Saturday was Record Store Day!

[This report was posted on Friday the 16th. The Web site for Record Store Day remains active all year.]

Yes, that's tomorrow the 17th, so be sure to go to a record store and — buy a record! Or a CD or a DVD or whatever your local store happens to be selling. But don't forget: That store should not be a Walmart or a Best Buy or a whathaveyou. Give those guys a rest. Instead, indeed, go to your local record store.

Yup, they still exist. Having trouble finding one? Simply click on recordstoreday.com and you'll see a link for Participating Stores — that is, those stores participating in this third annual Record Store Day.

Have you forgotten what a record store looks like? Here's one . . . 

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This just happens to be my local record store: the Princeton Record Exchange in Princeton, New Jersey, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2010. I remember shopping at its first location on Nassau Street in the 1980s — which means I would've been shopping for things like import 45s of Kate Bush. Today, in its now-longtime location on South Tulane Street, the Exchange has vinyl singles and albums as well as CDs (and DVDs and Blu-ray Discs) for nearly every imaginable genre, from opera to punk.

The store's Web site is MVD5020D And while you're at it, pick up a copy of this DVD from MVD Visual:

I Need That Record! The Death (or Possible Survival) of the Independent Record Store

This documentary by Brendan Toller includes interviews with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore, the Minutemen's Mike Watt, the Patti Smith Group's Lenny Kaye, Talking Heads' Chris Frantz, and Drive-by Truckers' Patterson Hood.

For more info, see ineedthatrecord.com.

Want to help guarantee the survival of your independent record store? Visit it on Saturday and open your wallet — even if just a little bit.

— Ken Richardson

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