Used Kids Records is preparing for this year’s Record Store Day on April 22. Credit: Sam Harden | Lantern Reporter
Greg Hall, owner of Used Kids Record Store, said greeting card companies created Valentine’s Day for extra cash, and Record Store Day is no different.
This year’s Record Store Day will take place Saturday. Record Store Day was conceived in 2007 with the goal of spreading the word about independently owned record stores and shining a light on local shops around the country by releasing exclusive vinyls, CDs and other promotional products just one day each year.
Local record stores — including Records Per Minute, Lost Weekend Records, Spoonful Records, Magnolia Thunderpussy and Used Kids Records — will participate, selling limited amounts of vinyl and CD releases just for the day, according to the Record Store Day website.
This year’s list of releases include albums from Taylor Swift, The 1975, Miles Davis, Post Malone, Beach House, Wilco and more, according to its website.
Jack Stover, the owner of Records Per Minute, said while the event can get chaotic, it is fun to be part of.
“The event brings a lot of people together that don’t get to see each other that much,” Stover said. “There are a lot of collectors that see each other just once every year for Record Store Day.”
According to its website, the first Record Store Day took place on April 19, 2008, with a small list of Record Store Day exclusive releases and an even smaller list of participating record stores.
Hall said he took over Used Kids Records in 2014 and has participated in Record Store Day every year since.
“It’s great exposure for our shop and for other record stores in Columbus,” Hall said. “It gets a lot of people aware of records and music and brings a lot of people together.”
There was a hiccup in the holiday’s operations in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The event morphed from a one-day event into three Record Store Day drop dates — Aug. 29, Sept. 26 and Oct. 24, 2020 — with a split release, according to its website.
Stover said he bought Records Per Minute and reopened it in December 2020, participating in his first Record Store Day as a shop owner in 2021.
“It was actually the first year that they started allowing customers into the shop since the pandemic,” Stover said. “There was still somewhat of a crowd restriction, but it was nice to see people coming together again.”
One of this year’s exclusive releases is Wilco’s “Crosseyed Strangers,” an alternate version of their landmark 2002 album, “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.”
Beach House will also be releasing an EP, “Become,” featuring five unreleased songs that were recorded as a part of the “Once Twice Melody” sessions, according to the website. The Record Store Day exclusive edition will be released on crystal-clear vinyl with limited copies in stores across the country.
Taylor Swift’s “Folklore: The Long Pond Study Sessions” will be released for the first time on a gray double LP, according to the website. This EP comes from “The Long Pond” sessions, which were the first in-person sessions Swift was able to have with Aaron Dessner of The National, Jack Antonoff of the Bleachers and Justin Vernon of Bon Iver after the COVID-19 lockdown.
Both Stover and Hall said they are anticipating Swift’s release to be the most popular from this year’s lineup.
“I’ve been getting calls everyday of people asking about her album,” Stover said. “I know people have been just sitting around waiting for it to come out.”
Many other artists — including Dolly Parton, Billy Joel, Violent Femmes, The Rolling Stones, Stevie Nicks and Pearl Jam — will also release live shows and remastered albums for this year’s Record Store Day.
“Whether it is a greeting card shop or a record store, the thing we have in common is that you have mom and pop people owning and running these shops,” Hall said. “Record Store Day is important to the music community and to the shops that are a part of that community.”
