Sleater-Kinney
Sleater-Kinney is an American rock band that formed in Olympia, Washington, in 1994. The band's lineup features Corin Tucker, Carrie Brownstein, Janet Weiss. Sleater-Kinney is a key part of the American indie rock scene; the band is known for its feminist and left-leaning politics. The band released 7 studio albums between 1994 and 2005: Sleater-Kinney, Call the Doctor, Dig Me Out, The Hot Rock, All Hands on the Bad One, One Beat and The Woods, they devoted themselves to solo projects. They reunited in 2014 and released No Cities to Love on January 20, 2015, Live In Paris in January 2017. Critics Greil Marcus and Robert Christgau have each praised Sleater-Kinney as one of the essential rock groups of the early 2000s. Marcus named Sleater-Kinney America's best rock band in 2001. Tom Breihan of Stereogum called them the greatest rock band of the past two decades in 2015. Sleater-Kinney was formed in early 1994 in Olympia, Washington, by Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein; the group's name is derived in Lacey, Washington.
One of the band's early practice spaces was near Sleater Kinney Road. Tucker was in the influential riot grrrl band Heavens to Betsy, while Brownstein was in the band Excuse 17, they played at gigs together and formed Sleater-Kinney as a side-project from their respective bands. When Heavens to Betsy and Excuse 17 disbanded, Sleater-Kinney became their primary focus. Janet Weiss of Quasi is the band's longest lasting and current drummer, though Sleater-Kinney has had other drummers, including Lora Macfarlane, Misty Farrell, Toni Gogin. Upon Tucker's graduation from The Evergreen State College and then-girlfriend Brownstein took a trip to Australia in early 1994, their last day there, they stayed up all night recording what would become their self-titled debut album. It was released the following spring, they followed this with Call the Doctor and Dig Me Out, became critical darlings as a result. Produced by John Goodmanson and recorded at John and Stu’s Place in Seattle, the record was influenced by both classic rock ‘n’ roll and the band’s usual punk predecessors.
From Dig Me Out onwards, the band's drummer was Janet Weiss. Their next few albums pushed the band towards mainstream listeners; the group opened for Pearl Jam at many North American shows beginning in 2003, the band cited the experience of playing to large arenas as part of the inspiration and motivation for the music found on their seventh album, The Woods. The Woods was released in 2005, was a departure from the sound of their previous albums. In its place, The Woods featured a denser distorted sound that drew on classic rock as its inspiration. In 2006 they helped to curate an edition of the British All Tomorrow's Parties festival, they contributed to the Burn to Shine project, appearing on Volume 3, playing "Modern Girl". On June 27, 2006, the band announced an indefinite hiatus, stating there were "no plans for future tours or recordings." Sleater-Kinney's last major public show at this time was at the 2006 Lollapalooza music festival. The band's last appearance prior to the hiatus was at the Crystal Ballroom in Portland, Oregon, on August 12, 2006.
No explanation for the hiatus was given. Upon the dissolution of Sleater-Kinney in 2006, Weiss joined Quasi bandmate Joanna Bolme in Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, she performed on Real Emotional Trash in 2008 and the 2011 release Mirror Traffic. She left the band prior to the tour for the latter album. In April 2010 Tucker announced she was recording a solo album for Kill Rock Stars to be released in October 2010. Working along with Tucker on her solo album was Unwound's Sara Lund and Golden Bears'/Circus Lupus Seth Lorinczi. According to Tucker, the album would be a "middle-aged mom record"; the album, entitled 1,000 Years was released on October 5, 2010, to positive reception by music critics. Tucker toured on both U. S. coasts to support the 1,000 Years album, in addition to dates in other parts of the country. The band's second album, titled Kill My Blues, was released on September 18, 2012; this album was supported by a US tour. In September 2010, Brownstein revealed her latest project was the band Wild Flag, with Janet Weiss, Mary Timony of Helium, Rebecca Cole of The Minders."
Their Self-titled eponymous debut album was released on September 2011, on Merge Records. By 2014, the band was no longer active. In an interview, Brownstein stated, "We had a fun run… but all the logistics started seeming not quite worth it." In January 2011, Brownstein's television project Portlandia premiered on IFC, has aired a new season annually every year until its series finale in March of 2018. In October 2014, it was revealed the band had recorded a new album, No Cities to Love released on January 20, 2015; the members of Sleater-Kinney announced a 2015 tour covering North America and western Europe. In 2014, the band released the vinyl box set of their previous releases as Start Together, it was reviewed by BUST Magazine, where writer Claire McKinzie stated, "With their feminist, left-leaning lyrics, Sleater-Kinney’s relevance today is obvious. While some singers back away from being labeled "feminist," Sleater-Kinney exists to redirect society's perception of the word."In January 2017 the band released their first live album, Live in Paris, recorded at La Cigale on March 20, 2015.
