It’s 9:30 a.m. on a Saturday. Instead of sleeping in, recovering from the ravages of a Northwestern quarter that’s steamrolling ahead into midterm mode, I’m standing outside Squeezebox Books & Music on Chicago Avenue with five other people, peering through the window for a glimpse of something interesting, and waiting not so patiently for the damn store to open and Record Store Day 2015 to begin.
Record Store Day has been happening since 2007. Held on the third Saturday of April, it's a sacred day for vinyl diehards to worship at a wax altar, make pilgrimages to brick-and-mortar record shops, offer money in exchange for special records released exclusively for the day itself. In an age when music is morphing into liquid - when you stream your music, when the latest service to make a splash is called Tidal - Record Store Day helps you divert your capitalist urges towards the physical. It's the time to embrace the honest-to-god music shop, the large plates of warm sound.
Record Store Day has been overwhelmingly successful: in 2014, the holiday helped independent stores' sales jump 91 percent from the week before. That's up from 59 percent in 2013. Although the vinyl resurgence may seem a clarion call to old fogies who've grown up with the format, it's college-age individuals who've contributed significantly to success of the holiday - in 2013, 18 to 24-year-olds were the ones driving sales. At Northwestern, vinyl remains a integral part of our independent music scene thanks to WNUR, whose DJs spin and broadcast music from the thousands of records in their archive, fondly called 'the stacks.'
I’m here at Squeezebox to partake of this holiday for the first time, but I’m not here for myself. I don’t collect vinyl and I don’t own a player. I know, I know - listening to music on vinyl is an 'experience.' You have to do more than pop in your earbuds and fire up Spotify. The process of removing the record from its beautiful sleeve, marveling at the effort that went into this product, placing it on the player and setting the needle in the right place - all of this will make me appreciate music a different way. I’ve read the thinkpieces. But I’m a cheapo, and if there’s one thing cheapos don’t do, it’s buy vinyl records, which are becoming even more expensive now that labels know people will shell out serious cash for this shit.
I’m here for a friend, whose cruel grad school schedule has him in a classroom for an entire Saturday. His targets are the D’Angelo “Charade”/”1000 Deaths” 7-inch, the reissue of Grizzly Bear’s Horn of Plenty and the “Kim’s Caravan” 12-inch single from Courtney Barnett’s excellent debut, Sometimes I Sit and Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit. We’ve planned it all out - instead of suffering the crowds at Vintage Vinyl, Evanston’s other record store, I’ll go to Squeezebox. I should be there early to get a good spot (I end up sixth in line). If the Courtney Barnett is too expensive (i.e. more than $10) I’ll drop it. If the Grizzly Bear ends up pricier than expected, Courtney will have to go too. If all this strategy sounds a bit too much, consider that some fanatics have been waiting overnight for the holy grails of this year’s RSD exclusives: Brand New’s Deja Entendu and The White Stripes’ Get Behind Me Satan. My friend and I are amateurs at best.
For half an hour, I wait. For some reason, everyone else in line is a dude. I can't quite tell if the younger folks in line are Northwestern students, though I know of Wildcats who love vinyl. Some of us are with friends, some of us are alone. We don’t really talk; any conversation is a little strained and mostly awkward. There’s an awareness that these fellow music fans are also our competitors - God forbid someone snatch up the Run The Jewels 12-inch before you do. At 9:55 a.m. cheerful Squeezebox owner Tim Peterson lets us in. He’s decked out in a chef’s hat and a red apron that proclaims “a woman’s place is in the house… and Senate.” Just 10 minutes before he had distributed a handout with some rules (number 7: “SQUEEZEBOX LOVES YOU!”) and a ‘menu’ of offerings. Cute, but it can’t distract from the fact that Record Store Day has started. The fight for vinyl has begun. We’re out for blood.
We troop in, going straight to the back where an employee takes your ‘order’ and gives you the records you ask for. The dismay comes fast – the person first in line already took a record the second guy wanted (J Dilla's "Fuck The Police," if memory serves). Then the guy in front of me takes the D’Angelo 7-inch, and I exhale a long “Fuuuuuuuck!” He turns around, shrugs and laughs: “Well, the guy in front of me took what I wanted, so...” I sigh and ask for the Grizzly Bear and Courtney Barnett. A guy two places behind me eyes my haul nervously. When he reaches the counter he asks, hopefully, if they still have the Grizzly Bear record. Sorry, dude.
When I head to the cashier to ring up my purchases, I ask Peterson about their limited stock. As my records are put into a limited edition Evanston SPACE tote bag, Peterson tells me that with more than a thousand stores participating nationwide, Squeezebox received dramatically less stock than what they asked for. I recall a Pitchfork feature about bigger record stores muscling in to get more inventory, leaving the smaller stores in the dust. Squeezebox has a 20 percent storewide discount going on all non-RSD inventory, obviously aiming to capitalize on the increased foot traffic and the RSD crowd’s appetite for consumption. Maybe that will help to make up for the reduced stock.
But I look around, and the customers that had been in front of me are already gone. No one’s really browsing the vinyl bins, which are blocked by people in the RSD line anyway. They’ve all left, probably on their way to Vintage Vinyl or the stores in Chicago to grab whatever they didn’t get here. It’s more than a little disappointing - I can’t help feeling that this is the same spirit of consumption which lands RSD exclusives on eBay at a ridiculous markup hours after they’re bought. But then again, there’s nothing wrong with turning your Record Store Day into a vinyl quest, a record store trek. Record Store Day means different things to different people.
I’m still at the counter and the guy behind me is talking to Peterson about the Steve Reich reissue Music for 18 Musicians that he just snagged. Peterson says, “I was thinking of getting that too! But I have a CD, and it will suffice.” I’m a little surprised to hear the owner of a record store say quite casually that you don’t always need vinyl, but also gratified for an affirmation of my personal music listening philosophy: the music is more important than the format. I take it as my cue to leave. It’s 10:15 a.m., and my Record Store Day is over.