 "Photo: James Durbin ~ Daily Egyptian")
A dying industry stepped into the spotlight Saturday.
In conjunction with National Record Store Day events at locally owned businesses across the nation, Carbondale record stores participated in an effort to bring popularity to an industry that has been neglected with the explosion of easily accessible online music downloads.
“This is kind of to bring back awareness of record stores, kind of a dying industry, and is an attempt to save it,” said Amy Dempsey, manager of P Mac Music, a record store in the Murdale Shopping Center.
Dempsey, who has worked at P Mac for 10 years, said there were significantly higher amounts of people in the store, which she attributed to the second-annual celebration.
The increase was welcome, Dempsey said, because she has seen a steady decline in business during the past 10 years.
To coincide with the event there were limited releases by many big name acts including Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Tom Waits. Many of the special releases were limited edition seven-inch vinyl, said Lauren Owen, manager of Plaza-Wuxtry Records on East Main Street.
P Mac Music featured in-store performances by local artists the Joe Beck Trio, Himalayas, Gods on Safari, and the St. Valentine’s Day Suicide Pact. Plaza-Wuxtry featured the bands Glass Pyramid and Sh!t F*ck.
Owen said she keeps tabs on the record stores in Chicago, and the Reckless Record locations in the city also had live in-store performances.
“It is my personal duty to push all of our local bands (that) you cannot go to Wal-Mart — you have to come to Plaza,” Owen said.
She said everyone has to start somewhere with music, and record stores are the best place to do so.
Jef Hill, a member of local band Himalayas and P Mac employee, said record stores provide a means to expose people to different varieties of music.
“It gives us a chance to feature local musicians,” Hill said.
Hill also said it was good to be able to be in conjunction with a national event, and everyone enjoyed the releases that came out specifically for the day.
“It’s really important to not forget about the small guys,” Lauren Owen said.
Chris McGregor can be reached at 536-3311 ext. 275
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