Record Store Day is April 18

Remember records? LPs, albums, vinyl, 45s, 78s, singles, cardboard covers...

I do. I have half a storage room of them and I still own a turntable to play them. I keep hearing that they are "coming back" but I doubt that rumor, as wonderful as it would be.

So, vinyl is endangered - but so are the stores that sell vinyl and ANY form of music that you buy and hold in your hands rather than download.

The original idea for Record Store Day came about in 2007 as a celebration of the unique culture surrounding over 700 independently-owned record stores in the USA, and hundreds of similar stores internationally.

This is the one day that all of the independently-owned record stores come together with artists to celebrate the art of music.

Special vinyl and CD releases and various promotional products are made exclusively for the day and hundreds of artists in the United States and in various countries across the globe make special appearances and performances.I found out about it in an email from Bruce Springsteen. Well, not personally from Bruce, but from BruceSpringsteen.net. Columbia Records has produced a 7" vinyl single, with collectible photo insert, available only on Record Store Day for Bruce's "What Love Can Do" from Working On A Dream and "A Night With The Jersey Devil" on the B side.

Record Store Day festivities include performances, cook-outs, body painting, meet & greets with artists, parades, DJs spinning records and on and on. Check out your local stores and BUY something vinyl or otherwise.

Definition: For Record Store Day, they define a record store as a physical retailer whose product line consists of at least 50% music retail, whose company is not publicly traded and whose ownership is at least 70% located in the state of operation. In other words, real, live, physical, indie record stores—not online retailers or corporate behemoths.