Saturday, April 19th, is Record Store Day! The day you have been waiting for ALL YEAR!! You have saved coins collected from under the car seats. You have dreamt of colored vinyl. The wait is over. But where to go? So many stores to choose from! The East Bay Record Store Guide alone lists a dozen options! Fortunately many shops open early and close late for this most special of holidays, so plan to hit a bunch of stores. While yer at it, take in some live music, DJs and food trucks!
1-2-3-4 Go! offers the best of the best. The store recently expanded so there will be loads of yummy vinyl. In true 1-2-3-4 fashion, they have managed to bring Ghoul live in the flesh playing a special surf set at 3pm (with Occultist opening)!! Ghoul emerged in 2001, are coming all the way from Creepsylvania and don’t play too often. Last September, they were at Eli’s and when I snuck a photo of the Jameson monster (above), he came after me with a bucket of fake blood that stains exactly like real blood. Wear old clothes. Doors open at 8am but don’t get too freakish, standing in line ain’t cool. (On the other hand… if you are up early you can score some SubRosa Coffee and Pepples Donuts, and the first 100 people can enter a raffle to win an autographed Green Day test pressing.) Stooges fans should be there by 10:30 with vinyl in hand as guitarist James Williamson will be signing copies of his single!! If you get hungry, the Hella Vegan Eats truck will be out front, and beer from Linden Street Brewery starting at noon.
From here, head downtown. VAMP music is offering 15% off all vinyl AND they are participating in Oakland Drops Beats, a brand new music crawl! VAMP will have live music 2-6pm from the Oakland Freedom Jazz Society. Tbe Oakland Drops Beats Schedule boasts live music from 2pm-11:30pm indoors at multiple venues and outdoors at 15th and Webster. Highlights include Odd Nosdam, B. Hamilton, Kev Choice and so much more.
Econo Jam is only a short drive away. Also opening at 8am, they promise to “Unleash the Oddball” with a few hundred obscure records. There will be a “Bag of Destiny,” so reach in for a variety of discounts. Black Spring Coffee and vegan pastries will be available for sale.
Straight up Telegraph, Stranded Records is offering 20% of everything in the store. They’ll also have coffee and pastries and open at 9am.
Blues fans, fans of steel guitar…hell, anyone with a car might want to ignore the rest of this post and head directly to Down Home Music in El Cerrito. Legendary Chicago bluesman Freddie Roulette will be doing a free in-store at 2pm. Plus ALL used merch will be 25% off!!
Across that swanky new bridge Amoeba is hosting a full day of DJs in SF, starting with Joel Gion (Brian Jonestown Massacre, Primary Colours) at 11am, Andy Cabic of Vetiver at 2 and Russell Quan (Mummies, Chuckleberries, Dukes of Hamburg) at 4. (Amoeba Berkeley will also host DJ Inti and DJ Jonah Nice from 1-4).
Groove Merchant on Haight promises more than 300 “handpicked”, “rare to semi-rare” delicacies.
There are lots of other great SF shops with less fanfare. Streetlight, Recycled, Aquarius, Rooky Ricardos, and Thrillhouse are likely to hold some surprises. (Editors’ note: Aquarius will have an exclusive new 12″ from local guitarist Sean Smith’s new band, Twin Trilogy, who will also be performing at Aquarius at 4pm on Sunday the 20th.)
Least appealing option of the day (unless you love American Idol): Rasputin in Berkeley has Phillip Phillips at 1pm.
