Record Store Day 2011

The first place I started out, J&R, quickly turned into chaos once we were inside. Mostly older white males pushing, shoving and screaming over records. At one point, a man screamed, "WHERE IS SECURITY?" Someone else asked, "What time is it that they're acting like this?" I jokingly said, "10:05." Turns out I was right. People lost their shit less than 10 minutes after the store opened. They had a voucher system for things like the Beach Boys and Michael Jackson but the voucher system should have been extended to more records (like the Nirvana and The Doors releases) or to all the RSD stuff they had to make it more organized.

I was able to snag the Deftones cover record and the Kill Rock Stars compilation (Eric bought the live Television album, Dio and the two Grinderman RSD releases) and we made our way out of the store and headed to the East Village. We stopped at Kim's, which was surprisingly quiet (and still had some RSD stuff still available). Then I realized they opened at 9AM and probably experienced the same craziness that went down at J&R, hours earlier. I ended up buying non-RSD records from the vinyl clearance bin before heading to Turntable Lab, which opened at noon. We stood outside waiting with a very small group of people (there were about 5 people besides us) and once TTL opened their doors, we were back in civilization again. Everyone filed neatly into the store, grabbed what they wanted and perused records without any pushing, shoving or yelling. You know, like normal people. I grabbed Nirvana's Whormoaning and Sonic Youth's Whore's Moaning RSD releases here, Eric got Daedulus and the Adele 10" plus other records.

Eric really wanted a bunch of stuff that we hadn't seen anywhere and I suggested stopping at Academy Records since it was on our way to the L train, although it didn't have any RSD stuff advertised in the window (we stopped by there briefly before they opened at 12PM). We hit the jackpot at Academy. They had the Fucked Up release, Ty Rex by Ty Segall, OFF!'s 7", Wild Flag's 7", Fela Kuti 7"and the Eddy Current Suppression ring four way split. After Academy, we had everything we wanted from the RSD special release list.

We made our way to Permanent Records afterwards for EULA's in-store performance (they did four sets throughout the day starting at 11AM. We caught the final set). At Permanent Records, I picked up the Husker Du/Green Day split 7" of "Don't Want To Know If You're Lonely," plus Ty Segall's Melted. EULA's set was mostly off their new record Maurice Narcisse and we caught a few covers including Talking Head's "And She Was." They ended the day with a cover of "To Hell With Poverty" by Gang of Four. Apparently a guy who lived upstairs heard it and immediately ran downstairs because he loves that song.

The show at Bruar Falls was great. In the middle of Ghost Bunny's set, the stage lights inexplicably went out during their third to last song. I was extremely impressed that the band continued on, not missing a beat while playing in total darkness. During their penultimate song, someone plugged in a string of lights but the original stage lights never got fixed. EULA did the Gang of Four cover again and included "Freedom of Choice" as their second to last song.