As of January 2018, the band was said to b
Tumwater, Washington
Tumwater is a city in Thurston County, United States. It lies near where the Deschutes River enters the southernmost point of Puget Sound; the population was 17,371 at the 2010 census. Thurston County, which includes, among others, the cities of Lacey and Olympia, has a population of 252,264; the site of Tumwater has been home to Lushootseed-speaking peoples known as the Steh-Chass for thousands of years. Tumwater was called "New Market" by American settlers, under the latter name was platted in 1845; the present name is derived from Chinook Jargon and means "waterfall". A post office called Tumwater was established in 1863; the city incorporated in 1875. Tumwater is located at 47°0′28″N 122°54′40″W; the city that borders Tumwater is Olympia. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 14.49 square miles, of which, 14.32 square miles is land and 0.17 square miles is water. This region experiences warm and dry summers, with average monthly temperatures between 71.6 °F and 98.1 °F.
According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Tumwater has a Very warm-summer Mediterranean climate, abbreviated "Csb" on climate maps. Based on per capita income, one of the more reliable measures of affluence, Tumwater ranks 89th of 522 areas in the state of Washington to be ranked, it is the highest rank in Thurston County. As of the census of 2010, there were 17,371 people, 7,566 households, 4,460 families residing in the city; the population density was 1,213.1 inhabitants per square mile. There were 8,064 housing units at an average density of 563.1 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 85.0% White, 1.7% African American, 1.2% Native American, 4.8% Asian, 0.5% Pacific Islander, 1.6% from other races, 5.2% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 6.2% of the population. There were 7,566 households of which 28.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 40.9% were married couples living together, 13.1% had a female householder with no husband present, 4.9% had a male householder with no wife present, 41.1% were non-families.
31.6% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.7% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.27 and the average family size was 2.83. The median age in the city was 35 years. 27% of residents were under the age of 18, 10% from 18 to 24. The gender makeup of the city was 47.7% male and 52.3% female. The Washington State Office of Financial Management indicates the 2016 population of the City of Tumwater was 23,040; as of the 2000 census, there were 12,698 people, 5,659 households, 3,253 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,276.1 people per square mile. There were 5,953 housing units at an average density of 598.2 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 88.41% White, 1.39% African American, 1.24% Native American, 3.90% Asian, 0.36% Pacific Islander, 1.50% from other races, 3.21% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 4.08% of the population. There were 5,659 households out of which 28.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 41.5% were married couples living together, 12.3% had a female householder with no husband present, 42.5% were non-families.
33.7% of all households were made up of individuals and 10.2% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.20 and the average family size was 2.82. In the city, the age distribution of the population shows 23.2% under the age of 18, 10.9% from 18 to 24, 29.5% from 25 to 44, 23.0% from 45 to 64, 13.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females, there were 89.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 84.5 males. The median income for a household in the city was $43,329, the median income for a family was $54,156. Males had a median income of $41,778 versus $32,044 for females; the per capita income for the city was $25,080. About 4.3% of families and 8.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 9.5% of those under age 18 and 5.2% of those age 65 or over. The Washington State Department of Corrections has its headquarters in Tumwater; the Tumwater School District is home to Tumwater High School, A.
G. West Black Hills High School, Black Lake Elementary School, East Olympia Elementary School, George Washington Bush Middle School, Littlerock Elementary School, Michael T. Simmons Elementary School, New Market Skills Center, Peter G Schmidt Elementary School, Tumwater Hill Elementary School, Tumwater Middle School. City of Tumwater, Washington Michael T Simmons at Find a Grave George Bush at Find a Grave
Experimental rock
Experimental rock is a subgenre of rock music which pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique or which experiments with the basic elements of the genre. Artists aim to liberate and innovate, with some of the genre's distinguishing characteristics being improvisational performances, avant-garde influences, odd instrumentation, opaque lyrics, unorthodox structures and rhythms, an underlying rejection of commercial aspirations. From its inception, rock music was experimental, but it was not until the late 1960s that rock artists began creating extended and complex compositions through advancements in multitrack recording. In 1967, the genre was as commercially viable as pop music, but by 1970, most of its leading players had incapacitated themselves in some form. In Germany, the krautrock subgenre merged elements of improvisation and psychedelic rock with avant-garde and contemporary classical pieces. In the 1970s, significant musical crossbreeding took place in tandem with the developments of punk and new wave, DIY experimentation, electronic music.
