If you’re looking forward to Thanksgiving today, the folks at RCRDLBL have put together a suitable accompaniment to the festivities: a “Good Thanksgiving” listening list.
If, for whatever reason, your holiday seems more filled with dysfunction than normal, don’t worry – they’ve got your back there too.
Here’s an embed of the “Bad Thanksgiving” playlist.
What would we do without the folks at RCRDLBL, who seemingly anticipate our every musical mood? (sniff) It makes me thankful they’re around!
Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate. Everyone else, have a grand Thursday.
By the way, for those of you braving the stores tomorrow, independent record sellers are holding Black Friday Record Store Day events, with special releases and other fun, to commemorate conspicuous consumption, record hound style.
“We started thinking about the death of the record,” says Heavenly States’ singer/guitarist Ted Nesseth. “People are broke, their attention spans are waning. We have all these ideas so we thought, let’s just rock out five or six songs, give the EP a rebirth.”
This past Saturday, one could witness throngs of people on line at record sellers throughout the US, clutching piles of treasure: records. They were celebrating National Record Story Day by conspicuously consuming vinyl discs, flouting the conventions of latter day digital distribution in favor of physical artifacts. Many of these record buffs engaged in a scavenger hunt of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory proportions, going from store to store to seek out RSD special releases, many of them limited edition 7″ or 10″ EPs.
But collecting is only a part of RSD’s charm; its also about the coalescing of a community around shared love of music. Thus, customers at the shops engaged in banter about their favorite bands, assessed the quality of used vinyl by eye on the fly, and gave pointers to rookies looking to start a music collection based on quality, not hipster street cred.
As the musicians of Heavenly States point out, the EP may be an ideal format for these times, one that works against the grain of digital distro’s single track mentality, but also avoids the loquacity of overstuffed CDs of the 90s era. Instead, the audio equivalent of a novella: the EP. And despite its relative pith, Oui Camera Oui includes plenty of variety. It even shares a bit of humor at its own expense, in the shape of a comedy routine by Eugene Mirman that riffs and expounds on quotes from the bad reviews of the band’s previous work.
But the release’s primary focus is rocking out, which Heavenly States does handily; check out a download of “Model Son” below for confirmation. Here’s hoping there are more EP novellas in the offing from Heavenly States; it’s a format that suits both them and the vinyl-rapprochement of the times in which we live.
MP3: Heavenly States Model Son
We love Barsuk Records. One of the treasures on our scavenger hunt today will certainly be the Heliomena limited 7″, pressed expressly for Record Store Day.
Record Store Day is upon us! That’s right, today (Saturday, April 17) record sellers throughout the country celebrate the continued vitality of the independent record store. A number of in store performances, limited releases, and freebies are on offer!
Go to the RSD site here to find a record store near you that’s taking part of the celebration.
Our friends at Sub Pophave created a Record Store Day mix (below) to get you in the mood to go out hunting for limited 7″ vinyl and live CDs.
Record Store Day is upon us. My fiancé and I have plotted our route, and plan to visit New Jersey record stores in Princeton, Bordentown and Fords tomorrow in a self-made scavenger hunt for special releases and limited edition 7″ vinyl.
One I’ll definitely be seeking out is the exclusive EP by Magnolia Electric Company.
I’ve included the press release below, as well as info about two more in store performances by Drag City artists.
Whether you celebrate by attending an event or just listening to your favorite LP at home, I hope you take a moment to enjoy some music today.
Secretly Canadian MAGNOLIA ELECTRIC CO. Preps Exclusive Record Store Day 7″, Tours The West Coast With The Avett Brothers
Quite often, times of dormancy only seem so to those of us on the outside. The wheels never really stop turning. Such is the case for MAGNOLIA ELECTRIC Co., which has a string of items lined up over the next months, including its first official release since 2007′s Sojourner box set.
First for the band is an exclusive 7″ titled It’s Made Me Cry, which will be available first on April 18 as part of Record Store Day, an international event celebrating independently-owned record stores. Side A of the 7″ features songs recorded over a weekend in October 2008 at Bloomington’s Russian Recording. The songs serve as a lesson in the power of brevity – each a flaming arrow to the heart of some heavy emotions. Side B of It’s Made Me Cry is the moody, instrumental “Protection Spell,” recorded at Russian Recordings almost exactly a year prior to the other songs and featuring late bassist Evan Farrell.
The band’s proceeds from the 7″ will benefit The Evan Farrell Memorial Fund.
A list of businesses participating in Record Store Day can be found here. It’s Made Me Cry will also be available digitally worldwide on May 19. Drag City
-AZITA will be playing at Laurie’s Planet of Sound in Chicago at noon.
-Bill Callahan is playing at Other Music in NYC at 9 pm
(BTW, Other Music has great events going all day long – check out their website)
It’s Record Store Day on Saturday, April 18. This week, File Under ? has been covering events, releases and celebrations occurring on 4/18, but we’ve just scratched the surface. Some more are listed below. If you’re a North American reader and don’t find one in your area, amble on over to www.recordstoreday.com; chances are there’s a party in your neck of the woods too! Barsuk Records has several artists making appearances:
Ra Ra Riot “” performing at Flat, Black & Circular (East Lansing, MI) at 3pm
Say Hi “” performing at Sonic Boom [Ballard] (Seattle, WA) at 3pm
Menomena “” foosball tournament (!) at M-Theory (San Diego, CA) at 6pm
A number of stores will be giving away special commemorative Barsuk-label Jones Soda for the celebration, including Amoeba (Los Angeles, CA), Aquarius (San Francisco, CA), Easy Street (Seattle, WA), Fingerprints (Long Beach, CA), Lou’s Records (Encinitas, CA), M-Theory (San Diego, CA), Music Millennium (Portland, OR), Silver Platters (Seattle, WA), and Sonic Boom [Ballard] (Seattle, WA). Merge Records - Telekinesis will be helping Sonic Boom celebrate at their Capitol Hill location - Superchunk will be signing EPs at Coachella Sub Pop Records: -Vetiver is appearing at Sonic Boom’s Ballard location at 4 PM.
Limited edition 7″s: Blitzen Trapper “War is Placebo”, Vetiver “Wishing Well”, Obits “I Can’t Lose”, and Flight of the Conchords “Pencils in the Wind”.
Iron and Wine will also be offering up a limited edition live CD recorded in Norfolk on June 20th, 2005. More info Matador
Limited edition vinyl from Sonic Youth, Jay Reatard, and Pavement. More info
Paper Bag Records’s artists will be performing across Toronto at local record shops including Criminal Records, Sunrise, and Sonic Boom this coming Saturday, April 18th, 2009.
Giveaways at each show.
JOSH REICHMANN / ORACLE BAND Sunrise Records
336 Yonge Street,
Toronto, ON 1:15 pm myspace.com/joshreichmann
ROCK PLAZA CENTRAL *stripped down performance
Criminal Records
493 Queen Street West,
Toronto, ON 6:00pm myspace.com/rockplazacentral
SLIM TWIG
Sonic Boom
512 Bloor Street West,
Toronto, ON 8:30 pm myspace.com/slimtwig _______________________________________________________________
Record Store Day Treasures Two: A couple more 7″s
Akron/Family:
7″ single with “Everyone is Guilty b/w Total Destruction”
Limited to 1000 copies
Everyone is Guilty”” is from Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free and “Total
Destruction” is only available here. Black Moth Super Rainbow:
7″ orange vinyl with “Born on a Day” b/w “Born on a Day (demo)” Limited to 500 copies.
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