Record Store Day 2014: Paste’s Staff Picks
Tomorrow’s the third Saturday of April, which can only mean one thing for music collectors: It’s Record Store Day. The event, which was started in 2007 to promote independent record stores, has grown in big ways over the years. And now everyone from David Bowie to Haim to Ice T and everywhere between are offering releases to bring you to your local retailer.
Below, the Paste staff has offered some of their own favorites. Check out the full Record Store Day list of releases and retailers here.
The Civil Wars – Live at Eddie’s Attic
Format: 12-inch vinyl
The band may be over, but this nine-song live album is where it all began. Recorded in Paste’s hometown of Decatur, Ga., the chemistry between John Paul White and Joy Williams was first captured at one of our favorite listening rooms and led us to proclaim them one of the Best of What’s Next back in 2010. The track list includes their first hit “Poison & Wine” along with songs like “If I Didn’t Know Better,” “Tip of My Tongue,” “No Ordinary Love” and “Dance Me To The End Of Love” that don’t appear on either of their studio LPs. Originally released as a free digital album, it was downloaded a half million times.—Josh Jackson, editor-in-chief
Of Montreal – Satanic Panic 10th Anniversary
Format: 180-gram vinyl
After I graduated college in 2005, I spent the summer working as a janitor—sorry, “environmental technician,” or “e-tech” for short—at Skidmore University in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. The e-tech crew was me, a kid who was obsessed with Star Wars, and eight Bulgarians in America on work visas. The main thing we’d do on the job was take turns sleeping in the dorm buildings, with one or two of us posted as look-outs. Our supervisor, an older woman named Shirley who spent weekends at the reservation casino and referred to us as “youse” (the upstate N.Y. version of “y’all”) was our main enemy. We each had our victories, though Shirley’s, which ended with her charging into a room screaming “Got youse!,” always seemed more triumphant.
When I was kicked out of my mom’s home later that summer, I stayed with the Bulgarians for a week and mostly watched the Little League World Series in their smoky apartment while they spent 18 hours each day working between Skidmore and various fast food restaurants. Other than failed attempts at sleeping, the e-tech job entailed lots of scrubbing and mopping of filthy abandoned frat houses, one of which had a golf ball embedded in a bedroom door that I felt like could only have arrived there one way. Satanic Panic in the Attic was the album I listened to most during that summer, and there were moments when the music, particularly “Disconnect the Dots,” transcended the reality of my life as a person in America with an English degree.—Shane Ryan, staff writer
The Velvet Underground – Loaded
Format: 12-inch vinyl
Record Store Day is always a challenge to not spend a bunch of money I don’t have, but this year will be especially tough, as there are way too many releases that are right up my alley: The Ramones’ Meltdown with the Ramones EP. Sam Cooke’s final album, Ain’t That Good News. Otis Redding’s debut LP, Pain in My Heart. The Zombies’ Odessey and Oracle. They’re all likely candidates to bring me that much closer to bankruptcy, but my biggest target this year is my second-favorite Velvet Underground album, Loaded. The last VU album with Lou Reed, it includes some of their strongest songs: “Sweet Jane,” “Rock and Roll,” “Cool It Down” and “Oh! Sweet Nothin’,” and this Record Store Day reissue is pressed on pink, black and white splatter vinyl.—Bonnie Stiernberg, music/tv editor
Sunny Day Real Estate/Circa Survive Split
Format: 7-inch vinyl
If my peers couldn’t tell by my bad posture, love of dark t-shirt tones and reserved conversational approach, I was a big fan of Sunny Day Real Estate in my teens. The band’s Seattle-grown brand of post-hardcore blended pure catharsis with a true chunk heart, a welcome change from some of the brain-dead radio punk of its time (and a logical step forward after grunge started to fade). Now in 2014—when some Record Store Day releases become not-so-limited after the event itself, or are just being repressed as a different color, or are just used to tease albums of May and June—here’s a release worth some long-term excitement.
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