April 23, 2010

RECORD STORE DAY RECAP

Record Store Day Recap
A recap of the party

RSD kicked off with Josh Ritter and a bunch of our closest friends coming together for RSD Eve to celebrate why the music industry is like no other; music as religion, music as celebration, and music as community. After a 75-minute set and a three-hour signing, we jumped into merchandising for 150+ new releases. After a couple of hours sleep we opened at 7am, reportedly the earliest on the West Coast and the word definitely got out. We had a line the length of the building (70-100 people) waiting when we opened the doors. Records that we thought would last into the mid-afternoon were gone by 7:30am. It was crazy.
One of the coolest things I heard all day was tsomeone who'd bought his goodies, then called his friend in NY who was still waiting in line for his local store to open, and he was over the moon that he was able to beat the time difference and claim bragging rights. It almost made 7:00am seem sensible.
Overall, it was an amazing example of people coming together to celebrate their love of music. It was great to see folks helping each other find stuff, chatting about what they were excited about, and planning the next stop on their quest for that elusive Flaming Lips playing Dark Side LP, which was our first sell out item.
We were fortunate enough to have several of our friends stop in, including Keith Morris of The Circle Jerks and Black Flag, who spent about 4 hours chatting about music and making recommendations to fans. Then Gary Calamar and Phil Gallo stopped by to sign their new book, Record Store Days, which is hands-down the finest book about record stores that I've ever seen. The last of our events was an in-store by Dios (formerly Dios Malos) that was fantastic. Their new album, a special Record Store Day release, is We Are Dios and it's a heady blend of Zappa, The Beach Boys, and the Band.
RSD10 was our biggest day ever and it was a true pleasure to see all of you who stopped by, to meet those of you who came by for the first time, and to be able to host such an amazing slate of talented friends for this special event.
I would be missing a huge opportunity if I didn't take a second to thank the staff for getting up early and working so hard to make sure everything went without a hitch - it did, and we are very lucky to have such an amazing crew - so big thanks to all.

If you missed it this year, scribble a little note about next April and stick it on your fridge.