This year’s Record Store Day includes two impressive pop-up shops open only for the day. First, the Metro store (3730 N. Clark) hosts a Hot Jams pop-up shop from noon till 8 PM, which will sell back stock from defunct south-side dance-music retailer Hot Jams. Charlie Glitch of Ghetto Division is curating $5, $10, and $15 bins of records from Atlantic, Motown, Cajual, Relief, Underground Construction, and other labels; Metro is also offering deals of its own, including a split seven-inch of the Alkaline Trio/Smoking Popes gig from New Year’s 2006.
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The folks at the Numero Group are bringing their RSD shop back for a second year, this time at the Empty Bottle (1035 N. Western), where it will be open from 9 AM till 6 PM. This year they’ve expanded to include more than a dozen vendors on top of two tables of Numero releases—which include an RSD-specific compilation, WTNG 89.9FM: Solid Bronze, that pays tribute to the regional comps that radio stations used to put out. WTNG 89.9 FM is also a real station for the day, with a range of about five miles in any direction from the Bottle.
I spoke with several shop owners—all requested anonymity—who said they felt betrayed by Numero’s pop-up. One said, “We work hard to keep our doors open the other 364 days of the year, and RSD is supposed to be something of a celebration of the stores on the market.” Travers Gauntt, a longtime employee of Jazz Record Mart, was more blunt: “Not only are they not participating in the RSD event, as written in the RSD rules, they are only doing it that one day—laughing in the face of all the retailers and their staff that do it for a living 365 days a year.”
