If you love music, and are over the age of download only, then there is a good chance that at some point you have entered the strange world of the independent Record Store. No I’m not talking about hanging around HMV waiting for your girlfriend to find that BBC Austen boxset her mum wants or trolling round Zavvi on a Saturday morning trying to pick up the album of the week whilst wishing everyone there would evaporate along with their eagerly purchased Duffy albums. (At least half that wish came true). No I mean that most sacred of places, the true record store, where the staff will always know more than you , even about your band, where rows and rows of untold treasures spill out before you in glorious racked formation and where you may very well find the record that changes your life.

Ask any long term music fan and they will probably be able to tell you about a certain record store in their home town that provided a formative relationship in their lives. Mine was a small shop on Guernsey called Soundtrack where a small bespectacled Australian called Alan opened my eyes to a world of records and artists that have been a constant through my life right up to this day, and also the strange man in Leicester who was convinced he was the original manager of the Smiths but now only listened to Slovakian Folk! There are a million great record shops across the land. From Jumbo in Leeds to Rough Trades across the land.

I have a devotional relationship with record shopping, and buying records from bands you love somehow only seems right when buying from somewhere where you know the staff know the name of the 3^rd bassist, or when the band will be playing in town again. Independent Record Stores matter because they can change lives, because music can. They don’t just sell records, they frame them in a context, they have supported artists on a grass roots level for decades, giving bands that you would never otherwise have heard a chance to get into the hands of kids who loved them. They have offered the link between indie labels and the fans for a long time. And now of course times are hard and the independent record store as an entire concept. So what should be done? What can we do to help out?

Well fortunately some people have gotten together and managed to rope in folks like Fat Mike of NOFX fame, Sonic Youth, Sebastien Tellier and others to get together and perform and put to gether special releases for Record Store Day.

A transatlantic celebration of record stores Record Store Day has been delegated as saturday April 18th and will see famous record stores across the States and UK hold special events and sell limited edition one off releases specifically fashioned for the day.

Here in London the two main places to be are Rough Trade East and Puregroove. The world famous RTE off Brick Lane is hosting an all day in-store that will feature the likes of Ebony Bones, Wave Machines, Sunny Day Sets Fire and more. Whilst Puregroove will be featuring an incredible double bill of Graham Coxon and Patrick Wolf. What price an appearence from Mr Albarn?

Not only this but you will be able to pick up limited edition releases from a series of high profile artists.

Check the full line up for Rough Trade East Record Store Day here.

Check out the official Record Store Day site here.