The 3rd annual Record Store Day — a celebration of independently owned record stores — took place on Saturday, April 17th. A number of special vinyl and CD releases are made available exclusively for Record Store Day, and on top of that, bands and musicians make special in-store appearances.
This has become a world-wide event, and in Toronto alone there are at least twelve stores that participate. Criminal Records and Sonic Boom are two of those stores that had festivities planned, including a performance by Sloan in the evening at Sonic Boom. Consequence Of Sound has a great list of special releases that were made available for Record Store Day 2010.
Our own Jen Polk and Julie Lavelle were out celebrating Record Store Day, acquiring some music and taking advantage of the free in-store shows, and Melody Lau was working at Criminal Records for the day. I asked them to share some of their experiences:
Sticky Magazine: What music did you purchase during Record Store Day?
Jen: I bought Dinosaur Bones' Ice Hotel/Royalty 7" Vinyl and Great Lake Swimmers' The Legion Sessions CD, both at Criminal Records.
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| Photo by: Patrick Pentland (of Sloan) |
Julie: I had to work until 4:00pm that day, so I knew I wouldn't get what I wanted, so Frank from Chromewaves offered to pick up some things for me. I got the Modest Mouse 10th anniversary vinyl reissue of The Moon And Antarctica, as well as the Monsters Of Folk double LP on clear blue vinyl!
Sticky Magazine: Nice. Did you get to see any performances?
Jen: Melody and I went to see Sloan perform at Sonic Boom! Patrick Pentland took a photo from stage. You can see both of us in the shot, sort of in the middle, and Frank is in the bottom-left.
Julie: I went to see and photograph The Tallest Man On Earth at Criminal Records.
Jen: Without knowing who it was at the time, I told Kristian Matsson (a.k.a. The Tallest Man On Earth) that I loved Joanna Newsom’s new album — he went to the cash to pick it up; he was just behind me in line.
Sticky Magazine: So even the artists were out spending money on other artists. Were the stores busy?
Melody: At Criminal Records, there were 20+ people already in line before we opened at 9:30am. And then once we opened, there was a line all the way outside for the first 2 hours!
The next Record Store Day is scheduled for April 16th, 2011.
