If you love great music and supporting Tuscaloosa’s independent record store you should take some time off from A-day and slip down to Oz music for Record Store Day on Sat. April 16th. What is Record Store Day, well glad you asked it’s;
This is the one day that all of the independently owned record stores come together with artists to celebrate the art of music. Special vinyl and CD releases and various promotional products are made exclusively for the day and hundreds of artists in the United States and in various countries across the globe make special appearances and performances. Festivities include performances, cook-outs, body painting, meet & greets with artists, parades, djs spinning records and on and on. Metallica officially kicked off Record Store Day at Rasputin Music in San Francisco on April 19, 2008 and Record Store Day is now celebrated the third Saturday every April.
A Record Store Day participating store is defined as a retailer whose main primary business focuses on a physical store location, whose product line consists of at least 50% music retail, whose company is not publicly traded and whose ownership is at least 70% located in the state of operation. (In other words, we’re dealing with real, live, physical, indie record stores—not online retailers or corporate behemoths).
Our own nugget of awesome Oz fits the last part very nicely. We asked our own music maven and Oz worker Ally Nevarez what to expect and she had this to say.
Record Store Day is right around the corner! Saturday, April 16 is the audiophile’s national holiday, and there’s no better way to celebrate than with your local Tuscaloosa record store, OZ Music. We’ll be receiving limited releases from a variety of artists. They’re going to be available on first come/first serve basis, so get there early!
In addition to the exclusive releases we’ll have at the store, we’re excited to be hosting the 2011 LadyFest DeepSouth musical guests. Starting at 2:00 PM Piss Shivers will take the stage, followed by GhettoBird, Dead Balloons, Younger Siblings, and ending at 4:30 PM with Bender.
We will also have live performances by Tuscaloosa favorites The Motions at 12:00 PM, and OZ Music’s own Joshua Morgan Folmar at 1:00 PM. We Killed the Dinosaurs will finish off the afternoon at 5:00 PM. If you haven’t seen a live show at OZ Music yet this is your chance to check out our stellar stage set-up while enjoying great bands.
Doors will open at 10:00 AM, but if you have your heart set on a limited edition 7” you should probably 
get there earlier. Last year customers started lining up at 8:00 AM! There will be free food, special sales, giveaways, and the musical performances are for customers of all ages. Oz Music is one of the last independent record stores in the country, and we’re excited to be putting on this kind of event for our community. See you there!
For a complete list of what Oz has to offer click here and plan accordingly. There are many RSD exclusives that are just plain awesome so go get some great music. As always Thanks to Ally and Oz music in general for being so fucking awesome.
