Record Store Day (Saturday April 20, 2013) is the day when sport and music retail collide. If you consider ‘competitive vinyl purchasing’ a sport, of course. A veritable one-day Olympics for music nerds and vinyl enthusiasts, Record Store Day is a pretty sophisticated feat of organisation – where record labels, stores, gig promoters and artists across the world combine to create a smorgasbord of exclusive releases, limited editions and one-off performances and collaborations. Frankly, the very thought of it is enough to make you weep. Pity the poor music fan that arrives outside their local record store 3 hours before it opens, only to discovers that their retail rivals have all been camping over night… Or the nerd that queues patiently at the record store counter, only to see the last of those limited edition, screen-printed, green vinyl gatefold go to the pushy dude in front. Record Store Day. It’s stressful.

Luckily, to take away from the stress of it all, there are also some fun things occurring, to lower the heart rate a little. Paul Weller will be performing live at London’s Rough Trade record store in East London, for a start (8pm, Saturday). He’ll be joined by Pete O’Hanlon and Josh McClorey of new band The Strypes as well as Miles Kane’s drummer, Jay Sharrock, NME report.

Two much-hyped British bands, Toy and Temples will be playing in Paris (they call it Disquare Day because they’re hipper than we’ll ever be, you know). They’ll be joined by Stealing Sheep and Charlie Boyer and the Voyeurs. 

Paul Weller
Paul Weller: intimate London gig planned for Record Store Day 2013