A Ho-Hum Record Store Day

Some people get excited for Christmas or St. Patrick's Day. I get up for Record Store Day. This is the day when we celebrate God's gift of records and the independent stores who sell them to the masses. April 18, 2009 is Record Store Day.

Of course, I live in Misery. I've complained (some say "whined") before about the abysmal record store situation in this god-forsaken place. The letdown on my favorite holiday confirmed these feelings.

To be fair, last year's Record Store Day was a great one, hard to equal. Some of us headed to STL for the famous Vintage Vinyl - a real record store - before hitting the New Porno/Okkervil show at the Pageant. VV served PBR to its customers and I picked up some choice records. It was a Record Store Day of which I will tell my grandchildren.

This year was not so great.

For starters, I had to work today. I realize that is not COMO's or Record Store Day's fault. It is what it is. On top of that, it was rainy and miserable all day.

While at work, my sister texted me that she was going to buy me one of those live Pavement LP's at her store in Cincinnati. She quickly dashed my hopes, though when she texted back that there was a limit of one per person.

Eventually, I was able to finish work and head to the only record store officially recognizing Record Store Day in town. Little was going on when I entered Slackers this afternoon. There were supposed to be some bands playing later, but I didn't really have time to check that out. I did wonder however, why last weekend's Bathtime was not held during Record Store Day. I'm sure there's a plausible explanation for this. (An explanation that I'm sure one of the the Bathy kids will share in the comments. In truth, I'm just bummed that I missed the festivities last week.)

I sifted through the vinyl and was not overly impressed. So, I grabbed a Thermals' record I do not yet own and the re-issue of Mission of Burma's Vs. The only Record Store Day exclusives were a few uninteresting seven inches and some freebies. The highlight was the sweet Record Store Day bag and a RSD/Def Jam turntable pad the clerk gave me with my purchase.

Record Store Day this year was a bust. I'm writing this as my sister is witnessing the Breeders in her store. Maybe next year I'll plan to drive to a store and a proper Record Store Day celebration.

How did you Record Store Day pan out?