Record Store Day 2011

Happy Record Store Day!

Here in Seattle, it was kind of a zoo but worth it. In five short years, RSD has grown from a relatively obscure event for music freaks to a pretty major event for collectors and hipsters. Still, it's a marvelous event for real music fans who actually buy their stuff and the independent music stores where the record shop experience still exists. (big chains are excluded from participation - this is not 'nam, there are rules). RSD is an occasion on which to find all kinds of vinyl awesomeness: from vintage re-issues to exclusive limited-editions and everything in between, the allegedly-dead music industry manages to produce a great deal of high-quality stuff for this annual occasion (this was RSD's fifth year).

Glad I live in Seattle. There's only 1 participating store in Boston and 3 in Cambridge (Newbury Comics is too big and corporately owned to qualify). 3 in Memphis, 5 in Nashville. 12 in Austin. 14 in San Francisco. 30 in Chicago. 15 in Portland, OR. 4 in Portland, ME. 27 in Seattle. I'll compute the RSD location-per-capita soon, but this appears to be a rare case of Seattle WIN-ING in the matter of a city being good at something. Huh.

This Year's Booty:


9am: Easy Street. There were already about 100 people inside and out, and it was a hipster free for all (many 20-30somethings who wouldn't know a Marquee Moon from a Television if it (album or tube) crawled up their inner thigh and got friendly). The store has a lot of retail product display by the check-out counter and they just didn't set things up or plan any crowd control for what's guaranteed to be the busiest day of the year. The place was full of bodies, nobody knew where the line was or where it began, etc. but while browsing was a bitch luckily as 3-4 lines ultimately met around the same homestretch to the register, everyone was laid-back about merging in a fair way. The dynamic resembled something like what the manufacturing industry might call a supervisor-free environment, a self-directed workforce. We all had our booty in-hand, so why beef about the line(s) situation? A table with a couple hundred records collapsed when the sleeve that keeps one of the legs straight snapped. The business end of it landed on my foot but no harm, no foul, a staffer came over and dealt with it.

10am:
Sonic Boom. A similar but less feeding-frenzy-oriented clusterfuck than Easy Street. It was far easier to browse but the line moved slower (one of their two registers was on the fritz, compared to Easy Street's three working registers). The upside to the long and slow-moving line is that I grabbed a first-run 1989 Sub Pop issue Screaming Trees double 7" of Change Has Come b/w Days (black vinyl) + Time Speaks Her Golden Tongue b/w Flashes (white vinyl), and an Ohio Players LP. Neither were RSD releases but stellar grabs none the less.

11am:
Finally, I hit Everyday Music which was more laid back, the rush being over, but as their 7" and 12" sides were placed at far ends of the store and not right in front of the register, something tells me the aforementioned clusterf**k registered at a noticeably more palatable click a couple hours ago. No lines, grabbed a few things.

7":
Freddy King - Wash Out (alt. take) b/w Butterscotch reissue
Death Cab For Cutie - In Living Stereo! RSD Exclusive
Urge Overkill - Effigy (2010 UO Records) b/w Thekidsareinsane (1991 Touch & Go) reissue, green vinyl
Buck Owens - Close Up the Honky Tonks b/w My Heart Skips a Beat (early versions)

10":
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band - Gotta Get That Feeling b/w Racing in the Street '78 live from the Carousel, Asbury Park

12":
Gorillaz - The Fall LP
Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues b/w Grown Oceans single
Bob Dylan - Live at Brandeis University 1963 LP
Lady Gaga - Born This Way single + 3 remixes picture disc EP (5,000 pressed)
Skip James - Today! LP (Vanguard re-issue)

Free stuff:
Sub Pop - Terminal Sales Vol. 4 comp., magnificently packaged and awesome track listing of new stuff (CD)
Universal RSD Sampler (CD)
Epitaph Winter/Spring 2011 Sampler (CD)
Universal "Lift Every Voice And Sing" gospel comp. (CD)
Select-O-Hits comp. (CD)
Thomas Dybdahl / Laura Jansen split single (Decca 7")
The Right to D.I.Y. (double album 12" by Brown Paper Tickets)
Soundgarden - 3 buttons

Also among the free swag, I got this neat shopping bag:


Not a bad little outing. Maybe I'll take Monday off work. You know. Record Store Day observed.