Record Store Day is Saturday!
Is your favorite record store participating? Head to recordstoreday.com/Venues to find out for sure, and be sure to call ahead in case they want to reveal what special items they’ll have in stock, and a good chunk of them will have food, in-store performances, discounts and food!
Last year’s stunning “test-master” edition of Big Star‘s Third will be hard to top, and be on the lookout for one-off collaborations or split singles, like when Bon Iver and Peter Gabriel covered each other in 2010. This year’s hottest item appears to be The Flaming Lips & Heady Fwends, a multi-colored, double-vinyl-only collection that features collaborations with Kesha, Bon Iver, Nick Cave, Yoko Ono, Chris Martin, and Erykah Badu, among others. Separately, the Lips get covered by Mastodon on Warner Bros. newly annual “Side By Side” campaign. On the novelty end of collectibles, the Tompkins Square label is issuing a pair of 78 rpm records, by Luther Dickinson and Ralph Stanley, respectively. The Record Store Day website reminds us that not all stores will order or even receive the same items, so it’s a good idea to A) double-check that your fave is participating and B) maybe give a call to see what they might be thinking of ordering.
Over at Chicago Reader, Peter Margasak takes issue with local reissue label Numero Group, who will have their own one-day shop open at Empty Bottle — an affront, he says, to the mom-and-pops who battle it out the other 365 days of the leap year.
