Cathy Bauer, a Brooklyn Heights DJ, remembers precisely the moment when the annual Record Store Day, which is today, changed from a niche event for hard-core vinyl collectors to a frantic treasure hunt for music fans all over New York. In 2010, she strolled into Williamsburg’s Academy Records to uncover some rarities, but instead she found long lines and mayhem.
It was “totally bananas” in the first half-hour, says Bauer, who has been seeking Record Store Day deals since it was founded six years ago.
In the event’s earlier days, the competition to get limited-
edition specials by some of rock and pop’s biggest names hadn’t been so intense. But Bauer learned her lesson on how to maneuver the crowds: “It’s like being in a deli. You have to know what you want when they call your number, or they’re going to push you aside.”
In its first year only 250 independent shops nationwide participated in Record Store Day (RSD). Now it’s 700! In New York 40 stores are onboard today (find local shops at recordstoreday.com).
Due to the fierce competition — and sometimes greediness — many stores, such as the East Village’s Other Music, now limit RSD items to one per customer.
“Some people get there at 5 or 6 in the morning,” says Mikey I.Q. Jones, manager of Other Music, who’s been watching Record Store Day buyers and offerings increase steadily over the past five years.
But it’s not just a purchase of love; some of the musical finds can be good investments. Peruse eBay, and you’ll see items selling far beyond their retail price.
In 2010, George Harrison’s solo debut, “All Things Must Pass” (1970), was reissued in a limited vinyl edition of 5,000 for $60. It now goes for nearly $200.
Last year, Jack White issued “Sixteen Saltines” as a 12-inch record filled with liquid. It’s playable, but only 400 were made. Original price? $100 each; today, it goes for $600 on eBay.
White’s label, Third Man Records, specializes in “crazy, esoteric” RSD releases, says Jones. “When we’re lucky enough to get those at Other Music, we get two or three, and they’re some of the first things to disappear.”
Many of RSD’s big names tend to be established stars. “A Stones or Neil Young or Dylan — the big names — are the most in-demand titles,” says Jones. This year, that means a limited 7-inch of the Rolling Stones’ 1964 EP “5×5” ($10).
Mike Wolf, who works at both Sound Fix in Williamsburg (which sadly is closing for good on Record Store Day) and Kim’s in the East Village, says that the Grateful Dead’s “Rare Cuts & Oddities 1966” (on CD as well as limited-edition vinyl: 6,600 copies, $35) will also go fast this year.
Last year, Bauer snapped up another ’60s-oriented 7-inch, pairing Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin’s classic versions of “Respect,” which is part of Rhino Records’ Record Store Day-only “Side by Side” series. It sold for $7 new and now fetches $20 on eBay.
Vinyl goodies are by far the biggest Record Store Day draw, though crazy packaging trumps all. This year’s prime example is “Astralwerks: Music in 20/20,” the electronic-dance label’s 20th-anniversary collection, with 20 tracks pressed onto 20 flexidiscs, for $20. Only 1,250 are being made and sold.
Surprisingly, Jones says that the most in-demand current act for the event is the jam-band Phish. “Last year, a handful of vinyl reissues of their debut album were the first things to go.” That debut, “Junta,” went for $50 new and now fetches $160.
Oklahoma’s psychedelic rockers the Flaming Lips are also big sellers. Wolf expects this year’s Lips set, “Zaireeka” — on four different-colored vinyl LPs and limited to 7,500 copies — to sell well at $70.
The band’s RSD track record is strong. In 2011, the Lips’ “Heady Nuggs” — colored-vinyl pressings of the Lips’ first five LPs on Warner Bros., 1992 to 2002, also limited to 1,000 — sold out instantly at $125 each; they now go for as much as $500.
Last year, the Lips pressed 10,000 copies of “Heady Fwends,” which sold for $37. It turned up online only hours later for $150 a pop.
“That day, you’d be in a record store and hear, ‘That’s already up on eBay,’ ” says Bauer, who hits six shops on a typical RSD. “That was so impossible [to find] at the time.”
“The supply versus the demand — there’s never enough,” says Other Music’s Jones. That, he says, is part of RSD’s appeal to music lovers and prospectors alike: “It’s a bit of a Lotto situation. I don’t think there’s any science to it.”