Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Record Store Day

     As I was listening to my favorite radio station the other day, I heard an interview about Record Store Day.  Half way through the interview my ears perked up to find out what they were talking about. I was too late to find out what record Store Day was all about . So I went to plan B which is look on Wikipedia.

     Record Store Day occurs on the third Saturday in April and is a day that independent music stores sponsor special events. Special record presses and releases are made on the day.There's lots of meet and greet with artists. Many promotional products are available. Each store has it's own agenda for the event so it ends up being a bit of a community event.

   What caught my ear was "vinyl" and vinyl sound compared to other sound reproduction methods.  Vinyl reproduction has been making somewhat of a comeback recently. In some ways vinyl has better sound than tapes, CDs or electronic reproduction. Now this is a debate which could go on forever. My  ear doesn't really pick up much difference ,  but what I do pick up is the difference between high quality equipment and cheap stuff.

     I listen to Randy's Vinyl Tap on CBC and Lionel's Vinyls on CKUA.com. These are two shows that play music from records.

    I love music. No, I'm not a musician and I'm not the least bit musical. I just like listening to music. I listen to a very wide variety of music. The list of music I don't like listening to would be very short.

    Now I haven't listened to vinyl for years because the only turntable I have in the house quit working a long time ago. I have lots of tapes from the time tapes were in their hey day. I have lots of CDs.  And now with ipods I have all kinds of digital music.

   Yes, I like "good" sound. At times I like to be able to hear the individual instruments. If the bassoon is playing , I want to be able to hear it. At other times I like to listen for the sound made by the complete combination of the instruments. I'm really surprised and pleased with what you can hear on an ipod. 

    So this weekend check out your local independent music store and see if they are participating in National Record Day.