Saturday, April 22 is the tenth Record Store Day, that annual event to “celebrate the culture of the independently owned record store” and its nice to know that the ambassador for this year’s event is US indie songstress, St. Vincent.
Even though Wellington City Libraries is obviously not an independently owned record store, we like to feel that we support those brave bastions of independent music by purchasing most of the items in our vinyl collection from them….and we love music!
The first Record Store Day, which grew from an idea in Baltimore USA in 2007, is recognized as the event that helped spark the spectacular return of the vinyl medium which led to the equally spectacular return of the WCL Vinyl collection!
The event has proved incredibly successful, with vinyl sales increasing significantly every year. Highlights from the last 10 years have included: 2008’s live appearance of Metallica; 2012’s 400 specially released singles, 12”s, LP’s and picture discs from the likes of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, The Stooges, Abba, David Bowie and James Brown; and the Smashing Pumpkins kicking off a tour with a special Record Store Day concert in Hollywood.
The official ambassador for the fourth event was Ozzy Osbourne and over six-hundred artists, including the Beastie Boys, the Foo Fighters and Duran Duran celebrated the event with in-store appearances, making it the world’s largest music event of its kind. While in 2013, UK electronic tricksters Boards of Canada launched a viral marketing campaign for their much anticipated new album, ‘Tomorrow’s Harvest’, by secretly planting a single vinyl advance copy in a New York City record store for purchase.
All in all a lot of fun, a publicist’s dream come true and a hey-day for vinyl collectors and fetishists worldwide. This year, watch out for events at Wellington’s Slowboat Records, Rough Peel and Death Ray Records.
And while we are on the subject of vinyl records, music lovers are sure to find something to please them amongst the latest additions to WCL’s ever growing vinyl collection which includes: the new album by the Shins, ‘Heartworms’; ‘Damage and Joy’, the first Jesus and Mary Chain album in almost 20 years; ‘I See You’ by the XX; the excellent electronic album from Wellington’s Cave Circles aka Rikki Gooch, ‘My Heart is a Beating Drum’; David Bowie’s Philly soul classic ‘Young Americans’ and the Doors’ 1967 legendary first album ‘The Doors’.
So much music, so little time!
My heart is a beating drum. [VINYL]