Record Store Day brings old, new favorites to Havre

Vinyl record enthusiasts gathered at the entrance of Creative Leisure Saturday to take home part of the store's Record Store Day stock.

National Record Store Day has been April 19 of every year since it was created in 2007 and many artists and music labels release special editions of old records and recordings or brand new songs and albums just for this day every year.

The event is a collective effort among shops, artists and enthusiasts with penchants for the sounds and aesthetics of vinyl music to keep physical product and music shops alive.

Rick Linie is a employee of Creative Leisure and hosted the event.

"I was pretty thrilled with our fill," Linie said. "There were just more titles than there ever have been."

Linie said the records the store received surprised him.

"We're basically able to order anything that's on the list, but since everything is so limited, we have no idea what percentage of it we're going to get," Linie said. "I thought our fill this year was outstanding compared to what I thought it was going to be."

Linie said he was receiving calls from cities as large as Boise to see what the store had in stock. Someone calling from a store in Boise said they only got five copies of something and Creative Leisure received three copies.

Linie said some of the hottest items were a limited release of a Green Day album and an Allman Brothers record. He said his favorite was a 1 in 1,000 copy of a Wayne Kramer release that was signed by the artist.

The store was also able to sell many used records from their newly opened used section, Linie said.

With Record Store Day special stock comparable with some large record stores in big cities, vinyl collectors had a chance to see records over which buyers in larger city stores would have been fighting.

"It was so great this morning to see the community of people who love physical product and love records hanging out in the same place, talking about music," Linie said. "As the Internet wipes out retail, that's something we're going to lose when it's gone."

Chuck D, of the hip-hop group Public Enemy, is the official ambassador of Record Store Day this year.

"Independent record stores must be able to spread their wings and to show their flexibility, and also keep the soul and the thrill of it all," Chuck D said in an interview with NME Magazine. "Independent record stores have enhanced the curation of records and music as it's matured. The stores we musicians were influenced by are places that breathed life unto us as music-makes, as well as music collectors. And that's why the survival of record stores worldwide is so important."