RECORD STORE DAY 2021: Real Gone’s Top Picks (Drop 1)

After living through something that’s felt like a perpetual groundhog day, it’s felt like a long year, to say the very least. In other ways, it really doesn’t feel like it’s been that long since the scramble for David Bowie related items during one of the Record Store Day events of 2020.

This year, the RSD shenannigans are held across two days – 12th June and 17th July – with a varied selection of items available during each event. As always, we can’t tell you where your desired goodies will be stocked or how many copies will be floating around, or give you a definite price (anything quoted below is an educated guess), but we can offer an opinion on what we feel are the year’s coolest collection fillers.

These are our top picks for the June event (RSD Drop 1).

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REAL GONE GOES OUT: KRISTIN HERSH TRIO feat. FRED ABONG – Quarterhouse, Folkestone, Kent 31/3/2019

When Kristin Hersh and Fred Abong visited Ramsgate in 2018 it almost felt like being in the presence of visiting musical royalty. The very intimate Music Hall was packed to the rafters for two nights; the attendant crowds was mostly made up of people who’d followed Kristin and Fred since the 90s – whether as members of Throwing Muses, Belly or solo artists – making those gigs truly ones to remember. It seemed unlikely that the Kent provinces would host these great musicians in such intimate settings again, but they both made a return visit – this time to the slightly larger Quarterhouse in Folkestone – almost exactly nine months on from those hot Ramsgate nights.

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RECORD STORE DAY 2019: Real Gone’s top picks

When Record Store Day first began, it was a great idea. Those who were regulars at independent record shops like Avalanche in Edinbugh and Resident in Brighton could potentially get their hands on very limited, exclusive items. It was a celebration of record buying culture, more than anything. Over the years the event has grown. After all of the major labels sensed a potential cash cow, it increasingly became about reissuing stuff en masse at inflated prices.

Record Store Day has become an event full of mixed feelings. There are now tales of people not actually visiting their local (and favourite) stores on RSD as the crowds of unfamiliar faces have made the experience quite stressful. People queue for hours in the hope of finding one of the many artificially created rarities – a lot of which seem to appear on ebay just hours later at even more inflated prices. In recent years, there have even been dealers “pre-selling” their RSD wares on the internet up to two days before the event that was supposed to get people into their shops.

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Kristin Hersh & Fred Abong back in the UK for another run of live dates in March

Throughout the summer of 2018, Kristin Hersh toured extensively for her critically acclaimed album ‘Possible Dust Clouds’.  A lengthy run of dates found Kristin and supporting artist Fred Abong visiting all corners of UK and playing at some very intimate venues.

Kristin and Fred are back for another tour beginning on March 8th.  For those who missed the previous leg, the new dates involve similarly small venues, so if you’d like to see some great artists up close, the opportunity shouldn’t be missed a second time.

Fred also releases a new EP ‘Pulsing’ on March 8th.

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REAL GONE GOES OUT: Kristin Hersh – Ramsgate Music Hall, Ramsgate, Kent 1/7/2018

It’s the first of July. The British summer time has truly grabbed a hold. In the middle of the unexpected heatwave, the intimate Ramsgate Music Hall is hot. Very hot. The sweaty atmosphere isn’t about to dampen anyone’s spirits, though, especially as tonight’s sell out crowd are in the presence of a true cult legend. This is Kristin Hersh’s second appearance at Music Hall – the first being forty eight hours earlier – and it’s the last night of her successful UK tour. Everyone’s up for it.

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