On Saturday, Rhino Will Seriously Rock Your Record Store Day

This Saturday is Record Store Day, but it’s highly unlikely that this information is any sort of revelation to you, since we suspect that most folks who’d frequent a record label’s website are the same sort of folks who’d have circled the third Saturday of April on their calendar the day they bought their calendar. But, hey, just in case you’re one of the few who’ve been steered this way by a friend and have no clue what we’re on about, we’ll go ahead and offer a few paragraphs from the event’s official website – and, yes, it is www.recordstoreday.com – to fill you in:

Record Store Day was conceived in 2007 at a gathering of independent record store owners and employees as a way to celebrate and spread the word about the unique culture surrounding nearly 1000 independently owned record stores in the US and thousands of similar stores internationally. There are Record Store Day participating stores on every continent except Antarctica.

This is a day for the people who make up the world of the record store—the staff, the customers, and the artists—to come together and celebrate the unique culture of a record store and the special role these independently owned stores play in their communities.

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.

Got the gist of it? Great! So let’s get to the music already, shall we?

Now, we’re not going to pretend that we’re the only label offering up some seriously cool stuff this year, because all it takes is a cursory look at the master list of special releases to see that lots of folks are bringing awesome stuff to the table, but we’re not afraid to say that we’ve got a whole lot of great limited-edition goodies available, which we’ve listed below.

(You’ll also see that we’ve put together a playlist of some songs that you’ll find amongst these various releases, which – like the releases themselves – is pretty darned diverse.)

Unfortunately, we can’t tell you that your local participating store will necessarily have them all, because that’s left to their discretion and is completely out of our hands, but we can at least tell you that all of these items are going to be out there somewhere... and if the item in question is from one of your favorite artists, we know you’ll consider it something that’s worth searching for.

Blue Rodeo, Diamond Mine (25th Anniversary)
2-LP set on red and blue vinyl
Limited edition of 1,000 copies, $39.98

Devo / The Flaming Lips, “Gates Of Steel (Live)” (Side By Side series)
7-inch silver vinyl
Limited edition of 9,300 copies, $6.98

Dinosaur Jr. / The Cure, “Just Like Heaven” (Side By Side series)
7-inch white vinyl
Limited edition of 6,800 copies, $6.98

The Doors, Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine
2-LP set on translucent amber swirl vinyl
Individually numbered limited edition of 5,500 copies, $27.98

The Dresden Dolls, The Dresden Dolls
2-LP set on 180 gram, red and black swirl vinyl
Individually numbered limited edition of 3,000 copies in the U.S., $27.98
An additional 500 unnumbered copies will be available outside the U.S.

The Everly Brothers, Roots
12-inch vinyl
Limited edition of 5,000 copies, $24.98

Fleetwood Mac, “Dragonfly” b/w “Purple Dancer”
7-inch purple vinyl
Limited edition of 5,400 copies, $7.98

The Folk Box (50th Anniversary Edition)
4-LP set with bonus 7-inch
Individually numbered limited edition of 2,000 copies, North American exclusive, $89.98

Grateful Dead, Live at Hampton Coliseum
2-LP set on 180-gram vinyl
Limited edition of 7,900 copies, $39.98

Donny Hathaway, Live at the Bitter End 1971
2-LP set on 180 gram vinyl
Individually numbered limited edition of 4,000 copies, $34.98

Hüsker Dü, Candy Apple Grey
12-inch grey vinyl
Limited edition of 4,000 copies, $19.98

Ice-T, Greatest Hits
12-inch vinyl
Limited edition of 4,500 copies, $19.98

Idle Race, Birthday Party
12-inch psychedelic vinyl
Limited edition of 4,000 copies, $19.98

Joy Division, An Ideal for Living
12-inch 33RPM vinyl
Limited edition of 13,500 copies, $14.98

July, July
12-inch psychedelic vinyl in mono
Limited edition of 4,500 copies, $19.98

Mystery Artists, TBD (Side By Side series)
Highlighter yellow opaque with translucent orange center
Limited edition of 9,300 copies, $6.98

Randy Newman, Randy Newman
12-inch mono vinyl
Individually numbered limited edition of 3,000 copies, North American exclusive, $24.98

The Notorious B.I.G., Life After Death
3-LP set on clear vinyl
Individually numbered limited edition of 6,300 copies, $44.98

Pantera / Poison Idea, “The Badge” (Side By Side series)
7-inch purple marble vinyl with bronze swirl
Limited edition of 6,800 copies, $6.98

The Pogues, The Pogues With Joe Strummer Live In London, 1991
2-LP set on red vinyl
Limited edition of 7,000 copies, $29.98

Gram Parsons, 180 Gram: Alternate Takes from GP And Grievous Angel
2-LP set on 180-gram vinyl
Individually numbered limited edition of 3,000 copies in U.S., $34.98
An additional 2,000 unnumbered copies will be available outside of the U.S.

Ramones, Meltdown with the Ramones
10-inch 45RPM vinyl
Individually numbered limited edition of 5,000 on navy vinyl in the U.S., $14.98
Limited edition of 2,500 on pink vinyl outside of the U.S.

Otis Redding, Pain In My Heart (50th Anniversary Edition)
12-inch mono vinyl
Individually numbered limited edition of 5,000 copies, $24.98

R.E.M., Unplugged 1991/2001: The Complete Sessions
4-LP set on clear vinyl
Limited edition of 2,500 copies, $84.98

The Specials, “Sock It To ‘Em” b/w “Rat Race”
7-inch vinyl
Limited edition of 6,000 copies, $6.98

The Stranglers, “Peaches”
7-inch green vinyl
Limited edition of 6,000 copies, $6.98

The Velvet Underground, Loaded
12-inch mono vinyl
Limited edition of 3,000 copies, North American exclusive, $19.98

The Yardbirds, Little Games
12-inch psychedelic vinyl in stereo
Limited edition of 8,500 copies, $19.98