It's the most musical time of the year!
Well, there are a lot of big music days here in Austin: ACL, SouthBy, Old Settlers, Fun Fun Fun, Willie's birthday, etc. If you're going to start calling yourself the Live Music Capital of the World, you'd better be prepared to back it up. So maybe Record Store Day isn't the biggest, but it really shows off a good side of Austin: the great indie record store scene.
For the uninitiated, Record Store Day is a celebration of great recorded music and the retail outlets that bring it to you. As told by the official website: "This is the one day that all of the independently owned record stores come together with artists to celebrate the art of music. Special vinyl and CD releases and various promotional products are made exclusively for the day and hundreds of artists in the United States and in various countries across the globe make special appearances and performances. Festivities include performances, cook-outs, body painting, meet & greets with artists, parades, djs spinning records and on and on."
The list of special releases this year was mouthwatering. Lots of oldies and new stuff as well. Some were even a little of both, like Green Day splitting a 7" with heroes Hüsker Dü with each side featuring a version of the latter's "Don't Wanna Know if You Are Lonely." The old stuff in particular looked really juicy: Re-releases by the 13th Floor Elevators, Yardbirds, Stones, Hendrix, Skip James, Roy Orbison and more, mostly on vinyl. New releases weren't too shabby either, with Panda Bear and Fleet Foxes atop many a turntable-owning indie hipster's wish list. I put some of these on my own list, along with a double vinyl 180 gram edition of Television's Live at the Old Waldorf from 1979.
A friend of mine had warned me that Waterloo Records, the king of local records stores, would be mobbed. I wasn't sure how bad it would be. Rachel and I decided to head over for some breakfast at Counter Cafe, since the food is great and it is strategically located between Waterloo and Cheapo Discs, another of Austin's many participating stores (see list at bottom).
Turned out my friend was spot on though, because after breakfast, five minutes before opening time at Waterloo there was a line of a couple hundred people waiting to get in. Seriously? It looked like a bunch of scruffy young adults at the conclusion of a pilgrimage to some great shrine. I guess music is truly a religion here.
Hoping for a better scene, we headed to Cheapo, which opened at the same time. Over there, only a dozen or so people were waiting. I figured maybe the selection would be pretty limited, but I was able to get my hands on lots of what I was looking for. I scored a couple of 7" oldies singles, a 10" Springsteen single and some live Sonic Youth as well as that Television record. The last two were pretty colors, too!
Spinning colored vinyl on Record Store Day
In addition to the vinyl take, we got some great freebies as well: A bag with odds and ends and about a dozen sampler CDs. Good stuff too - listening to Sub Pop while I type, with a Coachella sampler on deck. And we didn't even take the free Seether t-shirt! Not sure what the line at Waterloo was all about. When the line there was too big for any reasonable person to endure, Cheapo was there for us!
Our take -- purchased (top) and shwagadelic (bottom)
We were away the last couple of Record Store Days, so I had been looking forward to this one since I saw mention of it. I ended up only hitting up one of the many stores, but expectations were met nonetheless. Already looking forward to the next one.
Participating Stores in Austin
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