I still remember the vinyl player we used to have when I was a child. And I still remember my dad teaching my how to use it: the needle would have touched the disc and the music would have started. Then it got broken and I don't know why we never fixed it up.
Until one day I went back home and found out my parents had binned it.
Then the CD mania came, it seemed to be the new music frontier. Many years later, CD was replaced by mp3s, Netflix, TiVo, iTunes bla bla bla. And everybody seemed to have forgotten about the beautiful times when they could hold a vinyl in their hands, big disc, great art-designed covers...
Still, as Jack White puts it, 'There's no romance in a mouse.'
True. Just one simple click and you can have all the music you want.
But for all music lovers (and vinyl fetishists) there's no more rocking place than a record store (ok, probably a good gig would be a little bit more rocking...). I'm talking about proper indipendent record stores, the ones that when you step into you can smell the passion for music, the ones that when you ask the owner for some advice he does know what you're talking about. Nothing to do with money maker chains like HMV, Fnac, Ricordi, whatever (although I know competitive prices are always appealing).
However, in 2007 Chris Brown of Bull Moose, a record store in Portland, thought about creating a 'Record Store Day'. Maybe it looked like something stupid at the beginning, but the vinyl day has been celebrated since then, with many stores all over the world joining it. Even musicians have joined this initiative with limited album releases for the special occasion.
Yesterday was Record Store Day, and the number of interesting releases has been countless. Some of them included David Bowie, R.E.M., The Rolling Stones. You can have a clue at Record Store Day official website and have a clue about what you bought and what you missed.
Some musicians even performed inside some stores: for example, Paul Weller feat. the Strypes played a gig in historical Rough Trade East in London.
However we put it, let me say 'God save Chris Brown!'
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