Record Store Day: Valentine’s Day for retailers

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BldmW6PIgAAaeMkRecord Store Day is a marketing gimmick, friends, like Valentine’s Day. After all, you shouldn’t wait for just one day per year to tell your local music purveyor that you love him/her/them, right? But it wasn’t that long ago that the death knell was being sounded for all record stores, and now you can’t fling a used CD without hitting a cool vinyl shop.

RSD’s big draw, of course, is the insane number of special releases made for the occasion, most of which are destined for the cut-out bins of 2019. Just surveying Amoeba’s list of RSD offerings makes my head spin. But tomorrow’s Record Store Day plunder might yield some collectors’ items too. To name-check some, big and small: The five-LP LCD Soundsystem “The Long Goodbye/Live at Madison Square Garden” set; the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’s Beastie Boys/Link Wray mash-up; “Put Your Sad Down” by the late, great School of Seven Bells; a very-limited-edition Moses Sumney 7-inch; Medicine’s Part Time Punks live LP; Veruca Salt’s 10-inch with “Seether” and new (!) material; the “In Utero: In Tribute” compilation album; David Lynch’s “The Air Is on Fire;” and, for the Gallagherians out there, a special Oasis 12-inch.

But don’t mind me, explore for yourself. I’ll be trying to track down the David Bowie “1984” picture disc.

Many local outlets have special plans for Record Store Day. Some are not participating in the promotion – you can find out who is here. We clicked around to find out if some of our favorite shops had anything special going on. After the jump, our roundup (if we missed anything good, please leave a comment):

Amoeba, 6400 Sunset Blvd. – Chuck E. Weiss does a DJ set at noon; there’s a Little Dragon meet-and-greet at 2; and Tapioca & the Flea plays live at nearby Space 15 Twenty at 6. And more.

Fingerprints, 420 E. 4th St., Long Beach – Bringing out the heavy hitters here: Dream Theater does a signing at 1; Mayer Hawthorne & 14kt do a DJ set at 3; and Wayne Kramer & the Lexington Arts Ensemble play live at 5:30

Origami Vinyl, 1816 Sunset Blvd. – DJ sets starting at 8 a.m., including KCRW’s Anne Litt at 9, KROQ’s Kat Corbett at 1 and “Funky Sole” DJ Soft Touch at 4  (oh, and Buzz Bands LA at 3). Live performances from Juan Wauters and Pink Mountaintops start at 7.

Vacation Vinyl, 3815 Sunset Blvd. – Not finding any in-store activities scheduled, but that T-shirt [above] is a keeper.

The Record Parlour, 6408 Selma Ave., Hollywood – Alexandra & the Starlight Band at 1 p.m., Alyeska at 7, along with DJ sets.

Permanent Records, 5116 York Blvd., Highland Park – Live performances by Froth, Shark Toys, “The Barbarian Kings” (sounds like an alias to us) and more, starting at 4 p.m.

Mount Analog, 5906 1/2 Figueroa, Highland Park – DJ sets from King Tuff, Suzanne Kraft, Dais Records and more.

High Fidelity, 1956 Hillhurst, Los Feliz – No live performances listed, but they will be carrying the limited-edition “Live from High Fidelity Podcast” with acoustic performances from Rhett Miller, Matt Nathanson, Josh Haden, Sam Phillips, Grant-Lee Phillips the Section quartet and others.

Also: Touch Vinyl (1646 Sawtelle Blvd.) has RSD releases; Atomic (3812 Magnolia Blvd., Burbank) says it doesn’t but is discounting everything in the shop by 10%. … Burger Records (645 S. State College Blvd., Fullerton) has a couple exclusive-to-its-store releases, including the Audacity vinyl. … Factory Records (440 E. 17th St., Costa Mesa) is expanding its day into the parking lot.