Record Store Day 2014
It’s here, there’s beer, let’s buy some gear
Record Store Day 2014 is nearly upon us. On April 19, 2014, the believers will line up as early as they can stomach outside their favorite record stores to partake of a bounty the scale of which is difficult to describe. Hundreds (thousands?) of bands release special singles and covers and EPs and rarities on this day alone, to be snapped up by the intrepid dozens who arrive the earliest. You will wait for hours. You will not recognize most of the merch. You will spend too much money. You will hear bands play free in-store shows, you might even find some free beer, and you will go to bed dazed by the power of recorded music over the soul and the community which you call home.
I don’t know when RSD started, but I do know that it has been passed down as a sacred tradition by my people, the Musicians. I think it is probably new, a revised Testament of our faith, an imperfect amendment to a timeworn and faded agreement which has for generations promised that our love will flow through the strains of music. The age of recording, of easy accessibility, is as musician Jace Clayton says “an anomalous blip…in the course of human history and it will soon be very unusual again.” Our temple is built again and again, that worship may be practiced in each age anew. Our fortune and the gift of grace is the form it has taken in our lifetimes. Ergo: Record Store Day.
We celebrate our faith as difference. “Culture,” that nebulous force which consumes ideas and expressions in order to create its only product, Progress, has in this age of easy physical transmission of music taken on our art as its currency. We seek not to destroy Culture, but instead to resist its normalizing influence, to swim sideways against its currents and allow Progress to take us no further from the answer which we have already found than it must. We do not hate Spotify. We do not hate Pandora. We do not hate. Our love for the physical form of the medium of our love is a practice that puts us in closer relation to the spirituality of which it is an expression.
How then might a person, in humility and in need of comfort, join themselves with our flock? Where the shepherd? When is the hour of our meeting?
The simple answer is that Record Store Day 2014 will be celebrated in every home and every heart in which its call resounds. We each of us are alone in our need, but are joined in our endless seeking. For those who desire the companionship of ceremony, a brief directory of the temples in our area follows.
(Please note that this listing is incomplete and admittedly inner-loop centric. I apologize to the ‘burbs. It’s not that I don’t respect y’all. I just don’t know my way around.)
RECORD STORE DAY DOT COM http://www.recordstoreday.com/
The official source. They even have a PDF listing participating stores.
Cactus Music (new website! http://cactusmusictx.com/ ) 2110 Portsmouth, Houston, TX 77098
Broad selection, catering to most interests. Free shows, free beer, lots of events, big, welcoming, a true hub of the music scene in Houston.
Heights Vinyl (http://heightsvinyl.com/) 3122 White Oak Dr. Houston, TX 77008
Sell/repair vintage equipment, very friendly and knowledgeable, LOVE what they do and are happy to help with purchasing decisions even when you’re not buying from them. Lots of weird old rock and punk and hardcore and experimental records too.
Sig’s Lagoon (http://www.sigslagoon.com/) 3622 Main St Houston, TX 77002
Tiki-themed hole-in-the-wall next to Double Trouble. Unsurprisingly, they carry a selection of music that roughly matches the aesthetic of the block around them.
Black Dog Records (http://blackdogrecordstx.com/) 4900 Bissonnet #102 Bellaire, Texas 77401
Just visited for the first time the other day. Out on Bissonnet, named for the owner’s dog (RIP), carry lots of interesting rock rarities and imports. I finally found some of the Tom Waits albums I’ve wanted for a long time when I went there.
Vinal Edge (http://www.vinaledge.com/) 239 W. 19th St., Houston, Texas 77008
Carry stereo equipment and new turntables (I wanted to buy a Pro-Ject Debut but didn’t know they had them until it was too late!) as well as a really interesting selection. Timothy Leary album of LSD talks (signed!) on wall. Whole section of soundscapes. Rap and House and Rock and Punk and whole bins of undiscovered gems. I bought an album of whale sounds and a copy of the new Subsonic Voices (think Nine Inch Nails without the pop) after an in-store show there.
Sound Exchange (http://www.soundexchangehouston.com/) 1846 Richmond Ave. Houston Texas 77098
This place is in an old house, and they have lots of old turntables and equipment. I haven’t browsed their music selection much so I don’t know what specialties they have. These guys are purists, and they have the old-school website (complete with a rant against Tower Records!) to prove it.
And that’s all just some of what’s available in Houston! Get out to your own local record store and support the people who spread the love of the people who make it to the people who work jobs to afford it (that last part’s about you).
