Tomorrow Is Vinyl Saturday...

 

...and you know what that means: It's an official reason/excuse for yer vinyl-centric EIC to buy more wax! Yes, it's true — the folks who bring us that wonderful annual spring event, Record Store Day, are presenting Saturday, June 20, as the inaugural Vinyl Saturday. Among the day's sweet exclusives are limited-edition offerings from the likes of Wilco, Green Day, Pete Yorn/Scarlett Johansson, and Modest Mouse. So get on out to your favorite rekkid store and do yer vinyl duty. And feel free to look for me at my preferred haunt in NJ, Vintage Vinyl. Happy hunting, y'all... —Mike Mettler, S&V EIC

April 18 is Record Store Day!

Worried about the demise of independent record stores nationwide? Then make a date to visit your local "mom and pop" shop this Saturday, April 18 — the second annual Record Store Day.

Bands will play. Special releases will be available. And despite the logo above, this isn't only about vinyl; it's about everything that your local record store offers. Including little things like music knowledge and customer service.

For a complete list of participating stores, product exclusives, in-store performances, and related events, go to recordstoreday.com.

Last year, my photographer son Tony and I went to 4 Record Stores in 1 Record Store Day. Visit that link to get a taste of what the second RSD will be like.

Alas, I will be unavoidably otherwise engaged this Saturday, so I won't be able to do another multistore mecca. But I hope to visit at least one shop before the sun goes down.

Don't let the sun go down on your local record store. Spread the word about Saturday, go to the store, buy some stuff, and buy some more stuff. You'll be glad you did.

— Ken Richardson

Get a free HD audio album at HDtracks

High-definition audio site HDtracks.com is offering a free downloadable sample album of HD music to anyone interested. The HDtracks 96/24 Ultimate Download Experience is a 5-track collection of classical, jazz, and blues music in 96-kHz/24-bit FLAC format.

The album includes the Allegro from Mozart's Violin Concerto in G Major (KV 216), the "Dance of the Tumblers" from Rimsky-Korsakov's The Snow Maiden, Marta Gomez's "Lucia," Harry "Big Daddy" Hypolite's "Big Bad Girl," and Dave's True Story's "Misery." Like all HDtracks albums, the sampler comes with cover art and liner notes in PDF format.

You have to sign up at HDtracks.com to download the album, but it's a completely free download. FLAC files can be played on compatible media players like Winamp, Media Monkey, and Songbird.

— Will Greenwald

Is this Some Kind of Record?!?

The next time your spouse starts needling you to toss out the vinyl records taking up valuable real estate in the living-room bookcase, score some points by explaining that your stockpile pales in comparison to the one now up for sale by Neiman Marcus.

The Dallas-based retailer is offering a private collection that includes every rock and pop single that made it to the Billboard Top 100 from the years 1955 through 1990.

Records 4 Sale

Our fellow bloggers over at Gizmodo uncovered an interesting opportunity. Some guy is selling some records. About 3 million records, along with 300,000 Compact Discs. More than half the records are said to be new. Billed as the World's Greatest Music Collection, it represents a lifelong (60-year) fascination with recorded sound. Now, Paul Mawhinney wants to sell it.

Advancing age and health concerns, and the financial considerations that go with them, are forcing him to part with the summation of his passion. As with any collector who treasures his work, Paul is looking to find a good home for the collection. He's spent over 10 years searching for a buyer, but so far, there haven't been any serious offers. The collection is currently housed in a climate-controlled facility of 16,000 square feet.  The Terms of Sale require . . .

4 Record Stores in 1 Record Store Day

That's what my photographer son Tony and I accomplished last Saturday (April 19) on the first annual Record Store Day. As I announced here previously, RSD is an effort (spearheaded by indie-shop organizations) to remind people that, yes, record stores still exist. And on Saturday, some participating shops had specials, and some even had in-store appearances, such as the one you see above: The Parlor Mob at Jack's Music Shoppe. For more on that and the other three stores that Tony and I checked out, click below.

Get Thee to a Shoppery!

What's a "record store"? If you've never been to one, it's time for you to paddle away from your computer keyboard's virtual Amazon and enter the real world of bricks and mortar. And if you're, ahem, an older buyer who hasn't been to one in a while, it's time for you to remember the future. (Band? Nationality? Year? Famous guy who joined them later? Answers below.)

History, Re-Recorded

If audio is recorded without the intention of being listened to, is it still a recording? American researchers in Paris are getting philosophical about a piece of etched paper they found which may contain the first ever piece of recorded audio.

The soot-blackened paper was etched in 1860 by a machine called a phonautograph, a full 17 years before Thomas Edison recorded "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on a tin foil cylinder, which was, until this month, considered to be the first audio recording in history.

Flipping the Side

Recently, I did something that I hadn’t done in a long time: flipped the side. The record was King Crimson’s Red, a 1974 gem that rejoined my collection last May when an old college roommate unloaded a bunch of vinyl on me (not surprisingly, several other LPs of mine, missing since college, turned up in the stash). I can’t remember the last time I just sat and listened to a full album from start to finish without multitasking — was it high school? But Red had me riveted.