The Discoveries Of Record Store Day

One look at my bookshelf will tell any visitors that I don’t think there’s such a thing as too many books; recently I’ve started to think that lesson can be applied to music as well.

Books are generally easier to acquire, I’d argue. Yesterday’s bestsellers become today’s paperback dollar overstock at the Book Barn, and good luck trying to leave there without at least a few selections. Larger tag sales and festivals start offering prices to take away boxfuls of them. And when my girlfriend and I went to a trivia night recently, we got a free bestseller as part of “World Book Night.”

In a similar vein, Record Store Day illustrated just how easy it is to come home with an armload of music if you're just presented with a big selection to browse through. Record Store Day has been going on since 2007 and recognizes independent music stores, including New London’s own contribution to this scene: The Telegraph.

Plenty of people turned out for this celebration, and a mix of music on the store’s record player gave way to a catchy African disco band. Each customer making a purchase got a bit of swag, including two sampler CDs. One featured local bands, the other national.

It’s a good strategy to introduce people to new music, much like how World Book Night gave me a book I might not have otherwise read. When I visited the Bull Moose record store chain on a Maine vacation, there was a similar system of giving out samplers with each purchase. One of them proved good enough that I’ll often play it if I’m in the mood for a range of different rock music.

And then there’s the simple joy of having a range of options to choose from. Much like a bookstore, a record store gives you that choice of sifting through a collection of albums and finding things you might not have sought out in an online store. It’s almost like hunting for sea glass among the pebbles on a beach.

The gems I pulled out of Record Store Day covered enough of a musical range to ensure that they never would have been suggested as a “related item.” There was “Long Division,” an album from Maine rockers Rustic Overtones, one of my favorite bands. There was “musicforthemorningafter” by Pete Yorn, a guitarist and songwriter whose single “Life on a Chain” harkened back to my high school days.

And perhaps most wondrous of all, the single album from the New Haven band Polaris. They’re best known, as the album proudly states, for providing much of the music for the Nickelodeon show The Adventures of Pete & Pete that people my age still fondly remember.

My CD collection is slowly developing the same problem as my bookshelf. The desktop rack is full up, and a few stacks of everything from local rock to classical orchestras are rising next to it.

But, as with the books, the variety trumps the inconvenience. Sometimes you just need that quiet evening to pick a book, choose a CD, and relax.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.