Culture
Record Store Day to Feature In-store Show, Special Releases
By: Bryan Gibson
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It’s hard to say what Barry (Jack Black’s cantankerous character in High Fidelity) would think of The Ridges, but it’s a good bet he’d admire the band’s love of Record Store Day.
The local orchestral folk-rock band will give an in-store acoustic performance this Saturday at Haffa’s Records, and singer-songwriter Victor Rasgaitis is looking forward to it.
“We love record stores,” he said. “To us, they are a lot more than just the physical copies of music that they sell–they are one of the cornerstones of the independent music community. As music lovers and musicians who are indebted to both the obvious and indirect influence that independent record stores have had on our lives and our music, we need to support them.”
Founded in 2007, Record Store Day is celebrated internationally, with hundreds of recording artists issuing special vinyl LPs and singles. This year’s event includes releases by such disparate acts as Wilco, Miles Davis, Phish, ABBA and Metallica, with selections varying from store to store.
“We have participated in Record Store Day since the beginning,” said Haffa’s Co-owner Andrew Lampela. “It’s a great way to get people in the store and just share music. I’ve always been very passionate about music and it’s truly a joy to see so many people come out and bond over our collective love.”
Although downloads have become the norm in recent years, Lampela thinks there is still a market for people who are looking for a personal, tactile experience when purchasing music.
“Having something tangible with the art, the lyrics, and a cohesive idea of the artist beyond the music is something people have latched onto,” he said.
Rasgaitis is hoping people latch onto The Ridges’ special Record Store Day release. “The Insomniac’s Song (Live with The Sleepless Singers)” is a limited-run, LP-sized 12″x12″ hand screen-printed poster that comes with a download code for a live indie-choir recording of “The Insomniac’s Song” and the studio recording of the song from the band’s self-titled debut album.
The release also includes a video of the live recording at The Rohs Street Cafe Sanctuary Concert Hall (see above).
“We had wanted to do a vocal arrangement of “The Insomniac’s Song” for a while,” he said. “We gathered about 20 of our friends from bands like The Happy Maladies, Indigo Wild, Young Heirlooms and Molly Sullivan in a beautiful and acoustically awesome church to record. The video was shot and edited by one of our cellists, Allie Levin.”
Haffa’s will open its doors at 11 a.m. this Saturday, with The Ridges’ in-store performance taking place at 3 p.m.
“We hope we can get a few new people to walk into their local record store, where they’ll hopefully realize how awesome it is,” said Rasgaitis. “Which is the whole point of this awesome holiday.”