Today is the fourth annual Record Store Day where the few remaining record stores around the world promote and sell vinyl long-playing (LP) records, as well as an assortment of 7 and 10-inch records. Bands like Television, the dbs, Big Star, the Dead and many others are releasing remastered albums. Even Lady Gaga's getting into the vinyl act.
Compared to today's music mode of bits, clicks and downloads, there was something tangible, social and hopeful about record buying. The trip to the record store with friends, jockeying in cramped aisles to flip through the album stacks, reading the covers, talking with the owner . . . and not really knowing what you'd end up hearing at home beyond the few singles that got all the air play.
I remember buying Beatles, Stones, Doors, Who and Airplane LPs at Kleins of Westport as a boy in the 60s. Years later there was more rock and punk album buying at Bleecker Bob's on West 3rd Street and Rocks in Your Head on Prince Street. Then came CDs and megastores like Tower Records and Virgin, which eventually closed too when we all went online with amazon and iTunes.
This year's Record Store Day ambassador is Ozzie Osbourne.
OZZY RSD Ambassador from Record Store Day on Vimeo.
Remember the long-haired, cool t-shirt-wearing record store owners who knew everything? They're fewer in number but still there.
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