Let the record show ... Record Store Day is this weekend

April 20th, 2022

Eric Levin, owner of Little Five Points mainstay Criminal Records, is also one of the co-founders of Record Store Day, an annual celebration of independent record stores happening this weekend. (Kim Drobes/WABE)

Atlanta celebrates Record Store Day this weekend on Saturday, April 23. A holiday observed in cities worldwide, Atlanta’s Record Store Day is an especially festive observance, blessed as we are with a bounty of independent record stores. There’s JB’s Record Lounge in the West End, Ella Guru and Wuxtry Records in Decatur, Fantasyland in Buckhead and Wax ’N Facts in Little Five Points. Also in Little Five Points is Criminal Records, a staple of the Atlanta community since the early 1990s. Its owner, Eric Levin, is also one of the co-founders of Record Store Day. He joined “City Lights” senior producer Kim Drobes to share the history of this now nationwide celebration of music, vinyl and the neighborhood hubs keeping us connected.

Levin offered a sense of the mood among the record store community 15 years ago when Record Store Day began. “It’s like a miraculous conception, where there’s several people that had this notion at the same time,” said Levin. “At this time, record stores were thought to be antiquated or extinct. This was right when Tower Records was going out of business, and the rise of Napster, iTunes and digital were on everybody’s minds.”

He went on, “We, as coalitions of record stores that were doing quite well, didn’t really agree and we were just looking to tell our story. So we wanted to celebrate ourselves and get on the radar of publications and new customers.”

Levin’s coalition, known as AIMS (Alliance of Independent Media Stores), met up with several other groups in the industry one day in Baltimore. “Those of us involved in this project, Record Store Day, sat around in a hotel lobby and shared our thoughts and our opinions about it,” he said. “Criminal Records, as a comic book shop, had always participated in ‘Free Comic Book Day.’ So I brought that expertise, and others of my co-founders just bounced this ball back and forth.” Four months later, Record Store Day launched for the first time.

At Atlanta’s very first Record Store Day in 2008, concert performances took over Little Five Points with nationally recognized acts like Janelle Monae and Andy Hull of Manchester Orchestra, alongside local favorites like the Coathangers and Anna Kramer. Nowadays, Record Store Day is as much about limited releases and specialty music products as it is about parties and performances, and dedicated music lovers are known to line up around the block as early as midnight on the day before.

But Atlanta’s flagship Record Store Day hub, Criminal Records, is still the place to be for one-of-a-kind events. “We’re also having great in-store performances,” said Levin. “We have Sharon van Etten, who’s got a sold-out show that night at Variety Playhouse, spinning records from noon to 2:00, and we have Old Crow Medicine Show performing acoustic at 4:00. We have local hero Gentlemen Jesse at 6:00.”

For those braving the lines for special releases, Levin assured there will be bottled water available and he expects an appearance by King of Pops to keep folks’ sweet tooth cravings appeased.

More on Record Store Day and participating stores can be found at recordstoreday.com. Information on special events at Criminal Records on April 23 can be found at criminalatl.com/RSD22.