Record Store Day Single from PUJOL

PUJOL at Asbury Lanes in November 2014.

"Junebug"

by Allyson Dwyer

Last year, when Screaming Females stopped by the Lanes, they had an opener from Nashville for whom Mike and Chris of SIMGE had extensive, high praise. That band was PUJOL, and they were one of the best live discoveries I had ever come across. From the opening lines of their first song, I didn't want to stop listening to them. I am a solid fan of Daniel Pujol's intriguing mixture of hyper-conscious, anxious lyrics and punk rock freak outs, live or recorded.

So funny that this track, “June Bug,” is a playful mixture of both. Prepped to be released as an exclusive split release with fellow Nashville band, Meth Dad, for Record Store Day, the track sounds like it was primitively recorded in the hollow halls of a hole-in-the-wall club during rock's coming of age. Think The Beatles playing in Germany before they got big, or when bluesy rock songs demanded you do an innocent dance just so the band could rock out. The number one thing this track does is remind me how amazing PUJOL are live and how much I wish they were playing up here again.

Pressed by Daniel Pujol himself, "Junebug" was purposely recorded live and will be done “relive” on actual Record Store Day, recreating the live recording at Queen Ave in Nashville (wow I wrote live a lot). This is a fun little spin on the weird release antics done for the sake of the loved-and-hated holiday known as Record Store Day. It's a one of a kind of approach that I would actually line up for. If you're unable to, however, the track will be available digitally for two weeks.

Record Store Day Eve Edition

Support Your Local Record Store Friday

Tomorrow is Record Store Day 2013. Like last year, I'll be doing swim practice pickup. That means I'll likely have a pretty lousy spot in line out in front of my local record store.

I have it on good authority (the store) that they do have a few copies in stock of one of the things I'm hoping to grab tomorrow: the Titus Andronicus 10" featuring Local Business cut "Still Life with Hot Deuce on Silver Platter" and two unreleased tracks.

Keeping the Jersey-centric vibe going, I think it would also be cool if I could grab the Garbage/Screaming Females cover of the Bruce Springsteen/Patti Smith classic, "Because the Night."

We'll see.

If anyone wants to volunteer to hold my place in line, I'll bring you whatever Munchkins the swimmers haven't devoured. The three that I transport usually make short work of a box of 25, but I'll force them to exercise restraint. For you.

I hope you get everything you're looking for, and...

Rock on.

Retail Therapy Edition

Black Friday

Once I can pawn the cooldaughters off onto their grandmother, I'm going to head out to make some purchases.  These won't be the standard, heavily-discounted versions of the latest electronics (well, latest from last year).  Instead, I need a new gate to continue house-training CoolDog, who's figured out how to scale the one he's got.  And I'd love to check out what pretty-colored vinyl is available on this Black Friday version of Record Store Day.

I'll probably get a haircut, too.  Big doin's.

Here's hoping you didn't take (or throw) too many elbows on your quest for that perfect gift.

Rock on...

Record Store Day Postscript

In Pursuit of Flexi Discs

That was fun, I guess. 

The swim carpool has gotten, overall, much more complicated in recent weeks.  Texts fly back and forth all day.  Sometimes, two different people show up to pick up CoolDaughter #1 for practice.  The bottom line, though, is that I almost never have to drive to swimming anymore.  So Saturday morning I had time to head over to Jack’s Music Shoppe by nine for Record Store Day.

I was after two things, mainly.  I got one, the “KROKODIL” single by St. Vincent.  It’s a red seven-inch, and it’s a great, hard rock track.  Jack’s, though, never got a copy of the Domino Records Smugglers Way flexi-zine, a twenty-four page magazine of sorts containing five, different colored flexi discs by the likes of Dirty Projectors and New Jersey’s Real Estate.  Flexi discs are really horrible sounding singles pressed onto thin, flexible vinyl that you can play on a turntable.  They used to be given out as promotional items on the backs of cereal boxes or as pages in magazines.

I’m not really a record collector.  I’m a married, suburban dad with a couple of kids and a corporate job, but this multi-colored, flexi thing just sounded great to me.  I can be a little bit obsessive sometimes, and I spent the next couple of days trying to get a copy on eBay.  I learned a bit about the power of marketing and group psychology during my pursuit.

