Give thanks for indie record shop option
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Today is Black Friday. The warmth of Thanksgiving dinner has dissipated along with any feelings of love and security generated around the family hearth.
Depending on the outcome of Thursday's football games, millions are experiencing either the last vestiges of euphoria or full-blown existential dread. Shopping is the only way to deal with the loneliness of existence, once the tryptophan wears off and the sight of your elderly uncle snoring in the easy chair becomes too disturbing.
Those who didn't make it to midnight sales at the local mall got up extra early this morning for the cattle calls outside Best Buy and Target. This is the time of year when everyone feels a capitalist migraine pressing down and wringing the judgment center of the brain like a little gray sponge.
For those not interested in being trampled to death at Walmart over a $300 big-screen television, there's a humane alternative to all of the hype and hassle. The day after Thanksgiving also happens to be Black Friday Record Store Day, a retail ritual concocted by record companies and the nation's dwindling number of independent record stores.
Today is one of two days during the year that independent record stores like Paul's CDs in Bloomfield, Eide's Entertainment Downtown and Dave's Music Mine on the South Side open their doors to fans interested in limited edition collectibles that aren't available from big box stores or Amazon.com.
If you or someone you love has ever lusted after the Bob Dylan 7-inch vinyl box set "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?" featuring hits and non-album tracks in mono from 1964-1966, this is the day to grab it if you can.
For those more inclined toward jazz, there's "The Miles Davis Quartet," the 1953 classic reissued on 10-inch blue vinyl. Beatles fans will be fighting over limited copies of "The Singles," a 7-inch vinyl box set of four remastered Beatles singles in the original sleeves.
The 40th anniversary box set of John Lennon's "Imagine" is also available today only. Mature depressives who consider Lennon too sunny will be genuinely excited by Pink Floyd's "The Wall" 7-inch box set and the Syd Barrett single "Octopus"/"Golden Hair," which comes packaged with a book of photos by Mick Rock.
First Published November 25, 2011 12:29 am
