Record Store Day 2010

TODAY is National Record Store Day, a time to celebrate and look back at an institution dying the same slow death as delis, jazz and newspapers. But with some great moments left and some great moments ahead.

HERE is a previous post on Record Store Day that gets into my own personal history with record shops, and includes an article about record store clerks in LA, especially at Amoeba Music.

I'm also reviving a post on the great American folk-blues fingerpicking guitarist John Fahey, who like me is a Marylander who moved to the West Coast. One of his records is being reissued today in honor of Record Store Day. My post here.

National Record Store Day

TODAY is, they tell me, national record store day... it's hard not to be both excited and sadly nostalgic. i've been haunting record stores in every city and town i've ever lived in -- severna park maryland; middletown, ct; brighton, england; baltimore; chapel hill; new london/mystic, ct; LA -- and almost every place i've visited. okay, i'm a junkie.

i loved newberry comics in boston, waterloo in austin, and the now-shuttered schoolkids in chapel hill... not to mention other music in new york. and pickadilly in manchester, UK!

HERE is a piece i wrote about LA's greatest record store clerks. it should surprise nobody when i point out that several of the stores in question have closed since i reported the story. either way, a lot of my education, musical and otherwise, came from hanging out in (and working in) record stores.

and here is an ap story on natl record store day.

a friend is writing a book about great record stores. what are my illustrious readers favorites?

sigh.

Photo credit: Flickr user rocknroll_guitar