Record Store Day

I don't really mess with wallets anymore. The last time I had a wallet, it was an ill leather one that my grandfather had given me at the age of 7 with the hopes that I'd grow into it someday. Sadly, at age 20, it was stolen out of the glove compartment of my 1991 Toyota Celica. And with it, the only three pieces of plastic I'd seen fit to keep to that point; my driver's license, my ATM card, and my Buzzbin card from "The Wall." The point of this very muddled story: I wish I had a real record store to chill at while I was coming up in the world.

Some people still do, somehow, some way. I'm not sure how the little guy still manages to hack out a living in the age we live in, but I respect their swag and so should you.

Tomorrow is Record Store Day, a global movement that started out in 2007 to foster support for the indie record store, which is as much about music as it is about community. To prove it, many participating record stores are offering food, drinks, giveaways, and live performances.

From the website:

A Record Store Day participating store is defined as a physical retailer whose product line consists of at least 50% music retail, whose company is not publicly traded and whose ownership is at least 70% located in the state of operation. (In other words, we’re dealing with real, live, physical, indie record stores—not online retailers or corporate behemoths).

It's a global movement, peep the website for participating stores. Performers include, but are definitely not limited to:

Prefuse 73 and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart @ Other Music in NYC
Bouncing Souls @ Generation Records in NYC
Talib Kweli, DJ Premier, Sputnik Brown, and others @ Fat Beats
Queensryche @ Music Millenium in Portland
Youth Group @ Main Street Music in Philly
Gorilla Zoe @ Spin Street in Memphis
The Cannabinoids f/ Erykah Badu @ Good Records in Dallas
Silversun Pickups @ Rasputin Music and DVD's in Berkeley, CA
The Black Lips @ Zia Records in Tuscon, AZ
Ra Ra Riot @ Flat Black and Circular in East Lansing, MI


Check the website www.recordstoreday.com for more info.