Shopping local on Record Store Day

Sonic Boom Records on Market Street is celebrating the 2nd annual Record Store Day on Saturday to encourage people to shop local. Ten percent of gross sales will be donated to Seattle Public School’s music program, and several other Ballard businesses will be offering discounts for Sonic Boom shoppers (just show your receipt). And if you enjoy music, there’s quite the lineup of bands and DJs, including one of our local favorites, “Say Hi” at 2 p.m. Full event schedule right here.

By the way, The Stranger has a good story about Record Store Day and the struggle for local music retailers to survive.

Geeky Swedes

The founders of My Ballard

16 thoughts to “Shopping local on Record Store Day”

  1. No can do, Sonic Boom. IMO the worst selection (diversity) of music in the city…if you are into hard rock and most of all metal. I can usually find a cd or two that I like, but I always have to make the treck to Easy Street to get everything that I want. One trip is better than two. Easy Street hands down. I thought this about the old Fremont store too…Sometimes you just need a guitar solo but all you can find is a whiny indy rock record.

  2. i just picked up one of my “lost unicorns” last week at the Ballard Sonic Boom, from their used new arrivals section, which i peruse a couple of times a week, as i'm always walking around Ballard so it's corn-venient. i fscking love Sonic Boom. we can talk about it soon over a Rainier and some Vreid. wink-wink.

  3. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), CDs and DVDs are typically manufactured by combining various mined metals (aluminum, gold, silver and nickel) with petroleum-derived plastics, lacquers and dyes.

    Given what complicated beasts CDs and DVDs are — products with thin layers of different materials mixed together are nearly impossible to recycle — most municipal recycling program won't accept them, leaving consumers to fend for themselves in figuring out how to dispose of them. As a result, most discarded discs end up in the trash.

    These difficult-to-recycle materials can pollute groundwater and, in turn, contribute to a whole host of human health problems. But the low cost of producing such top-selling consumer items means that replacing them with something greener is not likely anytime soon.

    Research has shown that polylactic acid (PLA), a biodegradable plastic-substitute derived from corn and other agricultural wastes, could replace plastic polycarbonate as a disc's main substrate, but the present high cost of using such a material makes it unlikely to catch on any time soon.

    As for jewel cases, most are made out of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), an inexpensive petrochemical-based plastic that is notoriously difficult to recycle and has been linked to elevated cancer rates among workers and neighbors where it's manufactured. Furthermore, when PVC is thrown in with regular recyclables it can contaminate entire batches, ruin equipment and cause human health problems. While cardboard and paper jewel cases may be all the rage among a few record labels — Warner Music Group's U.S. division, for example, has been using 30 percent post-recycled paper for packaging in all of its CDs and DVDs since 2005 — the high cost and low durability of such alternatives have kept them largely out of the mainstream.

    Don't forget about the carbon footprint of shipping the between manufacturing to distribution, to the record shop, and then to your home.

    Please go digital.

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