Funk, jazz-rock, fusion rhythms became integrated into experimental rock music. The first wave of 1980s experimental rock groups had few direct precedents for their sound. In the decade, avant-rock pursued a psychedelic aesthetic that differed from the self-consciousness and vigilance of earlier post-punk. During the 1990s, a loose movement known as post-rock became the dominant form of experimental rock; as of the 2010s, the term "experimental rock" has fallen to indiscriminate use, with many modern rock bands being categorized under prefixes such as "post-", "kraut-", "psych-", "noise-". Although experimentation had always existed in rock music, it was not until the late 1960s that new openings were created from the aesthetic intersecting with the social. In 1966, the boundaries between pop music and the avant-garde began to blur as rock albums were conceived and executed as distinct, extended statements. Self-taught rock musicians in the middle and late 1960s drew from the work of composers such as John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luciano Berio.
Academic Bill Martin writes: "in the case of imitative painters, what came out was always derivative, whereas in the case of rock music, the result could be quite original, because assimilation and imitation are integral parts of the language of rock." Martin says that the advancing technology of multitrack recording and mixing boards were more influential to experimental rock than electronic instruments such as the synthesizer, allowing the Beatles and the Beach Boys to become the first crop of non-classically trained musicians to create extended and complex compositions. Drawing from the influence of George Martin, the Beatles' producer, the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson, music producers after the mid 1960s began to view the recording studio as an instrument used to aid the process of composition; when the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds was released to a four-month chart stay in the British top 10, many British groups responded to the album by making more experimental use of recording studio techniques.
In the late 1960s, groups such as the Mothers of Invention, the Velvet Underground, the Fugs, the Beatles, the Jimi Hendrix Experience began incorporating elements such as avant-garde music, sound collage, poetry in their work. Historian David Simonelli writes that, further to the Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows", the band's February 1967 double A-side single, pairing "Strawberry Fields Forever" with "Penny Lane", "establish the Beatles as the most avant-garde composers of the postwar era". Aside from the Beatles, author Doyle Greene identifies Frank Zappa, the Velvet Underground, Plastic Ono Band, Captain Beefheart, Pink Floyd, the Soft Machine and Nico as "pioneers of avant-rock". In addition, The Quietus' Ben Graham described duos the Silver Apples and Suicide as antecedents of avant-rock. In the opinion of Stuart Rosenberg, the first "noteworthy" experimental rock group was the Mothers of Invention led by composer Frank Zappa, who professor Kelly Fisher Lowe claims "set the tone" for experimental rock with the way he incorporated "countertextural aspects... calling attention to the recordedness of the album."
This would be reflected in other contemporary experimental rock LPs, such as the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds and Smile, the Who's The Who Sell Out and Tommy, the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band; the Velvet Underground were a "groundbreaking group in experimental rock", according to Rosenberg, "even further out of step with popular culture than the early recordings of the Mothers of Invention." The band were playing experimental rock in 1965 before other significant countercultural rock scenes had developed, pioneering avant-rock through their integration of minimalist rock and avant-garde ideas. The Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's inspired a new consideration for experimental rock as commercially viable music. Once the group released their December 1967 film Magical Mystery Tour, author Barry Faulk writes, "pop music and experimental rock were synonymous, the Beatles stood at the apex of a progressive movement in musical capitalism"; as progressive rock developed, experimental rock acquired notoriety alongside art rock.
By 1970, most of the musicians, at the forefront of experimental rock had incapacitated themselves. From on, the ideas and work of British artist and former Roxy Music member Brian Eno—which suggested that ideas from the art world, including those of experimental music and the avant-garde, should be deployed in the context of experimental rock—were a key innovation throughout the decade. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Germany's "krautrock"
Riot grrrl
Riot grrrl is an underground feminist punk movement that began in the early 1990s in Washington state and the greater Pacific Northwest. It had origins in Washington, D. C. and spread to at least 26 countries. It is a subcultural movement that combines politics, it is associated with third-wave feminism, sometimes seen as having grown out of the Riot Grrrl movement. It has been described as a musical genre that came out of indie rock, with the punk scene serving as an inspiration for a musical movement in which women could express themselves in the same way men had been doing for the past several years. Riot grrrl bands address issues such as rape, domestic abuse, racism, patriarchy,classism and female empowerment. Primary bands associated with the movement include Bikini Kill, Heavens to Betsy, Excuse 17, Huggy Bear, Skinned Teen, Emily's Sassy Lime and Sleater-Kinney, as well as queercore groups like Team Dresch and The Third Sex. In addition to a music scene and genre, riot grrrl is a subculture involving a DIY ethic, art, political action, activism.
