On the record
Record Store Day returns with Tyson Meade, Flaming Lips beer vinyl and a lot more
yson Meade thought somebody was joking when he learned that his new album had been picked as a featured Record Store Day release.
“I thought Jarrett Koral, who owns Jett Plastic, was screwing with me when he told me it had been selected,” the Chainsaw Kittens singer said of his new solo record, “Robbing the Nuclear Family.”
The album is being released by the Detroit-based Jett Plastic Records, which navigated the Record Store process.
“I am proud of the honor,” Meade said from his home near Oklahoma City’s Plaza District.
Saturday marks the 11th anniversary of Record Store Day, a worldwide celebration of the old-fashioned brick-and-mortar music shops that still deal in vinyl, analog cassettes and rare compact disc recordings in the age of online digital grab-bag formats, which most “old-fashioned audiophiles” consider inferior to the warmth and realistic clarity of clean plastic grooves tracked by a surgically precise stylus on a high-quality, precision-speed turntable.
These aren’t chain stores, but mom and pop operations (sometimes just pops, sometimes just moms, sometimes both), who truly care for and understand their discriminating music-loving patrons, and they meet these customers’ desires with these yearly in-store events that include concerts, signings and special product releases from bigtime and barely known international recording craftsmen that are often limited editions and