New York – No turkeys here; just a Thanksgiving feast. For the fourth year, Record Store Day will help the more than 700 independently owned record stores in the U.S. (and thousands more internationally) by kicking off the holiday shopping season with a Black Friday event with 100 exclusive releases aimed to get music fans out of the malls and into the indie stores that line Main Street and side streets across the country. Not surprisingly, the 2013 crop features the proverbial something for every musical taste.
As in previous years, releases are divided into two categories: those exclusively available on Record Store Day’s Black Friday at RSD participating stores; and RSD “First Releases” that will subsequently be available elsewhere. The majority of new stuff is being released on vinyl-only.
Among the new releases are:
–Dawes: Stripped Down At Grimey’s, a six-song set on orange vinyl from a former BestNewBands.com Featured Artist, recorded live earlier this year when the LA-based folk rockers performed at the legendary Nashville record store to pre-promote their latest album, Stories Don’t End.
–a 10” from Silversun Pickups (also a previous BestNewBands.com Featured Artist) on Dangerbird Records of a brand new track “Let It Decay” b/w “Working Title,” a previously unreleased track from the sessions for their latest LP, Neck Of The Woods. The band’s lead singer/guitarist Brian Aubert said: “We’ve been lucky enough to play special acoustic shows in independent record stores all over the globe…and will always do whatever we can to help support these stores.”
–plus releases from Atlas Genius, The Lone Bellow, Foals, and more.
Classic artists are also well-represented. Sony Music is releasing the first five Cheap Trick albums in a vinyl box set, The Classic Albums 1977-79; there’s a live acoustic album from the Grateful Dead, Family Dog At The Great Highway, recorded in San Francisco in 1970; Warner Bros. has a double album of 17 Red Hot Chili Peppers tracks recorded during the I’m With You sessions; a 7” of “Fire”/”Foxey Lady” from the Jimi Hendrix Experience recorded at the Miami Pop Festival in 1968; plus titles from Nirvana, Bob Dylan, the Doors, and the Dave Matthews Band. To further get into the holiday spirit, there’s even a re-release of the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s “Linus and Lucy,” from the much-loved “A Charlie Brown Christmas” soundtrack.
Michael Kurtz, co-founder of Record Store Day, told BestNewBands.com that RSD’s Black Friday event came about when the indie stores “asked for another event as a way to compete with the big mall stores. It gives people a great reason to kick off the holiday shopping season in their own towns.”
The complete list is available HERE.
