Record Store Day 2012 is back, Sac

I’d like to say that the annual Record Store Day in America has a little bit of something for everyone. But I’m not so sure that’s the case: Consumers—ever wary of actually paying for music, let alone non-digital sounds in the form of CD or vinyl or cassette or whatever—no longer pore through aisles or dig in crates. The intimacy of the hunt for most, expired long ago. And it’s a sad state—especially for Sacramento, once a major hub of music retail. With the convenience of a download comes an album or song’s increased disposability, right?

So, yes, Record Store Day is a weird day, that third Saturday of April each year where all the cloud-cataloging, iTunes embracing, torrenting bastards actually hit up a brick-and-mortar and buy a real, tangible record. But look at it this way: If every Midtown denizen forks out 10 bucks for an album on April 21—the sixth-annual Record Store Day—local shops would rake in approximately $400,000 in sales. Here’s five reasons to make that possible:

5. The parties: Like most shops this weekend, everyone’s favorite Midtown record shop Phono Select will pull out all the stops for this year’s Record Store Day. There will be local bands—Knock Knock, Nacho Business, Lee Bannon, Appetite, the Four Eyes, Aly & Miek Sneak—and each performer has records for sale in the shop. There will be baked goods (Sac Urban Dharma) and coffee (Insight Coffee Roasters). And the owners are planning to get every Record Store Day special edition release, so get there when the shop opens. 2312 K Street; shop opens at 10:30 a.m., music at 1 p.m.; more info at http://phonoselect.com/blog.

4. Hella special stuff by special bands: Every artist in the history of modern sound seems to put out an exclusive Record Store Day release. Beginning with the letter “A,” for instance, even Animal Collective (sounds from its 2010 Guggenheim Museum installation, called Transverse Temporal Gyrus). Other enticing limited releases: a Beach House’s 7-inch featuring new material, the Grateful Dead’s 40-minute version of “Dark Star” from the Europe ’72 tour, Jimmy Fallon doing Tim Tebow-David Bowie, and Refused’s The Shape of Punk to Come in limited-edition color. Find out more at www.recordstoreday.com/SpecialReleases.

3. Local stuff: Punk-rap trio Death Grips’ major-label debut, The Money Store, will be available for the first time this Saturday. Correction: available for the first time in physical form; the band dropped the album last week on SoundCloud and YouTube. Find more info at www.thirdworlds.net.

2. New and limited stuff: A whole fleet of Record Store Day first releases, including Odd Future’s The OF Tape Vol. 2; a rerelease of Patti Smith’s debut, Horses; a 12-inch of Battles’ remixes, Neon Indian’s “Hex Girlfriend” single; Wilco’s The Whole Love Deluxe Box Set; Childish Gambino’s “Heartbeat” single on red vinyl; a Flaming Lips double-LP collaboration called Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends; and on and on.

1. Surprises: If you find yourselves at one of the eight Dimple Records locations on Saturday, there’ll certainly be giveaways aplenty (www.dimple.com). Same goes for Records on Broadway (1618 Broadway, www.rare-records.net) or Armadillo Music (205 F Street in Davis, www.armadillomusic.com).

Or the surprise may be your new favorite album; I recommend Interstellar by Frankie Rose, if you’re into guitar music, or Fin by John Talabot if beats is your game.