Record Store Day 2011

TOMORROW, Saturday, is dedicated to an endangered species that had an important role in raising yours truly: the humble record shop. Record Store Day was launched in 2007 to recognize and help preserve independent shops, which have taken a serious beating from the economy, predatory chains and the music's shift online.

The holiday includes various live events, sales, cookouts, and so on. (Check out that website and the ones run by your favorite store.) Here is a post by an old friend about Providence-area record stores.

Anyone who loves a record store -- and these days Amoeba Hollywood, Rockaway Records in Silverlake and Pasadena's Canterbury are some of my favorites -- knows that the experience of visiting one is much richer than calling up iTunes or dropping into a typical mall store. One of the key differences is the clerks at a good record store.

Two of the favorite pieces I've ever written are these two, about classical and pop music clerks. One of the stores I wrote about -- Tower Classical on Sunset, which had some of the spirit of an indie spirit despite being part of a chain -- has since closed.

I'll see you at the record store...

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