Annual Record Store Day celebration is Saturday in Minturn

Record Store Day is set for Saturday at Eagle Valley Music and Comics, located at 211 Main St. in Minturn. The doors open at 11 a.m., and only five to six people will be allowed in the shop at any one time.

Record Store Day is a “celebration of the culture of the record store,” according to RecordstoreDay.com, and that celebration comes in the form of an annual event in which independent record stores around the country are given access to limited-edition records for sale in their shops.

Eagle Valley Music and Comics has participated in every Record Store Day since the first event in 2008, and owner Tom Robbins has learned a few tricks over the years that help him get the most in-demand titles in stock in his shop.

Ordering from more than one supplier helps, Robbins said, detailing how he uses two large suppliers and one smaller one to pad his inventory. If one supplier is only offering him a few titles of a record he knows will sell well, he orders more from another supplier.

Some years, titles can be harder to get than other years. It’s usually quite difficult to obtain more than 15 or 20 copies of a Taylor Swift record, for example, but this year Robbins didn’t have an issue getting 30 copies of “Fortnight,” a double-sided 7-inch vinyl single that has a track with Post Malone.

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Last year, Robbins accidentally received double the amount of the Talking Heads’ record that contained the band’s live performance recorded for WCOZ-FM in 1977, but they all sold anyway.

With that in mind, he tried to get as many copies as he could of this year’s special Record Store Day only release from Talking Heads, “Live On Tour,” recorded at the Agora in Cleveland on Dec. 18, 1978, and published as a promo LP for radio broadcast in 1979.

“Recorded on the More Songs About Buildings and Food tour, the promo release was never officially released commercially to the public,” according to RecordStoreDay.com. “This is the first official release of the full show, fully remastered from the original analog tapes and features one previously unreleased track. 2LP set cut at 45rpm.”

It’s a Record Store Day exclusive album, limited to 8,000 copies.

Other limited edition titles that Robbins predicts will be popular include the Jerry Garcia Band’s “Don’t Let Go,” recorded live at the Orpheum Theater in San Francisco, May 21, 1976.

“It’s the complete show, four records, first time ever pressed to vinyl, and they did an extremely limited edition run of only 4,000 copies,” he said.

A Grateful Dead box set from Beacon Theater in New York on June 14, 1976, is also being released on Saturday.

“It’s the complete show available for the first time on vinyl, a 5-LP set that was limited to 7,600 copies,” Robbins said. “And the artwork on the album is really beautiful.”

Robbins only has a few copies of each, and he says he can be almost certain they will sell quickly. Others that he has several copies of that he’s expecting to be popular include a Nirvana tribute album from Post Malone, Prince and the New Power Generation “Live at the Glam Slam,” and David Bowie “Ready, Set, Go, Live at Riverside Studios 2003.”

But sometimes, Record Store Day doesn’t always work out the way Robbins expects.

“There’s always some things you expect to sell real well, and they don’t,” he said. “You’re basically trying to anticipate public opinion.”

One of his biggest surprises over the years came in 2014, when an 8-record box set from Cake became one of the most sought-after Record Store Day releases of all time, currently selling for more than $1,000 on eBay.

“We had two of them in the store,” he said.

Robbins will keep the shop open until 6 p.m. on Saturday.