Record Store Day – A Message from Chairman Ozzy

Saturday April 16 is Record Store Day, when your favorite record store promises to have all this cool stuff for sale but will be totally sold out if you walk in 15 minutes after it opens. The good news is, there are more collectible items for sale this year – so get there early and camp out if you want to get your hands on any of that.

I live in Houston, Texas, and we’re lucky to have a handful of great record stores here in town – including Cactus Music and Video, Vinal Edge Records, Sound Exchange and Sig’s Lagoon which is next door to the cool Continental Club. Some of those places will have live music goin’ on Record Store Day – and Cactus will have some free Saint Arnolds beer. Can you beat that? No.

And my daughter goes to college in Austin, just down the road apiece, and they are lucky to have the awesome Waterloo Records in that fair city. Not to mention Antone’s Record Shop, Cheapo Records, End of An Ear, and so on.

The bottom line is that these great places – and the friendly neighborhood record store near you – needs your love, support and money. They are happy to sell you CDs and stuff at a little higher price than Walmart and Best Buy, because you can walk into your local record retailer and find the new Alejandro Escovedo CD or that old Rolling Stones album. At Best Buy and Walmart, you can’t always get what you want. Many times you can’t even get what you need.

I remember this blog’s co-owner George went to Best Buy a few years ago looking for a new Bruce Springsteen album on the day of its release – they didn’t have it, but they had a lot of Jay-Z. Now they had it at one of the fine record stores in Houston … which is why you should drop by a record store next Saturday, to share some of your love and appreciation. And money.

YouTube: A message from 2011’s Record Store Day chairman/spokesman/mascot/demonic figure:

Record Store Day official website