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NYDN Home?Collections?Lady Gaga RELATED KEYWORDS:Lady Gaga|Regina SpektorRecord Store Day features more than 1,500 indie shops from New York to London for music loversBY NICOLE LYN PESCEDAILY NEWS FEATURE REPORTERWednesday, April 13, 2011Record Store Day is music to a vinyl junkie's ears.
More than 1,500 indie shops from the lower East Side to London are celebrating nostalgia on Saturday, hawking limited-edition album releases and hosting live performances to support local record stores.
"It's bigger than Christmas for us," says co-founder Michael Kurtz. "When we open up in the morning, most stores have people camped outside and a lot of them don't even have turntables! But they will buy these releases because they are collectible pieces of art.
"Even if they don't love the record store, they love the idea of the record store," he adds.
Just four years ago, vinyl was getting some pretty bad press. "Tower Records closed and Virgin was closing and it was just all negative," says Kurtz. He and fellow collectors kicked off Record Store Day (RSD) in 2008 with a modest 250 stores offering 10 special-edition albums from artists like Metallica.
This year, it expands to 1,500 shops across the U.S., the U.K., Australia and Japan, with more than 600 artists including Ozzy Osbourne, Lady Gaga, The Decemberists, Bob Dylan and the Foo Fighters putting out limited LPs, EPs and singles.
Peter Enzinna (glasses) and Rachel Atcheson browse in Other Music in the… (Noonan for News)The digital revolution isn't threatening to close RSD's shop. Even as the iPod generation sends the music industry into a slump (overall album sales dropped 13% in 2010), the Nielsen Company and Billboard report vinyl has seen a 14% surge since 2009.
In fact, the only danger Record Store Day really faces is going mainstream. Lincoln Center is getting in on the act this weekend, screening the Record Store Day documentary "Sound It Out" and singer Regina Spektor's film "Live in London."
John Leguizamo performs at Vintage Vinyl off Route 1 in Fords, N.J. and Mayor Bloomberg dubbed Saturday an official citywide event.
Has the ultimate indie fest sold out?
"We laugh about that quite a bit, but we've decided we are not going to be arbitrators of taste and what's commercial or not," says Kurtz.
"But we are going to stick to our guns and not let any corporations be involved and keep it true to what we're doing. We serve the people who really love music and want to collect stuff."
The shops in turn are treating customers to deejay sets, body-painting and more. For a full list of participating stores, visit RecordStoreDay.com/Venues. Here are some local highlights:
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