The riot grrrl movement spread well beyond its musical roots to create vibrant “zine” and Internet-based movement, complete with local meetings and grassroots organizing to end ageism, weightism, racism and physical and emotional violence against women and girls. Riot grrrls are known to hold meetings, start chapters, support and organize women in music. During the late 1970s and early and mid-1980s there were a number of groundbreaking female punk and rock musicians who influenced the riot grrrl ethos; these included Siouxsie Sioux, Poly Styrene, The Slits, Au Pairs, The Raincoats, Patti Smith, Chrissie Hynde, The Runaways/Joan Jett, The B-52's, LiLiPUT, Lydia Lunch, Exene Cervenka, Kim Gordon, Ut, Neo Boys, Bush Tetras, Y Pants, ESG, Chalk Circle, Fifth Column, Frightwig, X-Ray Spex and Anti-Scrunti Faction. The 1980s featured a number of female folk singers from New York whose lyrics were realistic and socio-political, but personally intimate. During the mid-1980s in Vancouver the influential Mecca Normal fronted by poet Jean Smith formed, followed by Sugar Baby Doll in San Francisco whose members would all wind up in hardcore female bands.
In 1987, the magazine Sassy premiered and dealt with tough subjects that conventional magazines aimed at teenage girls did not. An article "Women and rock and roll" published by Puncture, edited by Katherine Spielmann, in 1989 became the first manifesto of the movement. In 1991, a radio program hosted by Lois Maffeo entitled Your Dream Girl aimed at angry young women debuted on Olympia, Washington radio station KAOS. During the early 1990s the Seattle/Olympia Washington area had a sophisticated do it yourself infrastructure. Young women involved in underground music scenes took advantage of this to articulate their feminist thoughts and desires through creating punk-rock fanzines and forming garage bands; the political model of collage-based, photocopied handbills and booklets was used by the punk movement as a way to activate underground music, leftist politics and alternative sub-cultures. There was a discomfort among many women in the punk movement who felt that they had no space for organizing, because of the misogyny in the punk culture.
Many women found that while they identified with a larger, music-oriented subculture, they had little to no voice in their local scenes. Women at the punk-rock shows saw themselves as girlfriends of the boys, so they took it upon themselves to represent their own interests by making their own fanzines and art. In 1991, young women coalesced in an unorganized collective response to several women's issues, such as the Christian Coalition's Right to Life attack on legal abortion and the Senate Judiciary Hearings into Anita Hill's accusations of sexual harassment by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Young feminist voices were heard through multiple protests and events such as the formative opening night of the International Pop Underground Convention and L7's Rock for Choice. Uses and meanings of the term "riot grrrl" developed over time, but its etymological origins can be traced to the actual Mount Pleasant race riots in spring 1991. Bratmobile member Jen Smith, used the phrase "girl riot" in a letter to Allison Wolfe.
Soon afterwards and Molly Neuman collaborated with Kathleen Hanna and Tobi Vail to create a new zine and called it Riot Grrrl, combining the "riot" with an oft-used phrase that first appeared in Vail's fanzine Jigsaw "Revolution Grrrl Style Now". Riot grrrls took a growling double or triple r, placing it in the word girl, as a way to take back the derogatory use of the term. Kathleen Hanna had been studying at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, she participated in a small collective art gallery called Reko Muse, which would host bands like The Go Team and Some Velvet Sidewalk to play in between art exhibitions. Hanna started a band, Amy Carter, with fellow gallery-founders Tammy Rae Carland. After touring with some other projects like Viva Knievel, she hooked up with The Go Team drummer and zinester Tobi Vail, writing of her own experiences: I feel left out of the realm of everything, so important to me, and I know that this is because punk rock is for and by boys and because punk rock of this generation is coming of age in a time of mindless career-goal bands.
