My mind is being blown as I look at my calendar pages for today and tomorrow. On top of the intoxicating sunshine the weather folk have predicted for the weekend, the indie-gods have bestowed a packed schedule of wonderfulness:

APRIL 16-18: EMP Pop Conference
It's going to be full of great sessions around this year's topic of sounds and the machines that make them. This year I'm most excited about hearing Tim Quirk and his look at "The Quiet Revolution: From the Walkman to the iPod, How Portability and Infinite Storage Have Changed the Way We Listen, and What We Listen To" on Friday at 10.45am. Catching Mike McGonigal moderating "Identity Projects" and Michaelangelo Matos on the "Interrogating the Digital" - both on Sunday - will rock 33 1/3 socks off as well.

APRIL 17: Record Store Day
Empty out your canvas bag and your bus pass, it's time to take Seattle record stores by storm on an all day tour picking up a slew of very special limited edition releases to remind us all how important it is to support out local independent record stores.  I am most looking forward to getting to Jigsaw Records in time to pick up each release in their LTD RSD-only series (only 25 will be pressed!) with floppies by Math and Physics Club and BOAT. (full scoop)

{even more amazing things to do this weekend after the jump!}

And I'm sure I missed something... what else is going on this weekend? All this fun must be a thank you for getting our taxes done on time, right?

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{Exene Cervenka plays at Easy Street Records (Queen Anne) on Friday, April 16 at 6pm, at Tyrannosaurus Records (Renton) on Saturday, April 17 at 2pm and at Damaged Goods on Saturday, April 17 at 5pm, all free and all ages.}

Record stores have, like nearly every business, not fared particularly well in the economic climate of the past few years. In fact, they have likely had a much more difficult time staying solvent as the move towards more people getting their music online than at retail stores. At the beginning of this year, the first two albums to hit number one on the Billboard 200 chart this year (Ke$ha’s Animal and Vampire Weekend’s Contra) were the first two albums in history to top the charts with more than 50% digital sales. The lower prices, huge catalogs and fast delivery methods have made iTunes, emusic and Amazon the often first place for people to go to purchase music (and that’s saying nothing of what is obtained via illegal downloading) and has made it that much harder for record stores to stay in business.

One artist who is doing what she can to help record stores is Exene Cervenka. Best known for being the badass frontwoman for punk band X and the alt-country band The Knitters, she has been one of the most prolific and multi-faceted artists over the past thirty-plus years. Not just a musician, but she’s also a writer, poet and visual artist. My favorite quote about Cervenka came from her X and Knitters bandmate John Doe (which I found in Maria Raha’s great book Cinderella’s Big Score), who said “she was such a badass! I pretended to be but Exene was the real thing. She had the ax to grind…the unusual wiring that made it possible for her to throw a drink in somebody’s face and still be right.” She most recently released a gorgeous solo record called Somewhere Gone last autumn. She is currently on a tour, playing in-store shows at record stores on the west coast that will include appearances at three Seattle-area record stores: Easy Street Records (Queen Anne) on Friday, April 16 and on Saturday, April 17, the actual Record Store Day, she’ll be at Tyrannosaurus Records in Renton and Damaged Goods in Belltown.

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(Photo by Laura Musselman)

April is trending to be one of the best months ever here at Imaginary Headquarters. Among the reasons we're kinda losing our stuff over here:

APRIL 10 and 17: Early Math & Physics Club shows at the High Dive (6p-8p)
Math and Physics Club will play a couple low key shows at the High Dive on Saturday, April 10 and Saturday, April 17 to test drive some new songs for their upcoming trip to the San Francisco Popfest their album release show at the Crocodile on June 12. Both High Dive shows are going to be early (6p-8p) and have the sweetest of openers: Eux Autres (on April 10) and The Special Places (on April 17).

APRIL 16-18: EMP Pop Conference
I always look forward to EMP's annual Pop Conference because it allows me to sit only feet away from my favorite, most inspiring pop (and non-pop) writers and listen to them casually espouse (and if all goes well, rant) on all things music and popular culture, which confirms my obsession's tangible significance. This year the biggest must see on my whole Pop Conference schedule is Tim Quirk and his look at "The Quiet Revolution: From the Walkman to the iPod, How Portability and Infinite Storage Have Changed the Way We Listen, and What We Listen To" on Friday at 10.45am. Tim is one of my all time favorite wordsmiths, music industry honchos (at Rhapsody), and band frontman (Too Much Joy) ever. When I am not sitting front row at his Pop Conference sessions, I'm hanging on his every tweet. Some studies suggest that I can link Tim/TMJ to who/where I am today.

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There have been rumblings all over the internet of the special Record Store Day-only releases that will hit the shelves on this most holy day.  Personally, I've mapped out my route from Jigsaw Records (Ballard) to Sonic Boom (Ballard) to Damaged Records (Belltown) to  Easy Street (Queen Anne) to make sure my canvas bag is full with the celebratory bingeing and I catch all the special instore performances and swag they have planned for the big day.

I've had a hard time finding a list of everything that will be available on RSD, but thanks to an indie shop in Michigan (Sound It Out) who kindly listed a bunch of really special RSD releases, I have the start of a skeleton wishlist of things I want to pick up:
1. R.E.M. Chronic Town 12″ EP (Previously out of print debut; limited edition blue vinyl, individually numbered)
2. The Thermals/The Cribs Split 7″ single
3. Superchunk “Misfits and Mistakes”/”Misfits and Mistakes” 7″ (Meatwad version, picture disc release; autographed by the band)
4. Ted Leo & the Pharmacists “The Oldest House”/”North Coast” 7″
5. Telekenisis “Dirty Thing”/”Non-Toxic, The Drawback” 7″ (2 songs exclusive to this RSD release)

One stop I'm most excited about is the newest of independent stores around town, Jigsaw Records (remember their cute opening party?). Jigsaw has arranged to have some ultra-limited-edition floppy records cut featuring songs by some of my favorite indie-pop bands: Math & Physics Club, BOAT, and Mill Kids. When I say limited, I mean like only 25 of each release will be in circulation.

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Jeez, I had a great Record Store Day! The sun was shining, and I picked up some great records!

My boyfriend woke up super early on Saturday way too excited to get back to sleep, and wandered over to Easy Street in Lower Queen Anne at around 8:15, and there were already people in line. By the time the store opened at 9, there were about 50 people in line, and he described the scene similar to 20 minutes before the mall closes on Christmas Eve - mass pandemonium of people just grabbing any and all exclusive in sight. By the time he left around 9:30 (after a super friendly clerk helped him find one of the last Thermals exclusives), most of the exclusives were gone. And lucky him - a trip over to the Ballard Sonic Boom provided him with #69 of 95 of the Pavement Live in Cologne hand numbered red vinyl LPs.

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Pull up your socks and get on your sneakers, we've got a big weekend ahead!

I feel like it's my birthday or something! I couldn't be more over-giddy about the next 72 hours. Who's with me?

If you head out this weekend, post your weekend recaps add your photo to the Sparkly Indie Pop Flickr Photo Pool so we can keep up on all the indie-oholic festivities!

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Our friends at Easy Street and Sonic Boom have put plans in place to make this the best Record Store Day Seattle has ever seen.

I'm still finalizing my list of things I want to pick up on what could be my biggest shopping day of the year and both stores have made it doubly hard to pare things down. There's a bunch of labels releasing rare and limited edition Record Store Day 7"s and re-releasing sup'd up favorites.

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Today I celebrate Record Store Day by sharing my favorite record store tale, including my first teenage record store crush and my very, very embarrassing father. Special guest appearance by Dirty Diana.

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