Bloomington record store Landlocked Music will celebrate its customers Saturday with live music, refreshments and special record releases for Record Store Day.
Saturday marks the ninth annual Record Store Day, according to a Record Store Day press release. Landlocked was one of the founding stores of the holiday and has celebrated every year, Landlocked co-owner Jason Nickey said. Celebrations are now found on every continent except Antarctica.
“It’s definitely a day to celebrate the customer, celebrate the institution — what these places mean to the community,” Nickey said.
The day gives record labels a chance to release special albums, which are the biggest draw to stores, Nickey said. Landlocked usually receives about a month’s worth of business on Record Store Day, with lines out the door and down the alley.
Landlocked uses this large audience to showcase local bands. This year, FIIT, Nice Try and Laffing Gas will play in the evening.
Landlocked customer and IU sophomore Howie King said he appreciates the store giving back to local bands.
“I love that Landlocked is so into the scene,” he said. “Instead of just selling records, they care about actually a community.”
When the bands aren’t onstage, local figures, such as the mayor, act as guest DJs, Nickey said.
“The only stipulation is you play records,” Nickey said. “You kind of get to know people through what they play for an hour of a program. It’s revealing.”
Regular customers usually stay all day and meet up with one another, Nickey said. Those are the people King is hoping to meet this year by attending his first Record Store Day celebration.
“I want to meet people and talk to people about this kind of stuff, because I don’t really know a lot of people that do, so I really want to talk to people about their setups and geeky stuff about records,” King said.
Nickey said he always takes his customers’ tastes into account when choosing which Record Store Day releases to order. Stores are never guaranteed the amounts they initially order, but receive whatever is available based on demand allocations.
“It is sort of weird not knowing exactly what you’re going to get,” he said. “You try to go big on some things you might get cut back on a little bit. There’s a little bit of gamble to it.”
Record Store Day is not the day to come into a record store for the first time, Nickey said, because it will be overwhelming. There is usually already a line down the street by the time the store opens at 11:30 a.m.
The earliest stores are allowed to open is 8 a.m., but Landlocked keeps its normal hours.
“I keep it the same just so everyone knows,” Nickey said. “I’d hate for just even one person to show up for the thing they really wanted and find out we’ve already been open for three hours.”
However, the party tends to surpass the normal 7:30 p.m. close.
“Let’s have fun, have some bands play and sell some cool records,” Nickey said.
