Celebrate Record Store Day and Support Indie Stores and Artists
Every music lover knows that rush you get when you’re at a concert or a music festival, surrounded by other people who love music, soaking up the atmosphere and enveloping yourself in great sounds. You know where else you can get that same experience? Inside a record store.
Here at Madison Records, not only do we love spending hours browsing through music at our favorite local record store, we appreciate how local businesses support our own artists by promoting their performances and selling their music.
Now there’s a way to enjoy the thrill of a concert and the high that comes from a great find at a record store all at once -- Record Store Day!
This year on Saturday, April 13, independent record stores around the world will be celebrating with carnivals, concerts, new releases and special promotions. It’s a way to support artists and musicians, and bring people into the stores to enjoy the unique experiences you can have while shopping locally.
The first Record Store Day was celebrated 12 years ago. It was the brainstorm of Eric Levin of Criminal Records after seeing Free Comic Book Day and how it helped bring people into comic book stores. “We wanted something that would bring a focus on the joy of shopping locally, and physically,” Eric said. “Customers crave a real interaction, and being in a store where you can browse through records and talk with people knowledgeable about the industry is a real draw.”
Eric collaborated with other independent music store owners Michael Kurtz and Carrie Colliton to get things up and running. That first year a few titles were released specifically on that day, and Metallica spent hours at Rasputin Music in San Francisco, meeting their fans and helping support the record stores that make it possible for them to find success in their music.
Today Eric, Michael and Carrie are joined by Michael Bunnell, and Record Store Day has grown to include stores on every continent except Antarctica. The number of artists releasing special music or recordings that day has also grown. One of this year’s special releases comes from Pearl Jam, the 2019 Record Store Day Ambassadors. The band announced the release of their 2005 performance at Seattle’s Easy Street Records for Record Store Day. This is just one of many exciting new releases fans can purchase at their local record stores on April 13.
Our friends at Criminal Records in Atlanta will be celebrating all day with special activities including voter registration and representatives from Girls Rock camp, as well as local DJs performing all afternoon and acoustic performances by Nathan Hardy of Microwave and Timothy Showalter of Strand of Oaks.
Make plans to go out and enjoy fun activities, great music and lots of excitement at Criminal Records or your own favorite record store on April 13 and all throughout the year.
