Record Store Day is a pretty awesome "invention" that's came about in the last five years or so where as record shops and their customers champion the said day once a year and have all kinds of events and things going on such as live music and signings, which I've seen some pretty amazing names play tiny shops and hang around for a chat and squiggle of the old silver marker. However, the last few years I've noticed that RSD has kind of become a bit of a sideshow to what the actual day should be about. A few examples below:

RSD to me is pretty much everyday. I've listened to records all my life, from my Dad's collection, down to a few I bought recently from Oxfam. I'm always listening to, and buying Vinyl so I don't really need a day to "celebrate" it as such, though with record shops struggling in todays digital world, I can understand why the day is a great thing for the shops to be involved in, even if it is pretty much a manufactured event to get a great sales push which leads obviously to the point that a lot of people don't really buy records anymore, yet, its become quite popular (or fashionable) in recent times what with internet downloading probably killing an artists sale by 75% (maybe more) to buy records, even if they're just as a memento of the band you love and not to play (which I don't agree with, but I won't get started on that just yet...)

Here's my dissatisfaction; bands put out special releases just for RSD, which is great, except most shops get about two copies max to sell, which means you have to queue up outside at stupid o'clock in the morning to get that elusive 7" with handmade painted cover on mauve vinyl. They even distribute things around the world pretty much making them impossible to acquire. I remember a friend from America wanted a cassette tape from a pretty well known American band he loved, but they were only selling them in the UK, at one shop and they only had 4 copies. Well needless to say, I couldn't really help out much as i remember phoning the shop at 9am and they we're already all gone. Shame.

Its a bloody pain in the arse is what it is, though, the day itself and what the shops do is pretty awesome if you go down and get involved, you're sure to have a great day out, just don't expect to come away with the record you want. Now I must be excused, I'm refreshing ebay waiting to see if a copy of the RSD only Empire Records Soundtrack on Gold vinyl becomes available for anything less than 50 quid.

ifightthelivingdead.