Record Store Day just passed us by last weekend (it falls every year on Black Friday, plus a date in April), and if you know this column, you know I rarely miss the opportunity to trumpet our neighborhood brick-and-mortar music stores and physical media in general. Vinyl, CDs and cassettes getting sold without profit skimmed off by Uncle Bezos and the Tech Titans helps keep our local music scene humming.
Yet the special day comes and goes, and not a peep from these pages. That’s strange. Because we love local music so much that Cambridge Day, in collaboration with Hump Day News and a slew of other partners, organized a Record Store Day Walk last April.
Maybe I didn’t want to vinyl you to death, having just covered the Cambridge Record Fair the week before. There’s some truth to that, but there’s more to it.
Another reason I’m slow rolling the holiday might surprise you: Namely, not all record stores get excited about Record Store Day.
Every roadie loves National Roadie Day (May 19). Every Hawaiian loves National Hawaii Day (July 5). Every redhead loves National Love Your Red Hair Day (Nov. 5). But not every record store loves Record Store Day. Why?
I found out why through conversations with owners and workers when I was organizing the Record Store Day Walk. Instead of paraphrasing those conversations, let me drop some spicy statements from a store in Port Jervis, New York, that aligns with what independent record stores around the country are feeling.
Ironhead Records writes via Instagram:
“Well, RSD may have started with good intentions, but it has become a symbol of excess, waste and everything that is wrong with independent music. It threatens small labels, saddles indie shops with stuff that [they] may not want and has become a bigger risk than it’s worth.
“Major labels mostly dictate what makes the cut and force stores to carry stuff they normally wouldn’t carry if they want to participate. Which artists and releases get the RSD treatment is done by secret committee. And some bigger releases may be limited so as to exclude some shops over others.
“RSD increases reliance on large labels and large music distributors who are major contributors to the inflated prices we are now seeing across the board on vinyl and CDs. Ironhead Records, by comparison, does our best to support indie labels and indie distributors so we can keep our prices low.”
The unwanted “stuff” that independent record stores get saddled with is RSD-exclusive merchandise that nobody wants. For every coveted record of unreleased material by a reputable artist (say, an EP of new material from Beach House), there are many more duds (for example, I shit you not, an overpriced vinyl edition of Peppa Pig songs) that major labels force down the retail pipeline as a precondition for being included in the official RSD promotion.
It’s a strange world we live in when you can’t take it for granted that you’re supporting a small business by walking in the front door and buying merchandise off the shelf. But we’re all (mostly) adults, and we understand that our byzantine economy consists of wheels within wheels, and we know what gets marketed to us as something simple is often much more complex. A day designed to support the business of local record stores, all told, might do the opposite in our topsy-turvy reality.
I’m going to keep searching for a guilt-free way to enjoy the holiday. In the meantime, the short-term fix is to just consider every day Record Store Day and let the dollars fall where they may. After all, you never know when that RSD-exclusive Peppa Pig album might enjoy a miraculous critical reappraisal to become the album everyone wished they had bought.
Hit this
Friday: STL GLD and friends (The Sinclair, Cambridge)
Genre-stomping hip-hop crew STL GLD celebrates the release of its latest album “Good Music for Bad Kids” with friends. Good friends, bad friends, all the friends. Extra points for the Garbage Pail Kids font on the cover. The list of cameos from the album (ToriTori, Jill McCracken, Naomi Westwater and more) looks like a Who’s Who from the Boston Music Awards, so no surprise that they’re joined at the live show by local heavyweights such as Bad Rabbits, plus accompanying sets by Red Shaydez and DJ Troy Frost. Who knows, maybe a surprise appearance by Adam Bomb?
Saturday: Rick Berlin with the Nickel and Dime Band (The Plough and Stars, Cambridge)
Free.
Scene stalwart Rick Berlin leads the Nickel and Dime Band through rousing and relatable rock ’n’ roll exclamations such as “Gotta Dance,” “I Don’t Wanna Go to Work” and “I’m Wearing a Tutu.” It’s life-loving punk at heart, sampling musical flavors from throughout the decades, from disco to dub. This is music for all seasons, but you’ll especially enjoy the jolly mood during the holiday season. No cover charge at the venerable Plough and Stars, so spend those extra dollars on a hot toddy and tip the band.
Sunday: Mike Block and Yacouba Sissoko (Crystal Ballroom, Somerville)
A performance of postworld music by masters of the craft, presented by Global Arts Live. Mike Block is a critically acclaimed cellist who’s always teaming up with new, interesting partners to create an approachable international sound cognizant of its historical roots while still nosing out new pathways. The decorated kora player Yacouba Sissoko will join Block for a night of at least 25 strings. What’s a kora? So glad you asked. A kora is a traditional instrument out of West Africa that shares features with the lute and harp, looking a little bit like a swollen banjo with 21 strings mounted vertically (rather than flat across) the length of the instrument.
Live: Four Piece Suit at Lizard Lounge
A night of stylish surf rock from headliner Four Piece Suit settled into the subterranean depths of Lizard Lounge. It was the day after Thanksgiving, and still the audience appeared to be processing their meal, content to nestle in their seats and greet the music like a complimentary digestif.
Not the sort of thing you’d order for yourself, but if it arrives at the table, why not?
Four Piece Suit consists of Milt Reder (guitar), John Aruda (saxophone), Dean Cassell (bass) and Seth Pappas (drums), who have logged a lot of miles on the road between them and have the war stories to prove it.
If you’ve heard their music before, it’s probably not because you caught them at that French dive they played with bandages and broken bones after getting into a car accident, and it’s probably not because you caught them somewhere in Finland after they lost-and-found themselves in the backcountry in the days before GPS.
More likely you heard their swanked-out compositions soundtracking some of your favorite TV and film, including “Sex and the City,” “Dexter” and “Psycho Beach Party.” Nice work if you can get it.
Four Piece Suit fits the bill. When Aruda lays into his saxophone, he conjures visions of car chases and bank robberies. With a little tremolo, Reder’s guitar paces the room like a noir bombshell on the prowl. And the rhythm section of Cassell and Pappas parses every song like a well-told story with beginning, middle and end.
Somerville’s Le Prestige opened, performing as an eight-piece funk jazz explosion. The band is notable for its trio of saxophones – baritone, tenor and alto – which can assume the proportion of a band within a band, elevating the ensemble on the back of that sweet brass. Hate to see it leave but love to watch it go.
Michael Gutierrez is an author, educator, activist and editor-in-chief at Hump Day News.
A stronger
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