Happy Record Store Day!!

Happy Record Store Day Everyone! For those who don't know what Record Store Day is, let me (or the website) explain:

The original idea for Record Store Day was conceived by Chris Brown, and was founded in 2007 by Eric Levin, Michael Kurtz, Carrie Colliton, Amy Dorfman, Don Van Cleave and Brian Poehner as a celebration of the unique culture surrounding over 700 independently owned record stores in the USA, and hundreds of similar stores internationally.

This is the one day that all of the independently owned record stores come together with artists to celebrate the art of music. Special vinyl and CD releases and various promotional products are made exclusively for the day and hundreds of artists in the United States and in various countries across the globe make special appearances and performances. Festivities include performances, cook-outs, body painting, meet & greets with artists, parades, djs spinning records and on and on. Metallica officially kicked off Record Store Day at Rasputin Music in San Franscisco on April 19, 2008 and Record Store Day is now celebrated the third Saturday every April.

Record Store Day is currently managed by Eric Levin, Michael Kurtz, Scott Register, and Carrie Colliton. Folks wanting to contact Record Store Day are encouraged to email us at information@recordstoreday.com

NOTE:
A Record Store Day participating store is defined as a physical retailer whose product line consists of at least 50% music retail, whose company is not publicly traded and whose ownership is at least 70% located in the state of operation. (In other words, we’re dealing with real, live, physical, indie record stores—not online retailers or corporate behemoths).

Shinedown had a great In-Store acoustic performance and CD signing here in NYC at J&R earlier this afternoon, so I showed up and made an appearance and helped the street team do their thing. The guys in the band are super nice, and they're definitely a band that appreciates all that they have. Their live performance (I saw them at Irving Plaza about a month ago) is spectacular as well.

I've been listening to the new Silversun Pickups album Swoon a ton lately. Their first single from their last album, "Lazy Eye" got a fair amount of popularity, but the song never really did much for me, so I never really bothered to listen much more. Thanks to the amazing Amazon MP3 daily deals, I was able to download Swoon sight-unseen for $3.99, which I came to realize as an absolute steal. Reminds me of older Smashing Pumpkins. Check it out.

Recommendation of the Day #26

Recommendation of the Day: The Working Title

Been listening to The Working Title. It's a real shame that I saw them open for Goo Goo Dolls and Counting Crows a few years ago, and are now unsigned. The good news is that they have a new album coming out in May, so hopefully they get the attention I think they deserve.

I just got back from seeing Next To Normal on Broadway, and I can't recommend it enough. Awesome set design, great contemporary music, and fantastic performances by everyone in the cast. It's definitely got a hip modern feel to it, which is was a huge relief for someone like me who is not a huge theater buff.

I also just wrote a huge long rant about Twitter, but realized that it makes me sound like an uber-dork, so I deleted it. Let's just say that I was talking about how it fits into the push/pull spectrum of information flow and how people who don't follow anyone have eliminated the "push" part, essentially missing the point of what Twitter, and the Internet in general, are all about these days.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

As funny as I find this to be, when did MSNBC become The Daily Show?

What do you do guaranteed?

See more funny videos and TBT Videos at Today's Big Thing.

Playing For Change | Song Around The World "Stand By Me" from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

I think I might slow down on this whole "Recommendation of the Day" thing. I know, I know, I keep changing the format of this thing, but I'm so busy with work that when I do have some free time, I don't especially want to be writing long blog entries. I update Twitter much more often anyways, so keep an eye out at the top of my blog or twitter.com/drewshannon for my current goings-on. That said, I'll definitely still keep the blog going, but updates might not be quite as frequent. I usually have a hard time thinking up my "recommendation of the day", so maybe it'll be worthwhile if I only post sparingly.

Cheers.