Happy Record Store Day! Go out and grab some sweet vinyl and music from all your favorite bands. Tons of bands have special things planned today, including store appearances, special releases and more. Check them out here and then get outside. It's beautiful out there. We asked good friend, label honcho and record store owner Stevo from 1-2-3-4 Go! Records to give us his thoughts on this year's Second Annual Record Store Day. He reminds us why and how record stores aren't dead, how the internet hasn't killed them and how some major labels still "don't get it." Check it out below and check the Punknews Twitter for some pictures of some stuff we grabbed today. Make sure you send us a reply with pictures of what you got too.
On this the day of the 2nd annual Record Store Day I'm writing to tell you a few things about what records stores aren't.
Firstly, they're not dead. The ubiquitous chains are growing fewer and fewer but newer and smaller more focused stores like mine are cropping up and growing all over the country. Thanks in part to the resurgence of vinyl sales across the board and the increasing amount of conscious consumers out there. Even in hard times like these people are seeing the value of smaller more local stores and going out of their way to support them over the giants like Best Buy or Target. I'd mention Tower or Virgin but those points are moot now. Anyway…We offer a more focused selection and include a lot of independent bands they don't have the courage or foresight to support. Which means there's less garbage to wade through with us and a more friendly environment to shop in. I kind of doubt you're going to get to BS about music and find out what records you've never heard of are good from the clerk at Best Buy. A local independent record store is more than a place to drop money and walk away with some product. Although if you're the shy retiring type it can be. To me a local store is a place to pick up on music coming from as close as one of your neighbors down the block to as far away as you can imagine all in one spot. And it's not coming at you as some huge unfiltered mess like the internet can be.
Which brings me to my second point. The internet has not made stores obsolete. I'm not here to bash the internet by any means. I personally do quite a bit of business on it and I think it is a very valuable tool for people who don't have access to stores like mine in their home towns. However I think a physical location run by someone who loves music is something very valuable to the community that it's in and potentially the world at large. Plenty of bands have been started by folks who bumped in to each other at the local record store and got to talking about music. Plenty of local bands got their start because a record store clerk stocked their records, played them in the store and turned people on to them. Not to say that a record store is some magical fairyland where everyone's dreams come true but they've been a huge and very positive part of my life over the last 15 or so years and have greatly impacted scores of people over the last 100+. It's a difficult business to be in for sure but I believe that if you're on your toes you can make it work. There have been a lot of failures of older stores because they refused to adapt. They were still working on business models created in the 70's and 80's that don't really apply to the way things work today and they didn't want to or didn't realize that they needed to change. The concept of the record store isn't flawed or doomed. Just certain ways of executing that concept.
I'm really pleased with how Record Store Day has evolved since last year. Last year Record Store Day was a non-event for me and my store. All of the exclusive records were being done by WEA. Because I don't run a chain store, WEA would not take my money in exchange for goods and services. Bizarre right? RSD is meant to promote local stores like mine and yet all WEA would do is pay lip service to us but not actually provide us with the goods that would benefit us. Thankfully this year is an almost complete reversal. Indie labels by the scores are coming out with RSD exclusives left and right and this year I have access to (and will be selling) probably 90% of what's available. I've got exclusive records from everyone from Sonic Youth to The Thermals to Jay Reatard to Jesus Lizard to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and way beyond. And I didn't have to beg anyone to get access to them. It's a miracle. The system is working! Much much much respect to Matador, Touch & Go, Sub Pop and all the other labels who recognize the importance of independent record stores and went out of their way to put these releases out for us…and a year later…still a huge "fuck you" to WEA for last years debacle and their continued unwillingness to work with small stores. But I digress. If you haven't already, open a phone book or do a google search for record stores in your area and get out of the house today. I promise we're not all dicks like you saw in Hi-Fidelity and we've got a ton of rad records for you to buy.