Most days you could hear a pin drop in the early morning hours at Murray’s Bel-Air Shopping Center. The third Saturday of April, however, always commands a crowd.
Terrapin Station, an independent record store that’s been an institution in Murray for decades, has participated in Record Store Day since 2009. It’s the only store in Western Kentucky that stocks a wide range of the exclusive vinyl record releases that are the hallmark of the music lover’s holiday.
First in line was Preston Hayes and his aunt Faith Michelle Wilson. They lined up at 10:30 p.m. the previous night to ensure Hayes got releases by two of his favorite artists, Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan. I must interject, as someone who’s held the first spot in line before, their dedication induced a bit of imposter syndrome. My previous 5:30 a.m. arrival feels like amateur hour.
Hayes said while he finds camping out in line fun, the drive behind his drastic time commitment was scarcity.
“It’s mostly just to make sure I get them,” Hayes said. “They don’t have as many as I wish they would have, or we would have come later. There’s only one copy of one of the records I need”.
Oliver Beckers has been attending Record Store Day since 2012. He lined up at 8 a.m. hoping for releases by The Sisters of Mercy and The Hives. He’s seen the event change quite a bit over the past decade.
“I think there are more and more releases that are not really exclusive anymore,” Beckers said. “There’s lots of rereleases and fewer releases that are truly unique to Record Store Day. I think that the proportion has shifted quite a bit. It’s a little bit more commercialized.”
While Beckers may sound jaded, his love for physical records keeps him interested in the event.
“I like to have something in my hands,” Beckers said. “I can actually see the music, see the grooves. I’m putting it on and flipping it over, not just streaming it and not paying attention. You have to pay attention because you can’t just walk out of the room. I like that.”
At 9 a.m. the doors opened and the crowd flooded into the store. Any hint of tiredness or cynicism disappeared as people sprinted towards the albums they’d been waiting for. After a few minutes, the initial frenzy calmed. People browsed the remainder of the new releases and the rest of the store’s stock.
The same conversations always follow. What you grabbed in time and what the person ahead in line beat you to. How quickly you blew your budget and how mad your significant other is going to be. Predictions of what won’t sell. Deciding if you really need every album in the stack you’re hoarding.
Hayes and Wilson waited in line to checkout with everything they came for.
“I wouldn’t have wanted to ride home with him without those,” Wilson told an employee.
A lot of work goes into ensuring there are as few disappointed car rides home as possible. Cassidy Copeland, owner of Terrapin Station, said this is the biggest batch of releases the store has ever bought for Record Store Day.
“The ordering process is always interesting,” Copeland said. “We put our list together and usually what we get is pretty close. There’ll be some things that we order six or seven of and we get only one or two. Sometimes we order two or three and can’t get a single one. We just take what we can get with the warehouses.”
Creating the store’s list is its own challenge. She has to order the stock a month in advance and it arrives a day or two before the event. Copeland circulates the full list of releases on social media for feedback, but much of the selection is just based on instinct.
“There’s always a few misses,” Copeland said. “It’s hard to know because everybody has such different tastes and that’s part of the beauty of it. You can’t guarantee a set list of what you need, there’s a lot more to it.”
Copeland said this was a good year in terms of people getting what they wanted. Even the stock of that highly coveted Olivia Rodrigo release lasted until noon.
“We had several people say that they got everything they came for, which is a really good feeling,” Copeland said. “I think it was afternoon before we started getting the phone calls where we had to say ‘Sorry, it’s gone’”.
Terrapin Station also hosted its first live show of the year. Fast Molasses, a Southern-Illinois based artist who fuses grunge and bluegrass, played a concert at 8 p.m.. Hosting live music was one of the many aspects of Record Store Day derailed during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s a tradition we had going for several years in a row at one point,” Copeland said. “It’s something we’d like to make a tradition again. There’s something really nice about making it a full day. We get here early so we might be tired by the end of it, but it’s well worth it”.
Copeland said Record Store Day feels like a rare moment of recognition and support for records stores from the music industry. While it creates a short-term boost in business, it also reminds community members how valuable stores like Terrapin Station are.
“I can see how much it matters to people to be able to walk in here and physically pick things up to hold them,” Copeland said. “It’s not like the new album comes out and everybody just wants to hit download, listen to it, and be done. There’s way way more to music than that and Record Store Day acknowledges that.“