They started working together on another fanzine called Bikini Kill, after rec
Road movie
A road movie is a film genre in which the main characters leave home on a road trip altering the perspective from their everyday lives. Road movies depict travel in the hinterlands, with the films exploring the theme of alienation and examining the tensions and issues of the cultural identity of a nation or historical period; the setting includes not just the close confines of the car as it moves on highways and roads, but booths in diners and rooms in roadside motels, all of which helps to create intimacy and tension between the characters. Road movies tend to focus on the theme of masculinity, some type of rebellion, car culture, self-discovery; the core theme of road movies is "rebellion against conservative social norms". There are two main narratives: the outlaw chase. In the quest-style film, the story meanders. In outlaw road movies, in which the characters are fleeing from law enforcement, there is more sex and violence. Road films tend to focus more on characters' internal conflicts and transformations, based on their feelings as they experience new realities on their trip, rather than on the dramatic movement-based sequences that predominate in action films.
Road movies do not use the standard three-act structure used in mainstream films. The road movie keeps its characters "on the move", as such the "car, the tracking shot and wild open space" are important iconography elements, similar to a Western movie; as well, the road movie is similar to a Western in that road films are about a "frontiersmanship" and about the codes of discovery. Road movies use the music from the car stereo, which the characters are listening to, as the soundtrack and in 1960s and 1970s road movies, rock music is used. While early road movies from the 1930s focused on heterosexual couples, in post-World War II films the travellers are male buddies, although in some cases, women are depicted on the road, either as temporary companions, or more as the protagonist couple; the genre can be parodied, or have protagonists that depart from the typical heterosexual couple or buddy paradigm, as with The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, which depicts a group of drag queens who tour the Australian desert.
Other examples of the increasing diversity of the drivers shown in 1990s and subsequent decades' road films are The Living End, about two gay, HIV-positive men on a road trip. Julie Newmar, about transvestites, Smoke Signals, about two Indigenous men. While rare, there are some road movies about large groups on lone drivers; the road movie has been called an ambiguous film genre. Timothy Corrigan states that road movies are a "knowingly impure" genre as they have "overdetermined and built-in genre-blending tendencies". Devin Orgeron states that road movies, despite their literal focus on car trips, are "about the the cinema, about the culture of the image", with road movies created with a mixture of Classical Hollywood film genres; the road movie genre developed from a "constellation of “solid” modernity, combining locomotion and media-motion" to get "away from the sedentarising forces of modernity and produc contingency". Road movies are blended with other genres to create a number of subgenres, including: road horror.
Film noir road movies include Detour, The Devil Thumbs a Ride and The Hitch-Hiker, all of which "establish fear and suspense around hitchhiking", the outlaw-themed film noirs They Live By Night and Gun Crazy. Film noir-influenced road films continued in the neo noir era, with The Hitcher, Red Rock West, Joy Ride. Though road movies are a significant and popular genre, it is an "overlooked strain of film history," major genre studies do not examine road movies and there has been little analysis of what qualifies as a road movie; the road movie is associated with the United States, as it focuses on "peculiarly American dreams and anxieties". US road movies examine the tension between the two foundational myths of American culture, which are individualism and populism, which leads to some road films depicting the open road as a "utopian fantasy" with a homogenous culture while others show it as a "dystopian nightmare" of extreme cultural differences. US road movies depict the wide open, vast spaces of the highways as symbolizing the "scale and notionally utopian" opportunities to move up upwards and outwards in life.
