Larry Jaffee - Record Store Day: The Most Improbable Comeback of the 21st Century

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Copyright 2022 by Record Store Day

Author photograph by Sedona Young

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Set in Minion

epub isbn : 9781644282878

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Jaffee, Larry, author.
Title: Record Store Day: the most improbable
comeback of the twenty-first century / by Larry Jaffee.
Description: First paperback edition. | Los Angeles : Rare Bird Books, 2022.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021047667 | ISBN 9781644282557 (paperback)
Subjects: LCSH: Record Store DayHistory. | Record storesHistory
21st century. | Popular musicMarketingHistory21st century. |
MusicMarketingHistory21st century. | Sound recording
industryHistory21st century. | Sound recordingsHistory21st century.
Classification: LCC ML36 .R434 2022 | DDC 306.4/8424dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021047667

What kind of heaven, is that you cant have your records?

Michael Chabon, Telegraph Avenue

This book is dedicated to my daughter Annie Jaffee, who apparently caught the vinyl gene from my DNA and one day is going to inherit a great record collection, as long as her big brother, Jake Jaffee, gets first dibs on the Black Sabbath LPs (even if he only hangs the covers on the wall).

Contents

Foreword

by Kosmo Vinyl

A World Without Record Stores! No, its not a long-lost episode of The Twilight Zone nor an internet-published short story with millions of views. It was in 2007, and it was a very real possibility of what the future of recorded music might look like! That is until a small group of people got together and, under the banner Record Store Day, decided to do something about it. Over fifteen years later, I am pleased to report that such a disaster has been averted. But the war is not won, and the battle continues.

Today, more than at any other time in history, more people have more access to more recorded music than ever before. The ever-expanding High Speed Access Wi-Fi World has given us more music than it is humanly possible to listen to. Titles by the thousands for more genres than most of us can even imaginebut how to make sense of it all? This is where the record store comes into its own; the very territory it has always occupieda physical space that can help you figure out what to listen to. Familiar or unknown, large or small, organized or chaotic, its the place where you can see, touch, feel, hear, and really get a sense of what a record is all about.

Sure you can get music by a click of the device of your choosing, but who declared convenience king? In the same way that hamburgers sold by a restaurant chain represented by a psychotic looking clown might be the most popular sources of cooked food, we all know it is far from the best you can get, especially locally. If you want the good stuff, youve got to go to the right place.

The record store is a whole world, filled with music, and you just enter through a door. A place that can take you anywhere you want to go or to some spot youd never thought of going, filled with ideas, observations, and opinions. No passport, no visa, no ticket required. Even if you dont have any money, you can still go in and check it all out! The record store is where, more than anywhere else, I learned about the world beyond the one I actually lived in. Its also where I found my thoughts, fears, joys, and sorrows articulated.

Almost as important as the music, and sometimes more important, are the people that owned or worked in these stores. They are guides and gurus, the keepers of the culture, much of which without their knowledge would be inaccessible to so many. Folks who know whats happened, whats happening, and have an ear out for what is likely to happen.

Ive been listening to music my whole life, and I have heard it pretty much every way you can imaginefrom world-class recording studios to roadside shacks. On boomboxes and transistor radios, ridiculously over-priced home hi-fis and old record players held together by dust. On the old school telephones (Anyone remember dial a disc?) to laptop computers. Ive heard it played on 8-track cartridges, compact discs, and cassette tapes (prerecorded and homemade), and I have concluded that the all-round best way to go is a vinyl record played on a decent turntable.

And then theres the covers Has there ever been a wrapper or box put around a commercially available product that had as much impact and influence as the long playing record sleeve? I still dont think so. A hopefully endless supply of visual stimulation, distractions galore, produced by all kinds of creative and/or crazed minds.

So it was a return to and improvement of the vinyl format that has led the way on this mission to ensure that the record store does not perish. Its easy for cynics to criticize and find fault, but what I have found so encouraging about Michael Kurtz and Carrie Colliton, who run Record Store Day here in the USA, is that their only agenda is to succeed in keeping independent record stores open and vinyl records available. Like any boots-on-the-ground operation, they learn and adapt as they go along, remaining true to their mission, but flexible in how to get it done. Theres no blueprint for how to make what might appear to be a romantic notion into a reality. It requires a commitment to overcome more obstacles than they might have ever imagined. In recent years, I have met many store owners and staff who have assured me that without Record Store Day, their business would have folded, and so I give it both my full support and endorsement.

Man does not live by bread alone (to quote the Bible) and nor do many of us live to work. Im not suggesting that I can answer that why are we all here question, but I am suggesting that while we all are here, we listen to music. Its not the only thing to do, but it is one of the only things that can make most of whatever it is you are doing feel better.

KOSMO VINYL (artist, cultural curator, enthusiast and former consigliere to The Clash)

New York City

Edited by Christian Logan Wright

Years ago, someone told me that 1,200 high school kids were given a survey. A question was posed to them: Have you ever been to a stand-alone record shop? The number of kids that answered yes waszero.

Zero? How could that be possible? Then I got realistic and thought to myself, Can you blame them? How can record shops (or any shop for that matter) compete with Netflix, video games that take months to complete, cable, texting, the internet, etc.? Getting out of your chair at home to experience something in the real world has started to become a rare occurrence and, to a lot of people, an unnecessary one. Why go to a bookstore and get a real book? You can just download it. Why talk to other human beings, discuss different authors, writing styles, and influences? Just click your mouse. Well heres what theyll someday learn if they have a soul; theres no romance in a mouse click. Theres no beauty in sitting for hours playing video games. The screen of an iPhone is convenient, but it s no comparison to a 70mm showing of a film in a gorgeous theater. The internet is two-dimensionalhelpful and entertaining, but no replacement for face-to-face interaction with a human being. But we all know all of that, right? Well, do we? Maybe we know all that, but so what?