Record Store Day is Saturday

Record Store Day to be celebrated at Southwest Sound
Record Store Day will be held Saturday at Southwest Sound.

Do you have your list ready?

In an increasingly digitized world, where your music collection may be confined to your smartphone, there’s a day for music lovers to step back and appreciate small, independent record stores and classic vinyl albums.

Record Store Day is that day. Since the event’s beginning in 2007, when indie record store owners and employees devised a way to celebrate independent stores, people have been lining up early at Southwest Sound in Durango to snag special-edition albums made just for the day.

And knowing what albums will be issued isn’t just a crapshoot: Record Store Day releases a list in advance that lets you know exactly what to expect. The trick, though, is whether your local record store will get in what you want because supplies are limited – in some cases, editions are restricted to 300, 500, 1,000 or 1,500 copies of a particular release.

This year, Southwest Sound will open at 10 a.m., and with people carpooling in to Durango from Silverton to the north and Farmington to the south, owner Robert Stapleton recommends you snag your place in line fairly early “no later than 9:30 a.m.,” he said, because they will sell out of a lot of things.

And if you’re lucky enough to get your meat hooks on your particular Holy Grail, will you take it home, slit open the shrink-wrap and take it for a spin on the turntable?

“I hope so,” Stapleton said. “I’m buying it because I want to listen to it.”

For more information, call Southwest Sound at 259-5896.

katie@durangoherald.com

On the Web

For the complete list of Record Store Day releases, check out http://www.recordstoreday.com/SpecialReleases.