Record Store Day

This coming Saturday is "Record Store Day". A few of us from The Time Machine came from record stores and the rest of us hung around record stores.

Check out the site www.recordstoreday.com that explains what this day is all about. You will find some nice quotes (including some former guests on The Time Machine) about this disappearing twentieth century memory at the site and we will begin here with an earlier 2006 post from Maui musician Dave Carroll and follow that personal moment with the author of "High Fidelity" that anyone who has ever truly been in a record store can relate to.




For 30 years; the hippest store on this little rock in the middle of the big blue was Request Music in Lahaina. Due to a medical situation; the man behind that oasis of culture; Jerry Byers, had to close the doors recently. Jerry is the best bass player and the best hang I've ever known. His store was where I found my connection to the pulse of humanity. Jerry has always held it down musically with humility and grace. And his awareness of great early talent is unfaltering. Every day after work, I'd walk over to his store; have a beer and discuss Music, Art, Politics, Sex,...you name it; with a small group of folks, Good friends; We all knew that it was too good to last...and it was. Now; I'm counting on you guys to keep me connected to the stuff that keeps me singing. You're doing a good job; but for me; there will never be anything like a great record store. Here's to you Jer!

- Dave Carroll


"Yes, yes, I know. It's easier to download music, and probably cheaper. But what's playing on your favourite download store when you walk into it?

Nothing, that's what. Who are you going to meet in there? Nobody. Where are the notice boards offering flatshares and vacant slots in bands destined for superstardom? Who's going to tell you to stop listening to that and start listening to this? Go ahead and save yourself a couple of quid. The saving will cost you a career, a set of cool friends, musical taste and, eventually, your soul. Record stores can't save your life. But they can give you a better one."

- Nick Hornby


"You can't roll a joint on an iPod - buy vinyl!"

- Shelby Lynne


"There’s nothing as glamorous to me as a record store. When I recently played Amoeba in LA, I realised what fantastic memories such a collection of music brings back when you see it all in one place. This is why I’m more than happy to support Record Store Day and I hope that these kinds of stores will be there for us all for many years to come. Cheers!"

- Paul McCartney


"The record store. Where true fandom begins. It's the soul of discovery, and the place where you can always return for that mighty buzz. The posters. The imports. The magazines. The discerning clerks, paid in vinyl, professors of the groove. Long live that first step inside, when the music envelopes you and you can't help it. You walk up to the counter and ask the question that begins the journey -- "what is that you're playing?" Long live the record store, and the guys and girls who turn the key, and unlock those dreams, every day."

- Cameron Crowe


"I buy CDs all the time. I'll go into a record store and just buy $500 worth of CDs. I will! I am singlehandedly supporting what's left of the record business.

I hate to see record stores disappear, and I'm old-school in that I think you should pay for your music. But what my kids do is download a lot of things, pay for them, and then if they love something, they'll get the CD. That may be the future.”

- Bruce Springsteen


"Music is an important part of our culture and record stores play a vital part in keeping the power of music alive"

- Chuck Berry


“I just really love anything that’s not faceless and where people know each other and work together to build, like, a community. People that work there know their stuff; they’re not coming in today to sell music and tomorrow to sell TVs and the next day to sell whatever. Somebody can come in and say, “I want somebody who plays piano music” or something, and somebody will actually tell them to listen to my record and they’ll play it in the store for them and they’ll talk about it. You can connect in some way with somebody who’s doing something that they love. And that it’s important to have something that is being done just out of true love for new music that is being welcomed into the world. People should go to their indie record store and find out what is happening.”

- Regina Spektor


“It’s important to keep indie record stores alive because their unique environments introduce music lovers to things in a very personal way.”

- Norah Jones


“The indie record stores are the backbone of the recorded music culture. It's where we go to network, browse around, and find new songs to love. The stores whose owners and staff live for music have spread the word about exciting new things faster and with more essence than either radio or the press. Any artist that doesn't support the wonderful ma and pa record stores across America is contributing to our own extinction.”

- Joan Jett


“I have watched independent record stores evaporate all over America and Europe. That's why I go into as many as I can and buy records whenever possible. If we lose the independent record store, we lose big. Every time you buy your records at one of these places, it's a blow to the empire.”

- Henry Rollins


"Independent record stores are like a casino where you put down your money and you always win. How amazing to discover gems you didn't know about, to meet someone more passionate than you are, and to feel at home in a place you may never have been to before. I'm convinced they will never lose their place - Long may they rule."

- KT Tunstall


"I was introduced to lots of great music through my local record store. It was a place where people knew music and they knew me, and could make great suggestions and discoveries. Whether it is in the physical world or on-line, the value of a great and knowledgeable record store has not gone away"

- Peter Gabriel


"As a little five points alumni of 11 years, back in the 1900's, I used to live behind criminal records on a street called colquitt in an apartment with a rotating cast of roommate's girlfriends. I would be on the road about 300 days out of the year, and home on most mondays and tuesdays. Those were my days to go get cultured on new and exciting music, and buy my dimebag habit of U.K. Magazines. The thing is, I would have never gotten this kind of education or variety of pop culture fun from a supermarket that sells Shakira records.

