Record Store Day 2018 Recap

     Another Record Store Day has come and gone.   My wallet is lighter and my shelves are heavier.  And after a few weeks, I finally had a spare evening to give a spin to most of the records that I picked up.

     It seems that as the years go by, the list of releases for Record Store Day gets longer but the list of records that grab my attention gets shorter.  I'm not sure why that is but I'm sure it has something to do with the major labels trying to cash in and make things less fun.

     To my understanding, most people plan to hit multiple stores over the course of the day since most stores open at different hours.  Due to the dwindling amount of releases that I have an interest in, I take the opposite approach.  I get in line at the Attic Records, located at 513 Grant Ave, in Millvale, around 6 or 6:30am and wait for them to open at 8am.  Since they make large volume purchases from their distributors throughout the course of the year, the store tends to get most of the Record Store Day releases.  I can usually pick up all but one or two records on my list so I wait a few days for them to hit the internet at a reasonable price.

     After I hit the Attic, I head home to regroup and then head back out for breakfast and then to one of the smaller used stores that don't really participate other than putting out some of their rarer used records.  This year it was Onion Maiden for breakfast followed by Skull Records to dig through their used bins.  OG pressings of Joy Division, Slayer and the Stooges are now proud members of my record collection, as if anyone but me would ever care.

     While I was in line at the Attic, I overheard the conversations of my fellow collector nerds.  I was paying close attention to which records they were looking for.  Luckily, no one seemed interested in the records on my list so that increased my chances of picking up the Patton Oswalt comedy album with the blacklight artwork which the store only got three of.

     I know they only had three copies of Annihilation because I made a preemptive reconnaissance strike the day before.  You see, the Attic gets so much stock that they have to start putting it out on Friday so they can be ready for Saturday.  The staff lets you browse but not buy.  This lets me plan my attack by knowing where the records I want will be in the store since they put them out in alphabetical order.  Taking a record store by strategy takes a lot of work.  You can't just run in there blind or you'll end up stuck on the opposite side of the store when you realize that you missed something and now it's too crowded to get back to the bin before the records run out.  Yes, I have put way too much thought and effort into this.

     The worst part of waiting in line this year was the extremely loud yinzer who would constantly try to imitate someone with a Pittsburgh accent.  He was clueless to the fact that he already had a thick Pittsburgh accent so his attempts at imitating it at an obscene volume were awful.  People in line were visibly wincing every time this guy would open his mouth.  It's 6:30am, try shutting the fuck up for once.  And of course he was wearing shorts and a t-shirt in the barely 30 degree weather.  Moron.

     So far, I've had a chance to dig into the Wipers live album from 1982, the Quicksand EP, Triptych Continuum, the Rage Against The Machine live EP from the Democratic National Convention in 2000, the David Bowie 3LP live album from 1978 in London and Quick And Dirty by TAD.

     The music on the Bowie live album was great but the vinyl pressing was not so great.  Less than high quality pressings are one of my biggest gripes with Record Store Day.  This was supposedly a limited release but it was an edition of 10,000 units.  Last I checked, 10,000 of anything is not very limited.  The high number of records pressed means that in an effort to keep their costs down, the pressing plant was trying to get as many records as possible out of each stamper used to press the records.  Most plants will only use a stamper for up to 500 records because they will get worn out from the heat and will start to retain bits of plastic from the previous record.  I'm sure they were going well beyond 500 when they pressed this Bowie album.  There were pops all over it.

     The Rage Against The Machine live record served more as an historical document than something that I'd listen to on the regular.  Given the situation and conditions the band was playing under that day, the sound quality wasn't the greatest.  My guess is that this has to be one of the last recordings of the band left in the vault but it was still worth a listen.  Well after they played at the 2000 Democratic National Convention, in Los Angeles, a riot broke out and the media quickly blamed it on the band.  Guitar wizard, Tom Morello, was quick to call bullshit on that because he was already gone and at a restaurant eating dinner at the time of the riot.  Listening to this EP did prompt me to drag their second album, Evil Empire, off the shelf for a few listens and I suddenly remembered how great that record was.

     The Wipers live album was recorded at The Met, in Portland, OR, on December 31^st, 1982.  As many times as I have listened to albums from the Wipers, I had never heard a live recording of the band.  After listening to this release, I now want to build a time machine so I can go back and see them play with my own eyes.  What a band they were.

     The Record Store Day release that has me coming back to it most frequently is Quick And Dirty, from TAD.  That record served as a swift kick in the pants of a reminder as to how good a band TAD is.  Again, much like the Rage record, my ears forced me to get more TAD onto the turntable.  If you missed one of the 900 copies available in the US, here's a link to give it a listen:  TAD~Quick And Dirty.
     For those of us who bow down at the altar of Joey, Dee Dee, Johnny and Tommy, another noteworthy release was the Sundragon Sessions LP from the Ramones.  This was a session of demos for the album Leave Home that were recorded at Sundragon studios.  The session can also be found on disc 2 of the 40th anniversary, deluxe edition of Leave Home that came out last year.
     There was also a 2LP reissue of the self-titled Stooges album.  This is a standard version of the album that was pressed on yellow vinyl, with screen printed covers, for the grand opening of Third Man Records' Detroit location.  The second LP is a collection of alternate takes and mixes from the recording sessions.

     I still have to get the Lurkers' Fulham Fallout reissue, the Tom Waits Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards reissues and the Star Wars Porg shaped picture disc in my ears. So many records, so little time.