Here's what some great musicians have to say about record stores (they're so cool) ... |
Paul McCartney
"There’s nothing as glamorous to me as a record store. When I recently played Amoeba in LA, I realized 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!"
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Bruce Springsteen
"I buy CDs all the time. I'll go into a record store and just buy $500 worth of CDs. I will! I am single-handedly 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."
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Joe Satriani
"Independent record stores are a vital source of the ever-changing cool. They respond to the street faster than the chains can. They help us telegraph to each other what's "now" and what's not, what we should be telling our friends and neighbors about, and what's about to take off, or, no longer hot. Musical trends are confirmed at the local independent record store, by you and me. Hanging out, listening to something you've never heard before, being enlightened by the staff, getting into something new, finding that old recording you've been searching for, having your local band's newest offering stocked right next to major label stuff, it all happens at the local indie shop. Why would we want to do away with all that?"
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Tim Rice-Oxley (KEANE)
"Growing up in the UK I’ve loved and lost a series of great independent record stores over the last twenty years. These days I go into David’s Music in Letchworth whenever I can, and always leave with a swag bag full of vinyl and CDs. I especially love flipping through endless boxes of musty second-hand vinyl, picking out things I’d never have gone looking for. I’ve discovered loads of incredible music that way. It’s a way of shopping for records that is discouraged by the layout of huge chain record stores and totally denied by the dreaded supermarkets. So here’s to the indie stores – beacons of diversity, discovery and passion and in an ever more homogenized world."
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Joe Principe (Rise Against)
"I think record stores play a huge part in discovering new music. When I was growing up I would spend hours going through all the bins looking for something new that seemed interesting to me and that could relate to what I was listening to at the time. This is why I want to support National Record Store Day."
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Matt White
"A record store is a place where I go to get lost and then found again. It’s like my therapy. Whenever I need to find inspiration for my music, I go to my favorite record store called Bleecker Street Records, which was around the corner from my first apartment in NYC. I just walk around aimlessly looking at album covers of my heroes. It’s the only place where I can still buy the old classics as well as discovering the new ones."
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Sammy James, Jr. (The Mooney Suzuki)
"Rock 'n' roll needs to be seen, touched, smelled, and tasted just as much as heard. I want the tactile, visceral, physical guts of it all. I want to unroll the poster, open the gatefold, explore the cover art and the liner notes...I want a totem that exists in the physical world, and record stores are to The Beatles, James Brown and Madonna what the botanicas are to the saints, Jesus and Mary... We just want the blood and filth of real life and the purity of ecstatic transcendence - neither of which are available at Wal Mart."
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Paul Koehler (drummer, SILVERSTEIN)
"I've watched my favorite local record store shutdown after 10+ years of operation and dozens of purchases. For me, there is a big emotional connection between the purchase and first play of a record. I own a lot of music and most of it tells a story of how I found it and what part of my life it relates to. The quest for new and exciting music is only possible at a place where true talent influences the records that are being pushed. For myself, I tour all over the world and make a point to hunt down an indie store in as many places as I can. There is nothing more self-gratifying than discovering a store and making a rare purchase of something you have been searching for."
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Shelby Lynne
"You can't roll a joint on an iPod - buy vinyl!"
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Ben Watt (Everything But The Girl)
"It is hard to underestimate the role of independent retail in the music industry. as the world continues to try and cram every purchase they make onto their computer, turning music into binary digits and artwork into pixelated packshots, we can only sit and wait for them to wake up from their dream and realize that ultimately human interaction in shops, with informed good people, handling cherishable artefacts is good for the soul. In the meantime we need to support the people who keep this world alive for the moment we all realize we need it again."
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David Simon (Creator and Director of the HBO award-winning series “The Wire”)
"The best feeling on earth is to be surprised by something you never expected to find in a book store. The second best feeling on earth is to be surprised by something you never expected to find in a record store. If it something used, or rare, or out-of-print all the better. And honestly, what are the chances of something like that happening in a chain store. I can spend three hours going through the stacks at a place like Sound Garden. It is never time wasted."
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Norah Jones
"It’s important to keep indie record stores alive because their unique environments introduce music lovers to things in a very personal way."
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Wayne Coyne (The Flaming Lips)
"The 'cool' record store. It is where you can talk to people who are like you. They look like you, think like you and, most tellingly, like the same music as you - the only comparable experience these days would probably be an art museum - an actual place where you can stand and simply be surrounded by your heroes."
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Henry Rollins
"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."
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Chuck Berry
"Music is an important part of our culture and record stores play a vital part in keeping the power of music alive."
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