Mike Shultz

Jesse Sykes, at home with her treasures.

We've been getting all kinds of excited for Record Store Day over here at Reverb, as I'm sure you've noticed. And we dedicated most of the space in the music section of today's paper to Saturday's annual event in which bands and labels make releases available exclusively at the nation's independent retailers. Here's what we've got:

-- An essay from singer/songwriter Jesse Sykes: "Even the Luddite in me must admit that exposure to music is what matters -- not whether you discover it on vinyl or mp3."

-- Devo's Gerald V. Casale talks the band's RSD release, Live In Seattle 1981: "The most important musical events in my life center around vinyl, when an artist actually did a body of work and you'd listen to the whole album beginning to end and took it seriously."

-- Of Monsters and Men's Bryndis Hilmarsdottir tell the sad story behind "Sinking Man": "He was in love with the wrong girl, and the Mafia came and threw him in the ocean."

-- Ryan Adams blesses Rachel Bell (and the rest of us): "I liked him before 2006, but I've loved him ever since. That was the year he blessed me."

-- Gwendolyn Elliott runs down Record Store Day's local offerings: "Call ahead with any questions, and if there's a band you really want to see, show up early!

Crate-diggers and music lovers will once again celebrate their own unofficial holiday this Saturday, better known as Record Store Day, a celebration of the "unique culture surrounding over 700 independently owned record stores in the USA." Abounding with special releases, in-store performances, and even an ambassador--this year, it's Iggy Pop--RSD has evolved into a phenomenon that keeps the dynamic world of independent retail music immortalized in movies like this and this alive and at our fingertips.

RSD's behemoth list of special releases is exhausting, but there's really no need to look beyond Seattle's great big backyard for new sounds, rare releases, and exciting in-store performances, so we've compiled the following Seattle-centric list of Record Store Day events and promotions to make RSD 2012 a breeze.

Some of these releases may not be available at your favorite store, nor are you guaranteed entry to an in-store show if it's reached capacity. Best bet is to call ahead with any questions, and if there's a band you really want to see, show up early. If we've missed your band's show or release, or left out your store's agenda, send it in and we'll add it to the list!

Happy hunting and Happy Record Store Day!

Special releases by Seattle-based artists, bands, and labels:

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Mary McCartney

Paul McCartney "shocked" Rhapsody last week when the former Beatle pulled his music from the Seattle-based music subscription service on the same day he released his new album of standards, Kisses on the Bottom. We were shocked this week when his label, Concord, called McCartney and his managers "pro-streaming."

"This wasn't done because people are anti-streaming," says Phillip Bailey, Concord's director of digital and mobile sales. "A lot of people like to bang on Spotify and streaming services. That is not what this is about. This is about how to best profile this catalog. Streaming is absolutely viable. I'm a huge proponent of it. Even McCartney's camp is."

When asked if the music was pulled at the request of McCartney's management, Bailey said he didn't want to point fingers. He did say, however, that McCartney's is the only Concord catalog not available for streaming, and that the move was made in part because McCartney's "management has decided they would really like to have some sort of unveiling" around the release of the catalog to subscribers. "They want," Bailey says, "more than anything, to make it an event."

In other words: After pulling the catalog from Rhapsody subscribers who had been streaming it for four years, McCartney's management wants to make an event out of giving it back. Bailey says that day is most likely to come in the spring around the re-issue of McCartney's second post-Beatles release, Ram.

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Mary McCartney

Paul McCartney is the latest artist to snub music-subscription services, and in a big way. GeekWire is reporting that the former Beatle has yanked all his tunes from streaming subscription services like Spotify, MOG, and Seattle's Rhapsody. This does not bode well for the prospect of the Beatles' catalog making the jump to such services.

As bands balk at streaming subscriptions, I keep coming back to something Rhapsody CEO Jon Irwin told me recently: "Rhapsody, and services like Rhapsody -- premium, on-demand, subscription music services that focus on building a paying subscriber base -- they don't cannibalize CD sales, they cannibalize piracy."

He's got a point.

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Yesterday, I wrote about Neil Young's quip that "Internet is the new radio" and that piracy is how "music gets around." Of course, Neil gets all the attention for making such a statement. Ah, the power of celebrity! Meanwhile, plenty of folks have been grumbling about this same thing for years, namely Bob Lefsetz, an industry analyst and all-around shit-stirrer. As an addendum to my post from yesterday, here is an excerpt from a blog rant Lefsetz wrote yesterday illustrating the power of discovery online, the access to free music, and how the Internet allows more artists to get paid than ever before, not just the mega-stars. Preach on, Brother Bob...

(M)ore people are recording than ever before and it's easier to hear their music and more ways to pay them if people like it.

I heard this Kila track, "Electric Landlady", on Sirius XM's Spectrum last night. Now Sirius XM is a service that not only charges listeners, but pays copyright holders and performers. That's all good. But without Spotify, without YouTube, that track would have gone into the ether, I probably never would have heard it again.

I'd never heard of the act, never mind the track, but I liked it.

I typed the title on my hand-set, sent myself an e-mail and just checked out the cut on Spotify, then looked up the band on Wikipedia.

It was all news to me.

And it ain't exactly rock and roll, but I like it. And I've played "Electric Landlady" five times already on Spotify.

Today, it's easy to spread the word. Sure, there's more information than ever, but with so many people listening, a certain amount rises up. Maybe not to the top, but to the point where the creators can get paid. Maybe not as much as in yesteryear, but in the old days those stars were the only ones getting paid. Now the wealth is shared.

