Record Store Day: Dublin

Saturday the 17th of April was Record Store Day, an initiative which is now in its fourth year that encourages people to support their local independent record shop. This was of course a day marked in the calendar of indie music shop owners everywhere and it was also an ample opportunity for me to wander around Dublin City having a look in some of my favourite record shops, and discovering some new ones.  Most impressive was Road Records, a favourite of mine. The staff donned suits for the occasion and chalked the logo for Record Store Day outside the shop.

And besides the great atmosphere there was another reason to get excited about Record Store Day - limited edition vinyl releases. There was interesting array of releases this year; a Factory Records compilation featuring the likes of Joy Division and Happy Mondays, The Beatles 'Paperback Writer / Rain' 7” and Blur’s first single since 2003 (and this time including Graham Coxon!) ‘Fool’s Day’ were among some of the must-haves. Luckily for those of us who couldn’t get the Blur vinyl in time the song is now available as a free download here.

And last but not least are the in-stores, the one which I was most excited about was Villagers, but he was unable to be there as he was stranded in Belgium because of the unforgiving volcanic ash. I did get to see Heathers' in-store in Tower Records, it was the day after their Late Late Show performance, and their music was as striking as ever. Here's a video of their most popular song so far, which I'm sure everyone's heard on the Discover Ireland ads, 'Remember When.'

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