At some point in your twenties – likely around the time your Spotify Wrapped begins resembling the soundtrack of a Wes Anderson film – you realise you don’t just ‘like’ music, you want to touch it. You want to hold its weight, flip it over, scrutinise liner notes like sacred text and wince at the scratch you swore wasn’t there when you bought it. You want vinyl.
Record Store Day, then, feels less like an event and more like a rite of passage. This April 25-27, from 10am-10pm, it descends once again upon Bangkok, sprawling across three full days and over thirty record vendors. Set inside The Storeys Square at One Bangkok, it’s less ‘mall event’ and more temporary temple to the analogue gods – complete with DJs, crate diggers and people earnestly debating the superiority of mono pressings. And admission is absolutely nothing.
There are talks, of course. There always are. Panels where collectors drop the needle on nostalgia, fansign corners where musicians meet the brave few who still buy their music in physical form. There’s a DJ set billed as ‘exclusive,’ which usually just means you’ll hear something deliciously obscure that no algorithm has yet to recommend.
But let’s talk about the Vinyl Swap – here’s where it gets interesting (at least in my view.)
You bring a record – your record – maybe a copy of Plastic Ono Band you once played in a breakup fog, maybe something French and dramatic from Air. It has to be in good condition, obviously; this isn’t a dumping ground for warped regrets. You leave it on the swap table with a handwritten clue, something cryptic and tender. No titles, no names. Just a few words that hint at what lives in the grooves. Mine read: ‘home away from home’ with ‘morning dew on cherry trees’ (Equus Asinus, the album by Men I Trust.)
You don’t get to choose in the traditional sense. You read the notes others have left, feel a tug, and pick one. That’s it. That’s your new record. You’re adopting someone’s memory, soundtracking a stranger’s heartbreak or joy.
Nearby is Vinyl Home, a softer pocket of the event held in The Wireless Club. Inside, the chaos quiets. The turntables are real, the records on loan from the Public Relations Department’s archives, and the vibe is part salon, part listening room, part vintage dreamscape. You can sit. You can breathe. You can let Side B play all the way through without anyone skipping to the chorus.
Record Store Day isn’t trying to sell you something. It’s trying to remind you of what music used to feel like before it got flattened into files and squeezed into playlists called ‘Chill Vibes.’ It’s messy and warm and oddly intimate, like flipping through someone else’s diary written in guitar solos.