Record Store Day 2012!

Your Black Friday traditions might include trying to find retail bargains, sleeping off your food coma, or putting up your Christmas tree. As usual, my family goes in a totally different direction. Our tradition, which is in its second year, is twofold: some of us (Jim and the boys) leave bright and early to hike in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and some of us (my sister and me, joined by Mom this year) head out to celebrate Record Store Day!

Record Store Day celebrates vinyl and the idea of actually holding your music in your hands rather than using a digital file: believe it or not there ARE still record stores out there. Many of them participate in the festivities (the Record Store Day website lists participating stores so if you aren’t sure what’s in your area that’s a good place to look), and if you go out early enough on Record Store Day you might be able to snag some special edition vinyl albums released by certain bands just for the occasion.

The stores don’t get all of the special releases: they are sent random selections so you have to either call the stores to find out if they have what you want, or just go there and take your chances. My sister had a list of the albums that she wanted to get, and I mainly wanted to look around since none of the publicized special releases struck my fancy. I put on my Adam Ant concert t-shirt because YOU KNOW…

Melisa RSD

…and then we hit two stores.

RSD 2012 collage

There’s something about being surrounded by vinyl record albums. I can’t even explain it.

Vinyl

The first store we visited, Disc Exchange, was pretty big and there were lots of people in line at opening time to see if they could get their hands on the special releases they wanted. It was a pretty tame and friendly crowd, so that was good. I didn’t find anything there. I looked in the racks and racks of albums but didn’t make any purchases from the “old stuff” because, as you may remember, all I have to do to get my hands on my old favorites is head over to my local ANTIQUE SHOPS (oy).

After Disc Exchange, we went to Raven Records where I struck gold. I didn’t find any albums BUT I scored this really cool shiny, vintage Eurythmics button for four bucks. I was even more psyched about it when I flipped it over and discovered that it was even made in England. British Invasion FTW!

Eurythmics

I have to add that my t-shirt sparked some attention. The guys at Disc Exchange commented when I walked in, “Great shirt! Did you see him recently? I hear he’s touring!”

I said, “Yep, we saw him last month: he was AWESOME!!”

Conversely, at Trader Joe’s on the way home, the cashier glanced at my shirt and chuckled. “Adam Ant! I wonder what he’s up to now…”

I said, “He’s touring! I just saw him and he was fantastic!”

“Really?” she said. “Good for him!”

Yes, and good for me.

All in all, a pretty fun day. We didn’t go anywhere near the heavy crowds, had a stress-free couple of hours out in town, and came home for a turkey sandwich lunch.

What did YOU do today?

4 Comments

  • Ally Bean

    Funny you’d talk about vinyl today. Yesterday, over Thanksgiving dinner, we got talking about our old 45s. Everyone of a certain age knew what we were talking about, but those of later generations just looked at us like we were nuttier than usual.

    And to answer your question: I focused on getting booze & serving dishes & pretty things for a big Holiday party that we’re having in a few weeks. Not at all crowded in the stores I went to. *yeah*

  • Tara R.

    I think our kids are missing out by not having vinyl albums. All that fabulous cover art, the liner notes, it’s just not the same buying music as an MP3 download.

  • Liz

    I love this post! And, as mentioned on Tara R.’s post (mentioning this post, here) it is about time I take out and dust off our record collection, maybe even post about it, even. Yay for record art!!!