Yes, a holiday, a birthday of sorts, for independently owned record stores! Record Store Day was first started in 2008 at Rasputin in SF with a performance by Metallica. Today, it’s a US-wide event that aims to celebrate the little (and big) record stores that keep chugging on, despite the success of online shopping and homogeneous chains specializing in money-making tastes instead of personally loved treasures.
If you live in the Santa Cruz area, both META Music and Streetlight Records are going to be participating. Meta Music will have live DJs all day long and Streetlight Records is having a BBQ in the afternoon, with live bands and DJs all day, including Stellar Corpses at 6pm, Tetherhorse around 5pm, Rodent at 4:30pm and The Pillow Fights at 4pm (you can call or go into Streetlight for a full schedule).
All stores participating in Record Store Day will have limited edition vinyl available for sale. This shit is not available online, not available at Borders, not available at Target and certainly worth a lookout. KZSC personally just received limited edition vinyl from Devo, Bruce Springsteen, Built to Spill, Passion Pit, and Gogol Bordello from our friends at A Man, A Plan, A Canal. There’s some great cover art to be found, including But according to the dude at Streetlight, they’re gonna have dozens of special treats available. So go forth, young ones, and show the curators of your local record stores how much they mean to you!
The Built to Spill 7-inch has some awesome cover art
aaaand the DEVO cover art is wonderful
About the author
Music Director - Our music director takes more dance classes than academic classes, collects noisemakers, sups on soup in the wintertime, and still finds time to read Susan Stryker's "Transgender History" to KZSC's pet seahorse.