Record Store Day Spring 2023: Pick 6 Previews

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Spring is in the air and Record Store Day is once again upon music fans. As usual, there are loads of special RSD releases coming to an independent record store near you. We thought we’d share six that flew across our radar as something you may want to keep an eye out for. Of course, once you get to the record store, the sky’s the limit. Your only barriers are quantity and the thickness of your wallet.

The Rolling Stones – Beggars Banquet
(Grey, Blue, Black & White Swirl Vinyl)

ABKCO Records is releasing a special edition of The Rolling Stones’ classic 1968 album, Beggars Banquet. The Record Store Day Edition is an 180-gram special pressing on grey, blue, black and white swirled vinyl LP, a direct reference to the lyric from “Salt of the Earth,” the album’s closing track: “When I search a faceless crowd, a swirling mass of grey and black and white.” During The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, filmed and recorded less than a week after the release of Beggars Banquet, Mick Jagger altered the lines slightly with: “And when I look into this faceless crowd / a swirling mass of grey, blue, black and white.”

Beggars Banquet (Record Store Day Edition) features the album’s original artwork, plus a reproduction of the window display poster created by the Stones’ UK label Decca. The poster features a Michael Joseph photo of all five members in a field in front of the Swarkestone Hall Pavilion in Derbyshire, England, and was mislabeled the title “Beggar’s Banquet.” Staying faithful to the original, this replica version keeps the apostrophe intact. A different image from the same photo session appeared on back of the band’s compilation, Hot Rocks 1964-1971, released three years later. For more insight into Beggars Banquet, check out our Classic Commentary.

Violent Femmes – Violent Femmes
(40th Anniversary Picture Disc)

As the preeminent punk folk rock band of the early 80s, Violent Femmes became a cult favorite. Their self-titled debut album features songs like “Blister in the Sun,” “Please Do Not Go,” “Gone Daddy Gone,” and the urgent “Add It Up.” Initially, a slow, but steady seller, the album finally made the Billboard 200 after eight years and went platinum. Additional exposure in the films My So-Called Life, Reality Bites, and Grosse Pointe Blank helped widen its appeal. To celebrate its 40th anniversary, Craft Recordings is releasing a Record Store Day picture disc of Violent Femmes, limited to 6,000 copies worldwide. The disc features the album cover image on Side A and the jacket’s reverse side on Side B.

Brian Eno – Forever Voiceless
(Instrumental Version of Foreverandevernomore)

Brian Eno’s Forever Voiceless is a special Record Store Day release that features instrumental versions of the songs from the multimedia artist’s 2002 solo release, Foreverandevernomore. Digital ‘Deluxe’ versions of  Forever Voiceless and Foreverandevernomore drop on April 21; Forever Voiceless comes out on vinyl on Record Store Day. Eno helped birth glam and art rock as a member of Roxy Music. He went on to produce albums by David Bowie, Talking Heads, U2 and Coldplay. As a solo artist, he pioneered ambient music.

Pearl Jam – Give Way
(First Official Worldwide Release)

Legacy Recordings is celebrating the 25th anniversary of Pearl Jam’s fifth studio collection, Yield, with a variety of events and related releases. A rare live recording of a Melbourne Park show from March 5,1998 during the Australian tour in support of Yield will be released on Record Store Day — the first time ever on vinyl and the first time officially on CD.

Entitled Give Way, a nod to the Australian counterpart to the United States “Yield” sign, the 17-track set was originally slated for release as a promotional CD to be included with the purchase of “Single Video Theory” in 1998. The promotional CD was never officially released, although copies have surfaced over the years. That all changes on Record Store Day. Live versions of “Given To Fly,” “Faithfull,” and “Do The Evolution, as well Pearl Jam favorites like “Even Flow,” “Alive” and “Black” are included.

Jonathan Richman – Jonathan Goes Country
(Red Cowboy Boot Vinyl)

Singer and songwriter Jonathan Richman is known for his authentic storytelling, candid observations on life, and lo-fi recordings. Emerging in the early 70s as the  frontman of the Boston proto-punk band, the Modern Lovers, Richman led several iterations of the group, all while moving farther away from the harder, electric sounds of his earlier days. By the late 1980s, he was primarily a solo act. He gained worldwide recognition when he appeared as the “singing narrator” in the 1998 comedy film, There’s Something About Mary.

In 1990, Richman released Jonathan Goes Country, which found him singing classic country hits alongside new and old originals, including “The Neighbors, “Corner Store,” and “You’re The One For Me.” There are also instrumental renditions of Tammy Wynette’s hit, “Your Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad” and Carole King/Gerry Goffin’s “I Can’t Stay Mad at You,” a Skeeter Davis classic. For the album, Richman wrote “Rodeo Wind,” “Reno,” and the opener, “Since She Started to Ride.” Jonathan Goes Country returns to vinyl for the first time since its release. The Record Store Day edition is limited to 5,000 copies worldwide and is pressed on Red Cowboy Boots-colored vinyl as tribute to the album’s jacket design.

Nuggets
(50th Anniversary Edition)

For Record Store Day 2003, a special five-LP 50th Anniversary Edition Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968 will be released. The set is limited to 10,000 copies. Originally released in October 1972, Nuggets focuses on the first generation of American psychedelic and garage rock bands. It unearthed dozens of three-minute masterpieces that blazed brightly for a few weeks before fading from the charts during the mid-to-late 1960s. The seminal compilation defined the garage rock genre and helped inspire the rise of punk rock a few years later.

Musician and writer Lenny Kaye compiled the 27 tracks featured on the original double album under the supervision of Elektra Records’ founder, Jac Holzman. Both were involved in making the Nuggets: 50th Anniversary Edition, which contains new liner notes and artist biographies written by Kaye, as well 42 additional tracks. These are songs left off the 1972 collection, plus 28 tracks Kaye selected for a second volume of Nuggets that was never released. Songs include Top 40 hits like “96 Tears” by ? & The Mysterians, “Do You Believe In Magic” by The Lovin’ Spoonful, “7 And 7 Is” by Love, “Little Bit O’ Soul” by The Music Explosion, “Little Girl” by Syndicate of Sound, and “Laugh, Laugh” by Beau Brummels.

The collection’s final LP (dubbed Also Dug-Its, Artyfacts From The Original Nuggets) revisits 14 songs cut from the 1972 anthology. Highlights include “I’m Five Years Ahead Of My Time” by The Third Bardo, “The Spider And The Fly” by The Monocles, “99th Floor” by The Moving Sidewalks (featuring future ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons), and “Crazy Like A Fox” by Link Cromwell, aka Lenny Kaye.

 

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