It's Record Store Day, so get off your couch and buy some music from your local independent record store. Have a chat with fellow music lovers and agree to disagree about taste, sell-outs, rarities, remasters, and such. Is this year's list of special releases is even worse than last year? Is it getting really fucking expensive to buy stuff? Of course it is. Only in hindsight, it won't look as bad, because in 2027 there will be brand new all time low.
American singer-songwriter Neko Case has a cool cover out for Record Store Day (April 18) on a light blue 7": her take of the Flat Out Jets song Cool Boys. The B-side is Winchester Mansion of Sound, a track from her latest album Neon Grey Midnight Green. 2500 copies worldwide.
Leeds based pop noir quartet English Teacher made a splash with their first full-length This Could Be Texas in 2024 - the cognoscenti had already embraced their debut EP Polyawkward in 2022. Safe for the Live From BBC Maida Vale Studios EP and a superfluous remix version This Could Be Texas it has been quiet, so their record company has decided to put them back on the map with the release of Nearly Daffodils as a sky blue 7" for Record Store Day (April 18). 1000 copies worldwide with the rather unremarkable Matt Maltese's remix on the B-side.
Live Boots - Live At Emerald City 1981 is supposedly the first of a series of XTC recordings. This show has been circulating among collectors in rather bad sound quality, but none other than Andy Partridge has overseen the mastering for this Record Store Day release (April 18), so it will definitely be an upgrade. Did he sign off on the horrible artwork as well? 2500 copies of the 2LP are available worldwide.
On August 6th, 2005 the reunited original line-up of the Pixies performed an acoustic set at the Newport Folk Festival, which was released on DVD in 2006. The performance will now be released as a 2LP, Live in Newport, for Record Store Day (April 18). 2500 copies worldwide. A 2CD version will hit the shops on April 25.
Four new studio recordings by Robert Plant with his band Saving Grace and singer and multi-instrumentalist Suzi Dian will be released for Record Store Day (April 18). 3500 copies of Saving Grace: All That Glitters… with Suzi Dian are pressed for a worldwide release.
Doctor Who fans rejoice: narrations of The Rescue, which were aired on the BBC in January 1965, will be released for Record Store Day (April 18). 1200 copies worldwide on rescue red translucent vinyl. Also features an interview with William Hartnell, the first Doctor.
Side 1:
Episode 1 - The Powerful Enemy
Side 2:
Episode 2 - Desperate Measures
Blur's Live at the Budokan will be released as a 2LP for Record Store Day (April 18). All tracks were recorded on November 8, 1995, safe for She's So High from November 9 at NHK Hall in Tokyo. It came out in Japan in 1996 and has been out of print since then, safe for an iTunes version in 2014. It would have nice if the included the 7" with the two missing tracks, Charmless Man and Chemical World, that were left of the 2CD back then. 2000 copies on red vinyl worldwide.
A FM radio broadcast of a free Ramones concert at the Summer In The City music festival on June 8th, 1979 will be released as a 2LP on pink vinyl for Record Store Day (April 18). 6000 copies of Summer in the City - Live In San Francisco will be available worldwide. Collectors are likely to own a bootleg of this show already.
A fabled King Crimson concert will be released as a 2LP for Record Store Day (April 18). Live - Penn State University 29 June 1974 first became available as a download in 2007. Two tracks - Easy Money and It is for You, but Not for Us made it unto The Great Deceiver 4CD box set in 1992.
2000 copies worldwide on 200-gram audiophile vinyl, with a recording of 21st Century Schizoid Man in Central Park as a bonus track.
On October 4, 2007 Steven Wilson and John Wesley at Park Avenue records in Orlando, Florida during the Porcupine Tree tour the Fear of a Blank Planet album. The eights songs were released as We Lost The Skyline on CD and as a limited vinyl version shortly thereafter, before going out of print, only to resurface as part of the deluxe edition of Fear of a Blank Planet in 2024. 3500 copies will be available on 180gm crystal clear vinyl on Record Store Day (April 18). It is a half-speed remaster made at Abbey Road.
The fabled Ian Dury & The Blockheads show on Christmas Eve 1980 at the Dominion Theatre will be released for Record Store Day (April 18). Live in London 1980 contains the songs that were broadcasted live on BBC Radio 1 and on tv via BBC2's 'Old Grey Whistle Test'. 2LP on orange vinyl. 1000 copies worldwide. A 2CD version hits the shops on April 24.
At The BBC: The Complete 1965 London Sets captures jazz pianist Bill Evans with his trio at the historic Jazz 625 show at the BBC Television Theatre in Shepherd's Bush, on 19th March 1965. It will be released as 2LP for Record Store Day (April 18). Liner notes by author and journalist and Marc Myers. 2LP in a gatefold sleeve. 3500 copies worldwide.
Bootlegger Mike Millard's recording of Pink Floyd in Los Angeles is one of the best sounding audience recordings. Live From the Los Angeles Sports Arena, April 26th, 1975 will get a stand-alone release (4LP, 2CD) for Record Store Day (April 18). The audio was remastered by Steven Wilson.
The concert was previously released as part of the Wish You Were Here 50th Anniversary Boxset. 15400 4LP and 7100 2CD sets worldwide.
The short set that bluegrass virtuoso Billy Strings and his band played for a NPR Tiny Desk Concert on November 6, 2025 at NPR Studios in Washington DC will be released on vinyl for Record Store Day (April 18). 7000 copies worldwide.
Canadian plunderphonics inventor John Oswald stitched together 32 live performances of NYC noise rock band Sonic Youth's The Diamond Sea for a Record Store Day (April 18) release. Both sides of the white vinyl LP have a running time of 20:44, with one side dedicated to 1995 and the other one to 1996 performances. 3500 copies worldwide.
Two Motörhead releases this year for Record Store Day (April 18). Steven Wilson will surely have done a fine job when he remixed the band's earliest recordings, which were released on the On Parole album in 1979.
Record Store Day will be celebrating its 19th anniversary on April 18. Mark your calendars and start saving for the interesting stuff, not the major label reissues of albums that can be found without too much trouble on the secondary market (those pressings tend to sound better as well). Prices will be even more insane than last year and the lines will go around the block, so set your alarm at an ungodly hour if you are suffering from a serious case of FOMO.
It's Record Store Day, so get off your couch and buy some music from your local independent record store. Have a chat with fellow music lovers and agree to disagree about taste, sell-outs, rarities, remasters and such. Bitch about the majors reissuing records holding up the line at the pressing plants (you can find most of them in excellent condition in the second hand section), and make fun of the clueless hipsters and millenials buying piss-poor turntables to play them on. Is this year's list of special releases is even worse than last year? Is it getting really fucking expensive to buy stuff? Of course it is. Only in hindsight, it won't look as bad.
