It’s 4.15am and your night is winding down. As you’re
leaving Camel Club, you’re likely to be the only ones around apart from the
rest of the intoxicated folk staggering around Huddersfield and the lady who
places herself on the step next to the shop with her ridiculously cute canine.
But, if you were to look further down the road in the early hours of the 21
April, you’d have seen a few other souls outside Vinyl Tap. You may
mistake them for sleeping rough but these are sights that are synonymous at
this time and on this day across the country. The cold is bared and the sleep
is sacrificed for one reason – Record Store Day.
Starting in the USA in 2007 with its inaugural
celebration and now with the UK in its 4th year of involvement, independent
record shops become a thriving and vibrant point of activity. Record Store Day
becomes awash with limited edition releases, an estimated number of 400 this year;
coming from Abba, Arctic Monkeys, The Black Keys and Coldplay amongst a
multitude of others.
Huddersfield’s resident Aladdin’s Cave is Vinyl Tap and
with a queue meandering inside the shop as well as snaking outside the door at
9am, it was the David Bowie, limited release that was snatched up swiftly to
the dismay of anyone who chose to have those extra hours of sleep. You may
think that record shops are home to the most eccentric of characters, I’m convinced that my new chum in the queue
was Noel Fielding’s Dad; with his choppy black haircut and lanky frame.
There’ll always be the argument that vinyl is obsolete
and that people won’t bother with an archaic format when we have digital downloads.
But any sceptics just need to visit their local store and witness the hordes of
devotees and the sheer jubilation when they get their hands on the Vinyl they’d
been praying no one else got to first. There’s
nothing more thrilling than rushing home and examining the artwork, cautiously removing
the LP from the sleeve and listening out for that initial hint of a crackle.
It’s a bona fide celebration and Record Store Day should
be embraced. As long as you get the music aficionados prepared to camp out,
then it’s a statement that there’s still a demand for Vinyl, for a way to be amongst
like minded music lovers and not just a day for stores to experience a mass
surge in sales. One enthusiast, who was second in the queue arrived at Vinyl Tap
at 4.30am and by 10am had spent £400 and was gripping on to a can of Red Bull. I’m
sure he’d agree that the sleep deprivation was worth it. See you next year
Vinyl Tap; I’ll get the Red Bulls in.
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| Published in the June 2012 issue of the Huddersfield Student |
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