Record Store Day 2013

 

Imagine, finally walking into to the store after waiting in line for an hour, walking fastly up to the bin sitting on the makeshift counter, rustling through the stack of records, to find the last copy of your favorite band’s special release, and you are the proud owner of it. That is the beauty and wonderfulness of record store day.

Record Store Day first started in 2007, and is every third Saturday of April, it usually has either new music, that is limted edition, or old music repressed that is also limited edition, mostly just pressed on record format, yeah that’s right records, not C.D.’s.

Record Store Day happens at many independent record stores. The closest to Oxford is at Shake-It Records, in Northside, Cincinnati, which is the only one I’ve been to and the other is Everybody’s Records, also in Cincinnati.

Shake-it  looks small but on the inside it has a first floor with C.D.’s and cassettes and then the basement is the record part of the store, and they have an overwhelmingly amount of C.D.’s, cassettes and records, which is a music lover’s heaven.

Some of this year’s releases included the Black Lips split 7” record with the band Icky Blossoms, it has a new song from the Black Lips on it, which is to show what is to be expected on their new album coming out later this year, maybe the winter or early next year, a 7” record of Jimi Hendrix, “Hey Joe”, and “Stone Free” on the other side, Mgmt’s cassingle, which is a cassette, but like a 45 or 7” record, just has one song the A side and one on the B side, which also is to show new music coming off of their new album coming out this year, Phoenix’s 7” record, again new music off their new upcoming album, Pink Floyd’s “See Emily Play” and “Scarecrow” on the the B side, Ty Segall, T-Rex 7”, and last The Shangri-Las 7”, “Remember (Walkin’ In The Sand).

I decided to go down to Shake-It this year. When I got there, there was still a line to get into the store. It took about 30 minutes just to get to the door of the store. Once I finally was in, I decided go downstairs because of the line for the Record Store Day releases was still moving at a dreadfully slow pace.

Downstairs was much more relieving, even though it was still a little crowded down there. When you’re in love with music and vinyl, and have only twenty dollars to spend, then a record store is the most overwhelming thing to go through. I spent roughly 30 to 40 minutes downstairs going in the same circle, looking at the same records like, Thee Oh Sees, Beirut, Fleet Foxes, and Country Joe and The Fish, and more, even finding something I didn’t see the first time.

I was also feeling adventurous, willing to buy a record by the way the cover looks. I finally came across this record with a hypnotizing edited photo cover of a highway in the desert and on the other side, just the desert. The band was Holy Wave.

Holy Wave is a psychedelic band from Austin, Texas. Since I impulsively bought this record I don’t know much more about the band. They’ve been around since 2011. They sound like the were from the 1960’s. The vocals almost always reverbed, the guitars drenched with reverb with either light distortion, or a tremolo effect on it, then the keyboards sound like a dirty, grungy organ, or an organ from the ‘60’s with tremolo effect added. The bass is usually not able to be heard. The drums have the usual ‘60’s rock beat/psychedelic rock beats.

So even though I didn’t come out with any special record store day releases, and went with my instincts of thinking “this record looks like it’ll sound really awesome”, I left a happy record owner, and so did my friend Dillon, leaving with Bon Iver’s “Bon Iver” that came out last year. Next year, Dillon and I plan on being those guys who get there around 6 or 6:30 in the morning, and waiting 3 hours, to be the first in and get our hands on the wonderful, special Record Store Day releases.