We all have our things, and Record Store Day is one of mine. To me it’s a celebratory holiday, not unlike Halloween or Valentine’s Day, and just as Boston is the spot for St. Patrick’s Day and New York City is the place to be on New Year’s Eve, there’s no better place for Record Store Day than Athens.
With three (yes three) record stores in a five block radius, the find for vinyl-lovers is (literally) just around the corner. Here’s my day searching for vinyl on the happiest of spring days.
I started at Wuxtry because, well, it’s Wuxtry. Recently named one the country’s top 50 record stores by some music magazine (might be Rolling Stone, though can that still be considered a music magazine?), Wuxtry has the history and inventory all great record stores crave. Never mind all the stellar musical minds that have worked there (Peter Buck, Danger Mouse and now John Fernandes and Mike Turner man the store), there are treasures to be had in every bin.
Last year Wuxtry put out a record to celebrate Record Store Day featuring local bands such as Supercluster, Cars Can Be Blue and Twin Tigers. This year it kept it going with another fine album boasting Grape Soda, Incendiaries and a little band called R.E.M. Seventeen songs for $7 — yep, I got that.
While looking around for other items (I wound up getting Explosions in the Sky’s 2003 album The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place), I perked up to see Bertis Downs, R.E.M.’s manager, walking around the store. It would not be the first time this day a person in the store had a direct tie to an album I had in my hands.
Aside from the music on vinyl, there were live performances to be had. Madeline Adams (who goes by Madeline on stage) took a spot in the front of the store for an excellent acoustic set.
Happy with my Wuxtry visit, I was off to the next spot.
Low Yo Yo Stuff Records is new to town, though I’ve already written about it several times now, but it has taken little time for the store to have a strong presence. Two doors down from the Fabulous 40 Watt, Low Yo Yo is committed to vinyl and has the records to prove it. They too were in full effect for Record Store Day, with live performances, special goodies and a music quiz prepared to earn bonus prizes.
Walking in, the sound from the speakers was familiar yet new and beguiling. After the third song played, as I rummaged through G and H in the rock bin (Gang of Four, Robyn Hitchcock), I had to know what was playing. I walked over to Chris Razz, who owns the store with Todd Ploharski, pointed up and said “what is that?” Sure, I was suckered like the guy in High Fidelity, but I didn’t care. Turns out it was a sampler of music from The Mylene Sheath label, which recently moved to Athens and delves into dramatic post rock and metal music.
“It’s a free sampler we’re giving out, want one?” Chris said. Yep, score one for me. As I looked over the songs, Todd pulled me over and showed me the vinyl the label puts out. With electric covers and inventive colors of vinyl, the packaging can only be described as art. If the music is anywhere near as good (and it appears it is) I’ll be spending money on the label soon.
I went back to work looking for hidden treasures. While looking through the S’s, I saw out of the corner of my eye Paul Butchart (Side Effects drummer, former mayoral candidate in Athens) and David Barbe (Sugar, Mercyland) doing some digging of their own. I pulled aside the Side Effects’ album (the band that opened up for R.E.M. for its first show on April 5, 1980) and half thought of asking him to sign it after purchase. But that seemed a bit creepy, and having already been creepy once today, I resisted a second time.
Michael Guthrie was wending through an acoustic set in front of the store as I made my way toward the exit to pay. I had in hand The Clash Book ($15!), but decided to take a quick look through the R.E.M. records, as I’m wont to do.
I have all the R.E.M. records, but occasionally I’ll come across a bootleg of old shows that pique my interest. I had a bunch in the 80s, but several moves and lost boxes later have left me with few, if any, in my collection. Flipping through I noticed the vinyl of So Much Younger Then, a recording of the band from an April 1981 show at Tyrone’s. I once had it on cassette, but it’s since gone missing. I looked at the playlist, and turned it over to look at the front again. In the corner was a signature, a signature I knew all too well.
“Hey,” I said to Chris, “this looks like Peter Buck’s signature.”
“It is,” he said. “He was in here a couple of weeks ago and just started signing R.E.M. records.”
Peter’s band, The Baseball Project, was in Athens in mid-March playing the 40 Watt, and before the show he stopped by and took a pen to some R.E.M. albums. There was a copy of Murmur, another bootleg vinyl from a 1984 show, and a 12-inch outtake of Can’t Get There From Here, all with Buck’s scrawl. “We just decided to keep them in there and keep the price the same,” Todd said.
So yeah, I got So Much Younger Then. $15. Athens rules.
I headed down to Schoolkids Records. Schoolkids has a strong selection of used CDs and a fair share of used vinyl. Ross Shapiro owns Schoolkids, and aside from running a solid shop, he’s also the lead singer of The Glands, one of the finest bands to come out of Athens. David Lowery, lead singer of Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker (and new Athens resident), has written in the past about his respect and awe of Shapiro, calling him one of his favorite songwriters in the past 20 years.
The one thing you can always depend on in Schoolkids is hearing music that isn’t too obscure, and I mean this in the best way. It’s not that Schoolkids is playing top 40 music — far from it — instead the store plays recognizable music which makes it easy to shop. As much as I love Wuxtry, sometimes I shake my head at what gets played. Today Ross had Elvis Costello’s Armed Forces filling the room, which made for a nice searching music.
Though the place is mostly CDs, the group of people milled around the album collection the corner. Albums fill the walls to, and some come with small notes about their worth. I’ve purchased more than my share of music (and always my concert tickets) from Ross, but today I was done. I do check for Bad Brains’ Banned in DC on vinyl when I’m in any record store (it is my white whale), but was not finding it today.
I left for home, but came back a little later in the night. After a downtown dinner with my wife and daughter, we passed by Wuxtry and caught a little of Los Meesfits (a local band that plays salsa versions of Misfits songs) finish its in-store set. We then walked down to Low Yo Yo to see what was happening there. A few people still milled about, and as we were leaving I saw Ross Shapiro head into the store.
Low Yo Yo Stuff is competition for Ross, but he had no problem walking into the place. His being there made it clear why record stores, and this day in particular, are close to my heart. It’s a shared sense of community among people with a passion for music and creativity, many of who are insanely creative themselves. There’s a joy and peace that comes in looking for that one piece of music you want to play again and again.
Happiness comes in many forms, and for some of us, a sphere of wax does the trick. If you ask me, every day should be Record Store Day, especially in Athens.
