Two Bears in a Record Store

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to quickly let you know about Record Day Australia 2009.

“On April 18 2009 the only place to be is your local record store.

In these high-tech days of ipods and downloads, there’s still nothing to beat the thrill of immersing yourself in the atmosphere of a real CD and record shop, browsing the racks, talking to the staff and taking home an album that will become part of your personal history.

So why bother to have Record Store Day Australia?

Hear what the giants of the Australian music industry say about the importance of supporting your specialist music stores.

Daryl Braithwaite loves the excitement of big record store promotions and remembers the huge impact they had on him.

“I had the thrill of being around in The Beatles period, and I remember specifically Sgt Pepper and being able to walk into a store, seeing the big promotion with people queued up – it was great! You connected with the music. Then it was a thrill seeing my own stuff in the stores both in my Sherbert days and also with The Edge. People would look at the cover, then look at me and recognise me – you don’t get this shopping experience online,” Daryl reminisced.

Kram from Spiderbait is another passionate believer in record stores.

“I still like having things on vinyl and I love record stores. The whole experience of searching is probably more important than getting the stuff. I really dig record stores – I always will.”

And it’s not just the artists who are convinced of the value of Record Store Day Australia. Record store owners from Perth to Traralgon to Wollongong, and everywhere in between, love the fact that this is a chance to really celebrate the value of music in Australian stores and support the artists that create it.

Events like Record Store Day Australia don’t just happen by magic, and Australia is fortunate to have a strong Australian Music Retailers Association (AMRA) to represent the specialist recorded music stores of Australia.

Thanks to AMRA members, there is still a huge amount of music sold through specialist record stores:

·      More than $9 of every $10 paid for music in Australia is spent on physical product

·      Physical product remains the format of choice for music lovers and collectors.  Albums are 65 times more popular on CD or DVD than as a download.

So many Australian independent record stores are involved in Record Store Day Australia that we can’t list them here, but you can check them out at www.recordstoreday.com.au

And for the latest news about Record Store Day Australia and interviews with artists, log on to www.undercover.com.au

A quick shout out to our mate and follower Barto for giving us a head’s up on this too!

Please get behind your local record store, even if it is a global mega chain, the artists and bands need our support to keep making music, get to gigs and keep buying their product cause that’s the only way the artist will ever get paid.

VB