Have you heard about the upcoming National Record Store Day? I hadn’t either until very recently.

It seems it all began with the near-death experience record stores across the country have been dealing with. In 2007, an effort to promote the charms of the independent record sellers across the country began with a national day of celebration. It is now held on the 3rd Saturday of every April: this year the 3rd Anniversary of Record Store Day will be April 17th.

A lot of stores will hold live music events, and even some national artists are getting in on the event. For example, Bruce Springsteen will be releasing a special 10″ vinyl edition available only on the 17th. This single will include some recent live songs from his concerts: “Wrecking Ball” and “The Ghost of Tom Joad”. Other artists involved in releasing special vinyl are Ani DiFranco, Dave Matthews, and the Rolling Stones.

There is a lot to be said about a communal place that celebrates music, allows you to touch the product (we humans are still basically tactile creatures) and helps you interact with other people all at the same time. In many ways, the Best Buys, the Wal-Mart’s and the iTunes of the world can’t compete with a lot of what your local record store can offer you.

Pearl Jam, Green Day, Tom Petty & Heartbreakers/CSN

are  just  some of the  concerts that are planned for the Buffalo area.

Stay tuned in as more concert announcements are sure to follow…

Many people were stunned when Alex Chilton, former lead singer and songwriter for The Box Tops and Big Star suddenly complained of chest pains, and passed away Wednesday (March 17th) from an apparent heart attack. He was only 59, didn’t have any health problems he knew of, and was currently on tour with a reformed version of Big Star. In fact, he was scheduled to play this weekend in Austin for the SXSW Festival.

He was only 16 years old when he recorded the first single for the Box Tops “The Letter” (otherwise known as “Give me a ticket to an aero plane”). This first hit for the group would not only be a #1 hit for four weeks in a row in 1967, but would become Billboard’s biggest hit of the entire year (despite great songs from The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and others that year).

He had a few other hits with the group, like “Cry Like A Baby” and “Soul Deep”. But Alex became disenchanted with the management of the group, and wanted to get the sounds in his head onto vinyl. So he quit and cut a solo album in 1970 (called “1970″), before forming the cult group Big Star.

Big Star only had three albums, and most people weren’t aware of them, but a lot of future musicians picked up a guitar after hearing their music: like Tom Petty, R.E.M., and The Replacements. And despite poor sales and little acclaim, all three albums made it into the Rolling Stone Magazine’s recent list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

After some drug problems, and getting tired of being a dishwasher in his adopted hometowns of Memphis and New Orleans, Alex finally cleaned up and began playing music again. He will be missed.

Hard to believe this happening in our current digital music age, but in the last few days there has been a major victory for the concept album.

Pink Floyd, makers of many concept albums, has sued and won a major lawsuit against their former record label. EMI (Capitol here in America) was selling single digital tracks from those concept albums through on-line retailers, something the group didn’t like.

Today’s digital music consumer don’t usually purchase entire albums like “Dark Side of the Moon”, “Wish You Were Here’ or “The Wall” (that one is a double-album). EMI was selling single tracks off of those and other Pink Floyd albums much like they do with many of their other artists.

The band had signed a contract with the label, decades before the event of I-Tunes and mp3’s, giving them artistic control over their music. But EMI said that the artistic control only applied to physical copies of the albums: not digital sales. A few days ago, a judge disagreed.

Britain’s High Court ruled that the contract protected the artistic integrity of the album. And for good measure, the judge went on to rule in the band’s favor concerning a second issue concerning royalty payments. It is good to know that Pink Floyd fans sometimes grow up to be judges and lawyers.

The 82nd Academy Awards Ceremony is this weekend, and the musical history of winners in the category of Best Original Song is as mixed as any other category winner.

As with many other annual long-time award ceremonies (I’m looking at you, Grammys), rock music had a hard time getting noticed. “Town Without Pity” by Gene Pitney back in 1961 may be considered the first rumblings of Hollywood taking notice of the winds of cultural change. Of course it didn’t win.

The first successful breakthrough would have to be the theme to “Shaft” by Isaac Hayes in 1971. Of course, some critics claim that this was also the first disco song, and the next such song to win the Oscar would be a real honest-to-God disco song: “Last Dance” by Donna Summer in 1978, followed up by “Fame” in 1980.

The first real rock artist to win an award would have to be Bruce Springsteen for the theme to “Philadelphia” in 1993. In keeping with the twisted sense of Hollywood fair play, he was also up against another real rock artist for the same film that year: Neil Young.

Randy Newman counts as a real artist, and one with a rock sensibility, and he is up for two awards this year, both from the same film: “The Princess and the Frog”. And since Randy Newman currently holds the record for the most performances at the ceremonies (7), he is a cinch to add a least one more appearance this weekend to his lead.