National Record Day brings independent music back to Havre

For one Saturday this month, the building that housed the former music store Creative Leisure will once again be filled with music lovers buying and selling their favorite tunes, as well as having the chance to buy a Montana band’s album that is being released 50 years after it was recorded.

Radio station KNMC will host a Record Swap celebrating National Record Day April 21. According to the Record Store Day official website, this day “is a party all over the world, because the fun of hanging out and buying records in a record store happens all over the world.”

As of this year there are independent record stores participating on every continent except Antarctica. And this year Havre is one of the communities that will get the chance to celebrate this day.

Rick Linie, former manager of Creative Leisure, which was a music and movie store until it closed in 2014, said that he wanted to be able to celebrate National Record Day again this year in Havre. He said that Creative Leisure celebrated National Record Day while it was still operating.

Linie said he thinks this record swap is important because people are again starting to appreciate music on vinyl, tapes and cds.

“We went through the shiny time of streaming music,” he said, “and now (people) want something to hold.”

Linie said he talked to Mike Hamilton, the owner of the building that Creative Leisure used to be housed in, and Hamilton was very open to the idea.

Linie also said he is excited about The Frantics’ cd release, which will be happening that day and will be available for purchase at the Havre swap as well as independent record stores around Montana and online.

The Frantics were a band that formed in Billings in 1964. They recorded their debut album, “Birth,” in 1968; this album was never released. The Frantics broke up in 1970 but by that time they had performed with many celebrated performers including The Who, Alice Cooper and Jethro Tull.

Dave Martens of Havre-based record company Lost Sounds Montana, says in a press release that they would like to “invite the public in on one of the best kept secrets in Montana music history by finally making this album available to listeners.”

Martens said he wanted to make sure the album wasn’t “just left to rot in the archives”; he wanted to make sure that the public could hear it

He said he knew he needed to make a deadline to get the album out and thought it would be great if it could coincide with National Record Day.

Linie said he is “hoping any local people will (feel free to) come buy and sell their used vinyl, tapes or cds.”

Any community members interested in participating can contact Matt Springer at 390-1364 or Linie at 265-8562 or can just come down on the day of the swap. It will be a $5 fee to set up a table and those wanting to sell at the swap will need to provide their own tables and chairs.