Record Store Day, April 17, 2010

Here at PDGB, every day is record store day. And while nothing gets us more excited than seeing others get excited by music -not to mention art, dance, beer, booze, food, heaven, hell, and/or any form of inspired self-expression regardless of cultural origin- we're hoping that National Record Store Day continues to be an annual rite of spring and celebration of passion and human interaction. A few wrong moves and N.R.S.D. risks alienating its intended audience and simply becoming another crass, desperate attempt to prop up the remnants of the music industry's old guard.

Art and commerce have always been strange bedfellows, and the cutout bins of history are littered with failed attempts at balancing a checkbook with artistic vision and heartfelt passion. Fight the good fight indie retailers.

Must I remind PDGB readers of how the well-intended and formerly care-free and fibrous Oatmeal Muffin Day (Dec 19) unwittingly pitted Grandmother against Nana and Babushka against Matriarch, transforming supermarkets, craft supply stores, and suburban kitchens into combat-zones, ultimately bringing this once-great nation to it's knees for over seventy-two mildly irregular hours? Who can forget the tragic fall from grace suffered by (a moment of silence, please) the once joyous and dignified Ball Point Pen Day, (June 10) it's legacy so horrific and scarring it remains a source of national embarrassment and ridicule to this day? Dare I mention the less than harmonious circumstances surrounding our notorious day of infamy otherwise known as Barbershop Quartet Day (April 11)? A straw-boated jubilee of such perversion and far-reaching implication most experts agree it an enigma "best left unsolved."

Go forward with grace Record Store Day, and watch your back.
-toke!

Culture Clash Records Toledo
4020 Secor Rd.
536-5683

Ramalama Records Toledo
3151 West Central Ave.
531-7625