Don't get me wrong. My day job pays me well for making records for those kinds of folks, but I don't wanna listen to it. I mean, would you wanna eat donuts for dinner, if you made them all day in a factory? Nope. Same with music. thanks Eric...."

- Butch Walker


“The idea of, ‘The journey is the destination’ is put into action by browsing in an indie record store. Besides, a human being is a much better guide than a ‘More Like This’ link on the internet.”

- Patton Oswalt


"Indie record stores were what we had to start with, and they're all we've got left."

When I was a kid, I spent the better part of my time in indie record stores, sifting through bins of CDs for new import EPs from my favorite Brit bands, befriending employees with loads of opinions to share, and discovering what I loved about music which had nothing to do with what was being sold to me on the radio. The handwritten "Staff Picks" were eternally cool, even if I sometimes hated the records. Now, my favorite "Mom and Pop" shops have started closing around me, I have to go into these superstores where they don't know what EPs are, they can tell you where a CD is but nothing about it, and the only discs they have in stock are what's on the radio. I feel so lucky to have grown up in indie stores where there was as much humanity in the selling of music as in the making of it.

- James McMurtry


"Independent record stores are aural cathedrals, havens for those who find music as much a spiritual endeavor as passing entertainment. Indie employees will go out of their way to help you find a rare or back-catalogued recording, commiserating over neglected artists & all-but-forgotten masterpieces. They offer discounts & suggest records they enjoy with genuine interest & enthusiasm. Indies embody mom&pop, individualist expression - they're in it for love, not to turn a huge profit or to bend popular taste to a uniform will. viva la indie!"

- Nellie McKay


"If it weren't for Criminal Records, Wax-n-facts and other indie record stores I could have only sold my CD's at my shows and by mail order as an independent artist. The greatest stores that have character and include a much wider range of music of music are all independent, mom and pop stores."

- Shawn Mullins


"When I was growing up in my little town of Malvern, Arkansas, we had a shop called Paula's Record Shop, run by this lady Paula, and we would come in and stay all day thumbing through the 45's and the albums, and just look at everything. We couldn't afford to buy anything so we would just hang there all day - it was really like Oz to us. I got my entire musical education from that record store and the radio. We would hear the songs and the bands on the radio and we'd go straight to Paula's and stare at the covers and read the album notes.

It was the only record store in town. There weren't any big conglomerates or any other record outlets. It was just this little shop - it seemed at that time so huge to me, but I know now it was just this little bitty building. My friends and I couldn't believe it when we went in there. It was like magic to us. When I'm out on tour or on location, I'll find whatever independent record store is around and that's where I'll go.

There are still some cities that have record stores that give me that same feeling when I used to walk into Paula's. In Austin, I go to Waterloo, in Minneapolis I go to the Electric Fetus. I usually have to get an extra suitcase to bring home with me on the plane to carry everything I bought at those shops!

Independent record stores are really the only places left with the actual spirit of music as I knew it growing up, and hopefully those will be around for 50 years from now because that's where it feels magical - you don't feel like you're buying a tire iron, tube of shampoo, a 12 pack, a bag of Cheetos and a record."

- Billy Bob Thornton


"A place where you go to escape everyday stresses & hang out with your imaginary friends."

- Jason Wade of Lifehouse


"When I was a kid, I spent the better part of my time in indie record stores, sifting through bins of CDs for new import EPs from my favorite Brit bands, befriending employees with loads of opinions to share, and discovering what I loved about music which had nothing to do with what was being sold to me on the radio. The handwritten "Staff Picks" were eternally cool, even if I sometimes hated the records. Now, my favorite "Mom and Pop" shops have started closing around me, I have to go into these superstores where they don't know what EPs are, they can tell you where a CD is but nothing about it, and the only discs they have in stock are what's on the radio. I feel so lucky to have grown up in indie stores where there was as much humanity in the selling of music as in the making of it."

- Cary Brothers


"I grew up in indie record stores. Bill's Records and Tapes ("And Tapes"?!?) was THE destination for my friends when all we could do was ride our bikes to avoid our parents and homework, etc...

I discovered my calling, my passion (though I dare say it wasn't the passion Bill wanted me to discover - if you know Bill, you know what I'm talking about, but I digress), in indie record stores. There was a little chain called Peaches that featured handprints in stone blocks of all my favorite rockers. I discovered that my 12 year old hands were the exact same size as Joan Jett's when she was in the Runaways. Something magical happens in these stores. Like if you stand there long enough, you realize that the fourth wall doesn't exist, that you can be on the stage or in the studio just like your heroes. Thank god for the indies."

- Rhett Miller


"I still believe in the religious experience of going into a record store, getting what you need, or finding something new and having that moment of excitement when you get back to the car and the frustration of ripping off that sticky thing. I've found a lot of my favorite artists and bands through the recommendations of whoever is working at the store. I remember specifically the day Fiona Apple's "Tidal" came out, it was a Tuesday, I was in 6th grade and I bought this record having never heard of the girl, and I was totally (and still am) slayed by it."

- Jessie Baylin