Record Store Day

Saturday is the 1st Annual National Record Store Day.

Now this is a holiday I can get behind 100%. Record stores, while rapidly diminishing are still a great source of pleasure for music lovers everywhere. They have a smell. Downloading is easy, but it's impersonal. Even though most of you are here to do just that, instead of plying you with a bunch of compressed mp3's, I instead urge you to go out and buy something today. Something that you can hold in your hands, with writing on the back and pictures or a booklet with all kinds of information and artwork to peruse while you listen to it. Go to a real record store, not Walmart or the Virgin Megastore if you can help it. Go somewhere and look around. Buy something on a whim. Buy something because you like the cover. Buy something because someone told you it's good or it has a funny title. Take a chance. Go buy one of the records you heard here or somewhere else. I can tell you where I bought most of the records in my collection, because record stores are fun and I've been going to them since I was about six. I remember the first record I ever bought. It was a 45 of "Sugar Daddy" by The Jackson Five. 77 cents. I still have it. What was yours?

Turn off the damn computer and go support your local record seller now.