Today was the 9th annual Record Store Day held around the world and it was a blast in San Mateo. As Wikipedia notes
Record Store Day is an annual event, founded in 2007, held on the third Saturday of April each year to celebrate the culture of the independently owned record store. The day brings together fans, artists, and thousands of independent record stores across the world. A number of records are pressed specifically for Record Store Day, and are only distributed to shops participating in the event.
I didn't get down to Vinyl Solutions until after the Warriors put away the Rockets around 4 pm, so I missed many of the special pressings. Tommy Tune, the owner, was quite pleased to report that there were about 100 people queued up this morning at opening time. I found a couple of very cool LPs and there were still a couple of copies of Metallica's special pressing from their 2003 concert at Le Bataclan in Paris. The guys from L.A. made a bit of a statement about global terrorism with that selection for RSD. Here is the late afternoon look down on 25th St. in San Mateo.
Joe, I don't want to be a bad influence on the mostly fine people of Burlingame, but have you ever been to Humboldt Tobacco Co in San Mateo on a Saturday around 1pm?
It's like pick-up basketball, but with instruments and singers.
You can pick out your favorite cigar from the humidor, or pick up a wholesale-price carton of cigarettes, and then light up and select a guitar out of the stable and jam out with Mark and Gioioa.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/humboldt-tobacco-san-mateo
Sometimes, Fat Lance and Trust-Fund-Kid Tom show up to create a sense of awe and mystery about the place.
You can shoot pool or watch the game in one of the back rooms. Some community college kids should do a video project interviewing some of the regulars.
One of the guys used to play drums with...The Rollingstones, or was it Ringo Starr?
Surely you've checked it out before, right?
Posted by: Local Live Music w/ Fat Lance and Trust-Fund-Kid Tom | April 17, 2016 at 12:22 PM
I had not heard about this jam session, so thank you. I'll check it out some Saturday.
Jim Harrington at the Mercury News has one of the best jobs in the Bay Area (live music critic). Here is his piece on Record Store Day:
BERKELEY -- Metallica's previous Bay Area outing came in front of some 42,000 fans at San Francisco's AT&T Park in February.
The follow-up was, shall we say, a bit more intimate.
On Saturday, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame act played for approximately 375 head-banging, fist-pumping fans during an in-store performance at Rasputin Music in Berkeley.
http://www.mercurynews.com/music/ci_29776511/metallica-celebrates-record-store-day-berkeley-live-performance
Posted by: Joe | April 17, 2016 at 01:44 PM
Here's another wistful piece about 25th Avenue in San Mateo and the record store owner who is now "the old man on the block" Tommy Toonz. Check it out. One wonders how long a regular old strip of small, local shops can hold out like they are?
https://www.smdailyjournal.com/news/local/san-mateo-residents-want-caltrain-set-out-track-away-from/article_a0ee029e-335b-11ea-91d4-a75716e68d30.html#utm_source=smdailyjournal.com&utm_campaign=%2Fnewsletters%2Fweek-in-review%2F%3F-dc%3D1578848404&utm_medium=email&utm_content=headline
Posted by: Joe | January 12, 2020 at 04:26 PM