, and then at Tower Records. I met incredible people, had incredible times, and even though it might have been frustrating at times for the regular ol' reasons of daily work in a retail environment (it can wear ya down), I look back on my time in record stores with great fondness.
Here is a bit of history about Record Store Day:
Record Store Day was conceived in 2007 at a gathering of independent record store owners and employees as a way to celebrate and spread the word about the unique culture surrounding nearly 1400 independently-owned record stores in the US and thousands of similar stores internationally. The first Record Store Day took place on April 19, 2008. Today, Record Store Day is celebrated at independently-owned brick-and-mortar record stores around the world.
This is a day for the people who make up the world of the record store—the staff, the customers, and the artists—to come together and celebrate the unique culture of a record store and the special role they play in their communities. Special vinyl and CD releases and various promotional products are made exclusively for the day. Festivities include performances, cook-outs, body painting, meet & greets with artists, parades, DJs spinning records, and on and on. In 2008 a small list of titles was released on Record Store Day and that list has grown to include artists and labels both large and small, in every genre and price point. For several years, 60% or more of the Record Store Day Official Release List came from independent labels and distributors. The list continues to include a wide range of artists, covering the diverse taste of record stores and their customers.
On the first Record Store Day, Metallica spent hours at Rasputin Music in San Francisco meeting their fans and now each year hundreds of artists—both internationally famous and from the block--flock to record stores around the world for performances, signings, meet and greets and to fill their own shopping bags with music. In 2009, Jesse "Boots Electric" Hughes (Eagles of Death Metal) declared himself the "Record Store Day Ambassador" as a way of shouting out how important the stores were to artists and since then Joshua Homme (Eagles of Death Metal, Them Crooked Vultures, Queens of the Stone Age), Ozzy Osbourne, Iggy Pop, Jack White, Chuck D, Dave Grohl, Metallica, St. Vincent, Run The Jewels, Pearl Jam, Brandi Carlile, Fred Armisen and Taylor Swift have worn the annual ceremonial sash.
Throughout its 15 years, cities across the United States, including New York City, Los Angeles, Boise, Charleston, Raleigh and Las Vegas have declared Record Store Day an official holiday. In 2013, Co-Founder Michael Kurtz was made a Chevalier of the Ordre Des Arts et Des Letters in France, honoring Record Store Day's contribution to the cultural and artistic life of the French people. That same year, the organizers of Record Store Day accepted the Independent Spirit Award from NARM (now the Music Biz Association). In 2015, Record Store Day was named the Marketplace Ally of the Year by A2IM, an organization of independent music labels.
So visit the Record Store Day site linked below to see a list of what artists are releasing tracks especially for the day. And visit your nearest actual, real record store!
https://recordstoreday.com/Home
