Record Store Day Sale and news !!!!

First thing's first: RECORD STORE DAY IS THIS SATURDAY, APRIL 19th!
In case you haven't heard or read about this, this Saturday we'll be taking part in the first annual Record Store Day, which is actually being held across the globe. For some info on what it's all about -- although you can pretty much assume what its motivations are -- check out www.recordstoreday.com

Now, what does this mean for you? Well, over the past few weeks we've been receiving tons of freebie goodies to give away in honor of Record Store Day. If you stop by anytime on Saturday, we'll have a bag full of free stuff for you. It's first-come, first-serve, so if we're out of them by the time you get here, we're sorry. So try to make it earlier rather than later. Here's a few of the items that you'll be able to grab...

Univeral Music sampler LP (feat. Be Your Own Pet, Tift Merritt, Whiskeytown, etc.)
Sony/BMG Music sampler LP (feat. Bruce Springsteen, Lou Reed, Pearl Jam, etc.)
Sub Pop CD sampler (feat. Mudhoney, Wolf Parade, No Age, Flight of the Conchords, more)
Matador CD sampler (feat. Stephen Malkmus, Cat Power, Mission of Burma, Times New Viking, more)
Paste Magazine April 2008 issue
Destroyer / Wye Oak split 7" on Merge
MGMT 7"
Fashion 7"
RED punk & metal CD samplers
Stickfigure Records 2008 CD sampler (our favorite Atlanta label/friends)
Redeye CD sampler
Vice CD sampler
Nicole Atkins CD EP
Asthmatic Kitty CD sampler
Stickers
Posters
Button packs
etc...

ALSO there are Record Store Day EXCLUSIVES for sale only at participating stores. These are almost all very limited in nature, and we definitely did NOT get that many, so be ready. This includes:

R.E.M. - Supernatural Superserious 7"
Vampire Weekend - A-Punk 7"
Breeders - WE're Gonna Rise - 7"
Built to Spill - Don't Cry 7"
Death Cab for Cutie - I Will Possess Your Heart 7"
Teenagers - Trilocore 3x7"
Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks - Cold Son 10"
Matador Slipmats
Arthur Russell tribute 12" w/Jens Lekman, Vera November, Taken By Trees, and Joel Gibb

(note - due to distributor/label/whatever delays, we will not have the Black Keys 7" and Metallica reissue LPs in until next week. We have a ton of other Metallica records though...)

ALSO, we will be having a drawing for a $50 gift certificate to be drawn on Saturday night.

AND IN ADDITION TO ALL OF THIS...we're going to bring out as many posters (and trust us, we have billions of them) & whatever else we can find to give to ya. It helps us, it helps you, it helps the world. Ok, maybe not the whole world. But we hope you'll enjoy what you can have.

The only requirement to get all this stuff is to stop by and buy something -- or, at the very least, look around and see if there's anything you want. I'm sure other stores will have more strings attached to get some of these free items, but we'd rather you have them then not, you know? We appreciate the year-round business that everyone in this community (and beyond) has brought us, year after year. Stop by on this new holiday and get a little somethin' back.

AND most importantly, we are having a Record Store Day Sale. Or you can call it our 2.5 year anniversary sale since we forgot to have one back in November. Anyhow, here's the deal:

EVERYTHING IN THE STORE IS 20% OFF! - LPs, CDs, DVDs, 7"s, 10"s, books, stickers, patches, everything!

IN ADDITION ALL USED CDS & DVDS ARE BUY 2 GET 1 FREE! - This is combined with the 20% off, which basically amounts to buy one get one free (or a combined 47.2% off of all used cds & dvds). Hopefully that makes sense. It's a lot easier for us to ring it up that way.

OUR AWESOME NEW SHIRTS WILL ONLY BE $7.99 (this is with the 20% discount - be cool and wear one!)

Sorry, no bands are playing because there's too much else going on.

See you Saturday!!


Now for my rant...

You're probably wondering what RECORD STORE DAY is anyway? I was at first too. But it's basically a revamped customer appreciation day where hopefully you the customer appreciates us as well and the fact that you live in or near a town that still has independent record stores. I personally don't like buy things online, but lots of people do. But it's great to know that you can go to a store and browse and stumble on things you never would have thought of or heard of otherwise. You don't get too much of that online. We also do everything in our capabilities to sell you records as cheap as we can. This means buying direct whenever possible and searching for deals and unfortunately not bringing some stuff in because big labels like to give chain stores better deals than the little guy. Our prices for most things we stock are typically $2-$5 cheaper than the big store across town. We don't do sales often because we prefer to make it cheap all of the time. We stock tons of LPs and 7"s because we love the format and when I opened this store the other stores we're still busy trying to kill the format. I believe in independent music and labels and try to stock as much as I can which means a lot of lesser known indie, punk and metal titles. I'm not against major labels, but 99% of what they release is manufactured garbage, although they were all once viable indie labels.

I've been going to record stores since as long as I can remember, buying my first 7" in 1984 and getting into punk a couple years later. It wasn't until I moved to Atlanta that I had good stores that stocked underground releases and I've been addicted ever since. If I didn't love record stores I wouldn't own one. I'd go get a job that made a lot more money. People come in here a lot and tell me they love the store and it's great, and lots of out of town folks and bands do too. I really have no reference point on that anymore since I'm here seven days a week. There's only 2 other stores that sell vinyl in town, one is DJ oriented and the other banned me for life when I stopped working there and opened my own store. So I never get to go to any other stores and just try to make mine the one I would want to go to. I'm nowhere near that point yet and am working to improve it all of the time. I value people's suggestions and take them seriously, probably a little too seriously. But if you don't tell me what you want I can't read minds. The point of this being that I think the store is pretty good, and there are tons of folks that don't have a decent record store anywhere near them. So hopefully you'll support us. I realize the store isn't for everybody though.

We will continue to sell you lots of records we and you think are cool, and we will continue to have shows in the store as long as I can and bring awesome out of town bands to Charlotte. We are very thankful of those of you that have supported us for the last 2.5 years. And if you've never been here before, please come visit us.

-Scott