Record Store Day ambassador Dave Grohl leads new releases with Foo Fighters’ Songs From the Laundry Room, a 10-inch featuring two demos, a cover of Kim Wilde’s “Kids in America” and new song “Empty Handed.” Sun Records – a possible subject if Grohl visits Memphis in a Sonic Highways season two – will compile deep cuts from artists like Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison and Charlie Rich into the Curated by Record Store Day Vol. 2 double-album. Meanwhile, the newer L.A. label Alive Naturalsound will be celebrating their 20th anniversary with four sides of their own, compiling unreleased or hard-to-find tracks by artists like Lee Bains III and the Black Keys.
Bob Dylan’s basement tapes were once rock’s greatest unreleased treasure, and after a 2014 box set made the whole collection available, Band organist Garth Hudson is hand-numbering vinyl reissues of some of the original tracks. Paul McCartney’s soundtrack to The Family Way, a 1966 British film, has long been out-of-print, but those unable to afford an extremely rare old copy (that is, almost all of us) can now buy a new one. U2’s Songs of Innocence might have been the least rare LP ever released, but a vinyl double-album will now appease those who needed the record on more than just their iPhone.
Elsewhere, Jerry Garcia’s 1974 Compliments will be released on translucent green vinyl, and the Dead’s Uniondale, NY, 3/29/90 will be released in a five-LP box set. And where a Courtney Barnett 12-inch will feature a cover of John Cale’s “Close Watch,” Against Me!’s “Osama Bin Laden As the Crucified Christ” 7-inch holds two new versions of the Transgender Dysphoria Blues track.
This year’s Record Store Day will also showcase a series of split 7-inches where each side plays a different artist’s take on the same song. Two of the more notable rock installments feature David Bowie and Tom Verlaine doing “Kingdom Come” and the Black Keys and Junior Kimbrough doing “Meet Me in the City.”
