IRT Magazine

Found this site about Record Store Day on April 19, 2008.

http://www.recordstoreday.com/Home

As the weeks and months of the last couple of years ebb and flow through my life, it pains me to see the places I have spent hours in closing up shop. Living on Long Island for many years, one of my only joys of existing amongst the corporate scum, guido fascists and soccer mom sluts of that devil-laden strip of land were the times when me and my friends would hit up the record shops in Nassau and Suffolk counties. Not even eight years ago, there used to be about 20 or so shops we could hit up and spend hours rifling through the bins. And that’s not counting the stores in Brooklyn and Manhattan we used to road trip out to.

Now there are less than 10 that I know of that still exist, and who’s to say their futures are any less grim.

In my current residence of North Jersey, the trend is the same. Over the weekend, my fiancee and I along with my future sister-in-law drove through Madison en route to a book sale, and to my dismay I saw Scotti’s Record Shop emptied out and a “For Rent” sign on its window. Who’s to say the other little shops I manage to stow away to every month or so like Flipside in Pompton Lakes or Sound Exchange in Wayne will not suffer a similar fate as less and less people walk through their doors.

But when I go to these places, I always come out with something in my hand, whether its a copy of Bob James’ 1977 funk classic Heads, as I scored recently at CD World in Totowa, or a copy of Randy Newman’s The Natural soundtrack from Flipside.

Believe me, I love nothing more than combing the Internets for blogspots littered with rare albums and live boots that are only a click away from landing (hopefully safely) on my harddrive. But no matter how much music I score for free on the Web here, nothing but nothing will quench my thirst or deter my urge to hop in my car on a sunny Saturday and hit Vintage Vinyl in Fords, NJ or Princeton Record Exchange or even do the old circuit on LI with my boy Danny Beanz in search of gems in the yogi bin at Mr. Cheapo’s or Looney Tunes.

It will truly, truly break my heart if the day comes when the only place I can look for music terrestrially is at fucking Wal-Mart or FYE.

I know you guys hear me on this, so please keep just but an hour of your day on April 19th open and support Record Store Day here in America, and let these corporate condo-constructing gentrifying pigfuckers know you will not allow them to take away your right to comb through aisles and aisles of moldy, dusty old LPs without a fight.

-Patch Atomz

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