Shops in Northampton ready the return of annual Record Store Day

The annual event, now in its 11th year, seeks to champion the best record shops across the UK with limited edition releases by hundreds of artists.

This year, Spun Out in Gold Street and Vinyl Underground in Abington Street will be stocking a selection of the official releases with Spiral Archive also marking the event with discounts and a record fair at the Lamplighter.

Chris Kent from Spun Out said: “The whole comradeship of Record Store Day is great.

“A lot of our regulars, and irregulars, come and meet up, have a good old natter and have a day devoted to records in their favourite shops.

“Record Store Day is firmly established now and there’s a great vibe to it. Some of the records people will have their eyes on this year include the David Bowie and Pink Floyd releases.

“There’s a couple of psych rock releases which have had some interest and some reissues of classic 60s stuff which haven’t seen the light of day since back then.”

This year’s releases also includes rarities by Led Zeppelin, The Lovely Eggs, Mansun, Arcade Fire and The Maccabees and hundreds more.

Thee Telepaths will be playing at Spun Out in the afternoon with DJs playing throughout the day. Mr Kent added: “We’re very happy to have Thee Telepaths back, the guys always come in and support the shop and I love what they’re doing. The gig they did in here a couple of years ago was phenomenal, even in the bright afternoon sunshine, they put everything into it.

“We are working day in, day out, to give Northampton a decent record shop and if you’re up for it, come and support us on this big day.

“It’s really important to us and it does help build our customer base for the following year and really helps the reputation of the shop.

"It’s important to us our customers are happy and can get the records they are after.”

Both Vinyl Underground and Spun Out are urging collectors to speak to them or email with any specific requests they have from this year’s list.

Both will open at 8am on Saturday, April 21, with queues expected from the early hours.

Spiral Archive will open from 11am to 4pm and there will also be a record fair in the Lamplighter from midday to 4pm with DJs including Darren Harte and Alex Novak playing until the early hours of Sunday. For full details of this year’s releases, visit https://recordstoreday.co.uk/releases/rsd-2018/