Spin, Spin. Spin the Black Circle

There are some things is life that were just bad ideas – New Coke, Crystal Pepsi, holding the Olympics in Beijing. Here’s an idea that is not only GREAT, but one you should get behind; this Saturday (April 19th) is National Record Store Day. Yeah, yeah, yeah – I hear you now. Most of these places are out of your way and not as convenient as the big box stores. Yeah, okay, most of the staff is wannabe hipsters or aging hippies. And granted you might just reek of patchouli when you leave the store. But dammit, independent record stores are just about the only safe haven of good music left in this country.

Have you tried to find a new release on Tuesdays recently? If you tried Target, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, or Circuit City then I hope you were looking for something in the rap genre, a crappy pop starlet, or perhaps an American Idol, because baby, you weren’t going to find any good rock and roll. Oh, you could get a copy of REM’s Accelerate or the new Counting Crows disc Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings. But if you tried to find the new Black Keys, the new Kooks, heck even the new Raconteurs – you were most likely SOL. Plus, if you did luck into a copy, the mind numbingly slow halfwits at the box stores probably had to dig through the boxes in the back to find the lone copy in the store that just happened to be marked at full list price of $14.99 - $17.99. Uhm, who needs it?

I guarantee that if you went to ear x-stacy or CD Central, they had not only what you were looking for, but they had multiple copies. While the prices might not beat the $9.99 offered for most of the major new releases at the major chains, the $11.99 you pay at the indy stores beat full list price at Best Buy – and you get to help keep a vital cog in the local music scene open and serving the community. (Just make sure to avoid the spoken word, jam band, and Acid jazz/techno sections of the store.)

Of course, most of you reading this probably get your music online nowadays (either legally or illegally), so this column may be a moot point. But if you are still reading my words, do yourself and your local music loving brethren a favor and hit your independent music store this weekend. You might just find something new that you like and you can help stave off the Wal-Mart takeover that much longer.

-Joker