Smugglers Way retailed, I think, for around twenty dollars, maybe less.  A few copies showed up on eBay by late Saturday morning.  I put in some bids, going up to around forty-five dollars once or twice.  The things sold for over a hundred bucks.  It's cool, but it's not that cool.  I gave up on ever owning this little magazine containing five, square, flexible, previously unreleased singles in blue, red, green, orange, and yellow.

Then, this afternoon, I peeked at eBay again.  A few more copies had appeared for sale, and I put in a few bids.  As of five-thirty today, I am the proud owner of Domino’s Smugglers Way flexi-zine -- for twenty-four dollars and nineteen cents.  I was lucky, but the market has definitely shifted as the Record Store Day 2012 frenzy has subsided.  Monday’s going rate seems to be around thirty dollars.

I’m not sure that the eBay price normalization on something like Smugglers Way really says that the level of interest generated by the marketing build-up and the limited releases of Record Store Day was just a weekend phenomenon.  Though, I wouldn’t have that much trouble believing that the “Hey, Record Store Day is every day” crowd are the only ones that will be paying any real attention to record stores until it all starts up again next year.

Like I said at the beginning, for me, it was fun, and I buy music almost every week of the year.  Sometimes I even buy it from a record store.  I could really see myself getting into collecting these flexi discs, too.

One last bit: I also, impulsively, bought Wilco’s The Whole Love box set.  That netted me a second copy of their Black Friday Record Store Day release of the Speak Into The Rose EP.  It comes on red, translucent vinyl, and I may do some kind of contest where the winner will get my extra copy.  Stay tuned.

Record Store Day Ramblings

Record Store Day 2012 

So tomorrow is Record Store Day.  I’ll be at Jack’s Music Shoppe in Red Bank checking out what’s on offer.  I hope to score the St.Vincent 7-inch and, maybe, the “Rocky Ground” single from Bruce.

I’ve always kept my old vinyl albums, and a year or so ago, I even bought a new turntable so I could listen to them.

Funny story:  during our recent home renovation, the young man doing the new A/V setup wanted to test the turntable as he had just hooked it up to the system. 

“Do you have one of those black things, so I can test this?”

“Black things?”

“Yeah.”

 “A record?”

 “Yeah, one of those.”

Kids.

Anyway, as I went through my music collection then, I was struck by the gaping hole that represented all of the cassettes I had purchased and, I guess, discarded in my teens.  Vinyl, CD’s, and digital files obviously blow cassettes out of the water as a medium; and I have no desire to go out and get a cassette player so I can play old tapes.

I haven’t kept and I don’t go out and buy records because of some belief in their superior audio quality, though.  I’m pretty certain that lossless digital audio, either in CD or file form, is a more accurate representation of the original recording than what’s captured on vinyl.  People have their preferences over what sounds “warmer,” or “fuller,” or “more present,” or any other relatively meaningless description, and that’s fantastic, but I think the science is on the side of lossless digital.

I keep my records and I continue to buy music on vinyl when I can because it’s just so much cooler than a CD or a bunch of files.  Several things make that true for me.  The album artwork is nice and big, and there may even be some on the back.  You get a sleeve with liner notes and maybe lyrics on it.  I know you can get those things with CD’s and files, but the artwork isn’t as big or you’ve got to print out some digital booklet.  Sometimes, the vinyl record itself comes in cool colors or with pictures on it.  On top of all that, nine times out of ten, you now get a digital download with the record, so you don’t even need a turntable to get the cool stuff and listen to the music.  The one time recently that I bought an album that, for legal reasons, didn’t come with a download, I emailed the band and they just sent me the files, no questions asked.  I really do think it’s that digital download thing that has kept vinyl alive, and not the marketing blitz around Record Store Day a couple of times per year.

For those reasons, and because I like going to the record store for similar reasons involving stuff that I think is cool, and because, as a cooldad, I still prefer to purchase whole albums, I’ll be out shopping tomorrow.

Maybe I’ll see you.  Happy hunting.

Here’s a report on Record Store Day from CBS This Morning.  I find it interesting and aggravating at the same time.