"I look at Internet as the new radio. Piracy is the new radio. That's how music gets around."

Those words came from none other than elder statesman of rock Neil Young, who spoke about music and technology at the AllThingsD Conference on Tuesday. Many would expect a rock grandpa like Young to be bellyaching about how access to free music online is destroying his industry because that's all people of his ilk have been doing. But Young is doing what everyone in his industry should've been doing years ago--retrofitting the old model for the new medium, just like they did for the MTV era.

"Allowing people to discover music is a powerful thing," says Mike McGuire, a media analyst for Gartner Research with an interest in music and retail. "If you let people hear it a few times, they'll pay for it."

Exactly. I remember buying Guns N' Roses Appetite for Destruction in 1988. 10 or 20 million other people all bought it for the same reason--we either heard "Welcome to the Jungle" on the radio or saw the video on MTV. Before I bought my copy on cassette, I watched that video about a dozen times on MTV--and I watched it for free! Apparently the Internet clouded the memories of many label execs because the entire recording industry was built on the concept of exposing people to songs repeatedly and for free via radio or TV. The idea was to get us hooked like junkies so we'd be forced to buy a copy to have at our disposal any time we wanted. But the industry, as we know, has remained oddly stubborn about the Internet.

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Still selling after all these years.

If there was a poster child for the music industry in 2011--a year in which album sales ticked up for the first time since 2004--there's no question it'd be Adele, the British soul singer who has sold six million copies of her sophomore album 21 since its release last February. But the records largely responsible for this uptick were not released in 2011--most of them not in this decade.

Catalog titles--records released more than 18 months ago--sold almost 9 percent better in 2011 than in 2010. And of those, "deep catalog" titles--ones released at least three years ago--did even better, rising 12 percent, according to numbers released last week by Nielsen SoundScan. New releases, on the other hand, sold 4 percent worse in 2011 than 2010.

This isn't normal: Catalog titles don't usually account for such a large chunk of album sales. Dave Bakula, SoundScan's senior vice president of analytics, says catalog titles typically made up about 54 percent of sales, but accounted for 60 percent of the albums sold last year. "I think we're at a place now where catalog is probably at its biggest share [of sales]," says Bakula.

So does that mean Grandpa's right--they really don't make 'em like they used to? Not necessarily. Brick-and-mortar stores and online retailers--and anyone else selling hard copies of records--moved more copies of catalog records thanks to steep discounts on wholesale costs from major labels. Ballard's Sonic Boom, for example, is selling Public Enemy's 1990 classic, Fear of a Black Planet, for $5.99--$4 cheaper than on iTunes. But the more expensive digital copies (who thought we'd ever be saying that?) of catalog records grew even faster than physical sales, climbing nearly 20 percent year-over-year.

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Shelby Gittens

As seen on the H&M billboard at the corner of Pike and 5th. Hint: He and his equally renowned collaborator share a first name.

There's a record store in Pioneer Square that doesn't sell records. There's a small stage for musicians and DJs to perform, and racks of LPs for "customers" to pursue: Michael Jackson's Off the Wall, Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits are among the masses. On a recent visit, soul music was booming, and I noticed some writing on the wall that read: "Mourn, Celebrate, and Revolt?"

The Record Store, as it's called, is a traveling installation put on by the Seattle Art Museum and Olson Kundig Architects. It's "inspired" by Theaster Gates' The Listening Room exhibit at SAM, which features a long row of records obtained from a deceased retailer in Chicago that are available for the sampling. In a promotional flyer, OKA owner Alan Maskin says the firm was intrigued by SAM curator Sandra Jackson-Dumont's idea that "vinyl records can be a catalyst and tool that people work with in order to understand other narratives and perspectives. We are also excited by the idea of bringing people together around the culture of vinyl record and record players."

It is not a subtle point the Record Store and The Listening Room are trying to make: Record stores are dying, and with them, an experience that brings together community members for discussion and interaction. Unfortunately, both are painfully out of touch, overstate the misguided notion that people no longer buy CDs and LPs, and are ignorant of Seattle's unique musical infrastructure of clubs, bands, shops, and labels.

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Rhapsody CEO Jon Irwin, before and after the company hit a million subsribers.

It's been a banner month for Rhapsody CEO Jon Irwin: His Seattle-based music subscription service celebrated its 10th Anniversary with Built to Spill at the Showbox, today he makes official that Rhapsody has crossed the million-subscriber benchmark, and he recently shaved his head. The latter was his comeuppance on an agreement he made with his employees. You get us to a million, he said, and I'll shave my head.

But as he and his staff celebrate their successes, new challenges have emerged. U.K.-based competitor Spotify has driven the subscription-music narrative, along with its all-you-can eat, six-month trial (on P.C.s, not mobile devices) that's been wildly popular on Facebook. And Coldplay, the Black Keys and several other big-name acts have held back new releases from subscription services.

Some bands feel they're missing out on revenue from CD sales if they make their records -- particularly ones expected to top the charts -- available on subscription services that pay fractions of a penny per stream. Irwin thinks that's shortsighted, and has a theory: If you were to add up how much an artist is paid per play from a track that is purchased for 99 cents and then shared on the internet and stolen at will, artists, he contends, are making less per stream than they are on Rhapsody.

"Rhapsody, and services like Rhapsody -- premium, on-demand, subscription music services that focus on building a paying subscriber base -- they don't cannibalize CD sales," Irwin told me yesterday, "they cannibalize piracy."

Here's what else we talked about:

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