In US road movies, the road is an "alternative space" where the characters, now set apart from conventional society, can experience transformation. For example, in It Happened One Night, a wealthy woman who goes on the road is liberated from her elite background and marriage to an immoral husband when she meets and experiences hospitality from regular, good-hearted Americans who she never would have me
Justin Trosper
Justin Trosper is an American singer and songwriter, born in Olympia, Washington. He fronted the post-hardcore band Unwound from 1991 to 2002, he has been a member of bands such as Replikants, The Young Ginns, Worst Case Scenario. Most of his work has been released on the independent record label Kill Rock Stars. Trosper has been a record producer for several Olympia-area bands at Unwound's self-built recording studio, MagRecOne, he has worked on albums by artists such as Thrones, Young People, Godzik Pink, Long Hind Legs, Anna Oxygen, The Magic Magicians. In the early 1990s, he self-published a punk/indie rock fanzine, "Joe Preston's Legs AKA Germ of Youth", he is a friend of Bikini Kill's Tobi Vail and a graduate of The Evergreen State College. In 2012, Trosper formed Survival Knife with former Unwound drummer Brandt Sandeno
Record Store Day
Record Store Day is an annual event inaugurated in 2008 and held on one Saturday every April and every "Black Friday" in November to "celebrate the culture of the independently owned record store". The day brings together fans and thousands of independent record stores across the world. A number of records are pressed for Record Store Day, with a list of releases for each country, are only distributed to shops participating in the event; the event remains headquartered there. Record Store Day has official international organizers in the United Kingdom, France, The Netherlands, Italy, Mexico, Australia and Poland. Pitched as an idea to create an event similar to Free Comic Book Day by Bull Moose Music's Chris Brown and Criminal Record's Eric Levin, the concept for Record Store Day was created during a brainstorming session at a meeting of independent record store owners in Baltimore, Maryland. Record Store Day was founded in 2007 by Eric Levin, Michael Kurtz, Carrie Colliton, Amy Dorfman, Don Van Cleave, is now celebrated at stores around the world, with hundreds of recording and other artists participating in the day by making special appearances, performances and greets with their fans, the holding of fund raisers for community non-profits, the issuing of special vinyl and CD releases along with other promotional offerings to mark the occasion.
Each store holds its own event for the day. Although Record Store Day, the day, only occurs once a year, Record Store Day, the organization, provides promotions and other opportunities for stores throughout the year, maintaining a website, social media and other means of promulgating its views about the value of independent record stores. Record Store Day is managed on a day-to-day basis by the Dept. of Record Stores, along with the Coalition of Independent Music Stores and the Alliance of Independent Media Stores. Universal Music's sales manager, Marc Fayd’Herbe, has described Record Store Day as "the single best thing that has happened" for independent record shops; the 2013 event was credited with the highest U. S. vinyl sales, the 2014 edition resulted in independent retailers recording the highest percentage of physical album sales, since the SoundScan system was introduced in 1991. In their 2015 Libera awards, the American Association of Independent Music awarded Record Store Day its "Marketplace Ally" award.
Record Store Day 2016 produced the biggest week of sales for the vinyl LP format since the introduction of SoundScan. The event has been criticized for catering to record collectors, rather than casual music fans, delaying the release of non-affiliated records by monopolizing the capacity of record pressing plants. Major labels have been accused of hijacking the event, the policy of shops being obliged to buy on a no-return basis has been criticized, along with many of the limited releases being re-sold online within hours, at inflated prices. Metallica kicked off the event at Rasputin Music in Mountain View, California, on April 19, 2008. There were 10 special Record Store Day releases in the first year, including releases by Death Cab For Cutie, R. E. M. Stephen Malkmus, Vampire Weekend, The Teenagers, Black Kids, Jason Mraz. 300 stores launched Record Store Day in the United States, including Waterloo Records, School Kids Records, Vintage Vinyl. English singer-songwriter Billy Bragg met Record Store Day co-founder Michael Kurtz in an airport and agreed to help kick off Record Store Day in the United Kingdom with a special live appearance.
The first organized involvement by UK stores included Piccadilly Records, Jumbo Records, Sister Ray, Rough Trade, Rapture and Avalanche Records. The second annual Record Store Day was celebrated on Saturday, April 18, 2009 with about 85 special releases and about 500 artist appearances, including those by Slayer, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Iron & Wine, The Stooges, MC5, Disturbed, Killswitch Engage, Erykah Badu, Talib Kweli, The Eagles of Death Metal. Wilco made a surprise appearance on Record Store Day @ the Disc Exchange in Tennessee. Eagles of Death Metal made an appearance at Rhino Records. Mayor Mike Bloomberg announced that the City of New York recognized Record Store Day as a citywide event and the judges on American Idol talked about their favorite records in honor of Record Store Day in the episode of American Idol prior to the event. 95% of the special releases made for Record Store Day were for the USA. The third annual Record Store Day took place on Saturday, April 17, 2010.
The official ambassador for the event was Joshua Homme. The official book of the event was Last Shop Standing: Whatever Happened to Record Shops? by Graham Jones. KCRW's Gary Calamar and Phil Gallo released their self-published book, "Record Store Days", about independent record stores, with artist quotes provided by www.recordstoreday.com used throughout the book, a chapter devoted to Record Store Day. NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg and New York City once again honored the day. Anything Anything with Rich Russo released a vinyl album of local bands performing on his radio show and organized a bus tour visiting New York and New Jersey record stores. Several artists made in-store appearances to mark the event: The Smashing Pumpkins