In the age of music streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music, the joy of a trip to a record store for an afternoon of browsing has long been forgotten. There is one day a year, however, to remind people of what they are missing.
Record Store Day (RSD), happening this Saturday, is an annual celebration of music store culture around the world. In addition to live performances at many of the participating stores, there will also be exclusive tracks released by artists including Florence + The Machine, Twenty One Pilots and The Weeknd. One of the special releases for RSD comes from Metallica, the official ambassadors for the event this year. “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, Metallica! – Live at Le Bataclan. Paris, France – June 11th, 2003,” a concert recording from the site of the November 2015 Paris terror attacks, will be available at many of the participating stores.
Three local stores will be participating this year: Sound Go Round and Music City in Vestal, as well as Broad Street Records in Waverly. All three will be open beginning at 9 a.m. on Saturday.
While all of these stores will be offering special deals for RSD, Sound Go Round will also be hosting a local band, Lila Ignite, for two live acoustic sets at 9:30 a.m. and 11:45 a.m.
“Sound Go Round has been super awesome to local bands and businesses and this is the second year in a row that they’ve invited us to perform acoustic in store for the event,” said Tyler Reed, the lead singer of Lila Ignite. “I think it’s really awesome that they expand the reach of RSD by allowing bands to perform in-store to add to the event and make it about more than just the music being released, but also bringing the community together.”
This community aspect is a major goal of the event. For the owners of many local stores, such as Patrick Ayres of Broad Street Records, the goal is not to sell a certain number of records, but instead to get patrons to stop by.
He said he wants visitors to “have a good time, see each other, and if they buy some stuff, that’s great too.”
Part of the appeal of records, versus CDs or streaming services, is that they harken back to times when playing music was much more involved. Rather than turn on a stereo or click a button, you have to set up the record on the side with the track you want and then figure out where to put the needle.
Benny Fiacco, owner of Music City, has seen a trend back toward customers purchasing records instead of CDs when they visit his store.
“We actually started out as a record store, then became a CD store, and eventually got into musical instruments,” Fiacco explained. “We still do the CDs and records, so I guess now instead of a CD store, we’re going back to being a record store.”
The website for RSD, recordstoreday.com, has a complete listing of participating record stores. The Facebook pages for Broad Street Records, Music City and Sound Go Round also have more information about the specials available at each of the stores.