Excitement is building up and down the country as Record Store Day – Saturday 13th April – draws tantalizingly close. Not only a day where us record store owners open our doors (again) for a day of celebration, live music and bacon rolls for those hardy souls queuing from ungodly hours in the morning, but one where over five hundred vinyl goodies are released exclusively to the world.
This year is no different with a varying mix of multicoloured seven, ten and twelve inch wax drawn from dusty label warehouses, first time on vinyl exclusives, and an array of ‘do we REALLY need this?’ curiosities. There is always some real gold to found though. Three that stand out for us here at Union Music Store are the first time released Bingo Hand Job double album, Prefab Sprout’s acoustic rarity, and the much-loved triple LP set of recordings from Woodstock Festival in 1969.
Back in the day REM, one of the world’s biggest bands played two ‘secret’ shows at London’s tiny Borderline Club in 1991. Billed as ‘Bingo Hand Job’ tickets went for astronomical sums and the gigs have achieved legendary status amongst fans. Imagine the excitement as finally the second night sees the light of day as a double LP. It’s sure to be popular and why not given the mythical charm of this highly sought-after nugget.
Prefab Sprout, the foppish fringed popsters and writers of the immortal line; “Hot dog, jumping frog, Albuquerque” release an acoustic album recorded by head sprout Paddy McAloon of songs from their seminal
‘Steve McQueen’ album. Originally part of the Legacy edition in 2006 these recordings get their separate vinyl outing. Heartwarmingly beautiful.
And finally on our list of ‘must haves’ is the extraordinary triple vinyl mono edition of the 1969 Woodstock Festival performances. Not only now sequenced in the right order as per the festival line-up, the albums also feature unreleased CSN&Y tracks and Arlo Guthrie performances that never made the original release. It’s one for the completest for sure but also a wonderful reminder that festivals used to be great and that Foo Fighters haven’t headlined all of them.
We will have live performances in store from Jerry Leger & The Situation, Lucy Kitt, our own Danny George Wilson and, fingers crossed, a two times platinum selling act! A full list of what we have will be up on our unionmusicstore.com website a few days beforehand. We open at 8am. See ya there!!