What's in store for Record Store Day?

A year has spun around since the last Record Store Day, so stores, labels, and enthusiasts around the globe are gearing up for another celebration of the collision of music and vinyl.

To be held on April 19 (Easter Saturday), the celebrations at Real Groovy in Auckland are promising to be substantial, with in-store live music and exclusive local and international vinyl releases.

For starters there will be three stunning coloured vinyl releases on the Real Groovy Records label.

A collection of the La De Da's early tracks has been combined into one LP, all mastered from the original by Steve McGough, and recorded at Eldred Stebbing's tiny Saratoga Avenue home studio in Herne Bay in the mid-sixties. No other local band epitomised the Mod style quite like the La De Das, and they really did rock the antipodes with songs like How Is The Air Up There, and I Take What I Want.

A new compilation of The Scavengers - one of New Zealand's foremost original punk bands - captures the best of their 1978 studio output, like Mysterex and True Love, along with four exclusive demos recorded in Australia in 1979.

And the Feels So Good LP from Spelling Mistakes brings together their recordings from 1979 and 1980 re-issued for the first time from the original master tapes. Taking the sneer and aggression from the first wave of seventies punk and matching it with a sixties pop sensibility, they were true innovators, despite their short tenure.

And fortunately for fans of the band, they will be in store for a short set on the day, with the opportunity for signing afterwards.

Also performing in store on the day are The Phoenix Foundation, who are releasing a new 7 inch for the occasion, featuring new single Bob Lennon John Dylan (which they played at the Big Day Out in January to great response) and another new track called Asswipe, both mixed by David Fridmann.

The second exclusive 7 inch being released specially for Record Store Day is the first time official re-issue of the legendary and much sought-after Suburban Reptiles single Saturday Night Stay At Home from 1978. Both sides are mastered from the original analogue master tape, there will only be 400 copies available worldwide, and a limited gold vinyl edition will be available to the first 20 buyers in store with a bonus colour print, signed by photographer Paul Hartigan, of the band in action.

Flying Nun are celebrating the occasion with two limited edition 12-inch EPs. The first is a collection from The Chills, Sneaky Feelings, the Stones and the Verlaines, making up four sides of a double EP set that became known as the Dunedin Double on release in 1982. In the more than three decades since Roger Shepherd first started the record label, it has remained the city of Dunedi and its particular "Dunedin sound" that has been ubiquitously associated with the Flying Nun name, so it seems appropriate that this distinctly low-fi release, recorded over two weekends in damp New Zealand, South Island flats on portable 4-track by Chris Knox and Doug Hood, is being re-released - 2000 copies worldwide.

The Dunedin EP theme continues with Flying Nun's other Record Store Day release, with the Bored Games' Who Killed Colonel Mustard EP. Released the same year as the Dunedin Double, it introduced the music of a 17-year-old Shayne Carter, who went on to form The DoubleHappy's and Straightjacket Fits. They formed while at high school, and featured Carter as vocalist, along with Wayne Elsey (The Stones, DoubleHappys), Terry Moore (The Chills) as well Fraser Batts, Jonathan Moore and Jeff Harford. The band broke up in 1981 but left behind the four tracks on this angsty EP.

Of course there will also be a plethora of international Record Store Day releases which will only be available in store, and plenty of guest DJs to keep things grooving.

- TimeOut