Record Store Day 2011

Today is, if you haven't realised yet, is Record Store Day. I got up early to join the queue at my local independent record store, Acorn Records, where I was somewhere near the back of a long queue. I saw some old friends and made some new ones while waiting to be let in. After about 40 minutes I finally managed to get into the shop and to peruse the purdy vinyl. My first notice was an Iggy & The Stooges 'Raw Power Live' release. This threw me a little, as I had checked the releases on the Record Store Day website and this was not among them. I tossed up the idea of buying it for a while, but decided to not go with it and to continue looking. 

The first record I bought was Vorwarts by Mute Records. It is a compilation containing unreleased, exclusive and rare recordings from bands on the Mute roster. It includes a composition by Can as well as numbers by Grinderman, Liars and Yeasayer. It comes on a beautiful translucent orange vinyl.

My second choice was this wonderful split between Oval and Liturgy from Thrill Jockey. Oval produce four tracks, a 6-minute one and several shorter lengths that remind me of all those CDs the Wire gives away every once in a while. Liturgy offer one long track that was apparently recorded at Shea Stadium. I imagine that was a joke unless there is a studio at Shea, but I doubt it. This had an extremely limited release of 150. So limited when I looked on ebay earlier this was not on there. It must be worth millions.

This yellow 7" is a split between ZZ Top and Mastodon, both playing 'Just Got Paid'. If you play the ZZ Top version at the wrong speed it still sounds quite good and a lot more arty.

My final purchase was The Clash's 'rap' song 'The Magnificent Seven'. On the Record Store Day website they say this is backed with 'The Magnificent Dance'. It's not. I've got number 341 out of I presumer 1,000.

All in all a good haul, in my opinion. Unfortunately I could not get hold of Flying Lotus' 'Cosmogramma Alt Takes' or the Yeasayer 7". Oh well. There's always next year, where I'll see you there.