Tomorrow is Record Store Day. Get pumped. Here’s a good idea of what the local stores will be carrying:

PAVEMENT: LIVE IN GERMANY LP SONIC YOUTH/JAY REATARD SPLIT 7 SONIC YOUTH/BECK SPLIT 7″ ARTHUR RUSSELL: LOVE IS OVERTAKING ME 2LP CAMERA OBSCURA: FRENCH NAVY 7″ ELVIS PERKINS: LORRAINE, LOOKOUT 7″ BLACK KIDS: WIZARD OF AHHS 10″ BOB DYLAN: DREAMING FROM YOU 7″ BRANDI CARLILE: DOWNPOUR 7″ BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: WHAT LOVE CAN DO 7″ DEPECHE MODE: WRONG 7″ JANES ADDICTION: MOUNTAIN SONG 7″ JENNY LEWIS & ELVIS COSTELLO 7″ JESUS LIZARD: INCH 7″ SINGLE BOX SET LEONARD COHEN 7″ MC5: 7″ MY MORNING JACKET: LIVE 10″ NEW ORDER: TEMPTATION 7″ SLAYER: PSYCHOPATHY RED 7″ SUBLIME: SUPERSTAR PUNANI 7″ SMITHS 7″ STOOGES 7″ VARIOUS ARTISTS: THIS LP CRASHES HARD DRIVES WILCO: ASHES OF AMERICAN FLAGS DVD WHISKEYTOWN 7″ YEAH YEAH YEAHS: IT’S BLITZ LP GUIDED BY VOICE: HOLD ON HOPE 10″ BEN HARPER: SHIMMER & SHINE 10″

The Vinyl District has been partnering with the Industry on this one. We’re just riding shotgun. Here’s a breakdown of what some of the local stores are doing (we will be adding to this list throughout the day):

Crooked Beat:

They will be opening at noon on Saturday. “We’ll have them behind the counter, all on display on the walls. I’m unpacking the Jesus Lizard. It’s unbelievable. Eight seven-inches,” says owner Bill Daly earlier this week. He adds that he has 25 Flaming Lips/Black Lips seven-inches.

Crooked Beat will also have the Sonic Youth/Beck split seven-inch, the Pavement Live LP, and Arthur Russell’s Love is Overtaking Me LP. Etc!

For the first 75 customers, the store will also be giving away goodie bags filled with tons of indie label samplers (Merge, etc.), stickers, posters, buttons, etc. In three of these bags, the store has placed $25 gift certificates.

“We’re getting calls, several a day now,” Daly says. People are mostly calling about the Sonic Youth-Jay Reatard split, the Smiths, the Stooges and MC5 reissue singles.

“It’s kind of nuts. Last year was our busiest day of the year—there was only about nine releases. And this year, it’s over 60,” Daly says. “Ryko said they were sending stuff I don’t know about. Grizzly Bear seven-inches are being included.”

Daly says to expect a huge early crowd. “We are getting phone calls from people who are saying they will be lining up at 8 o’clock in the morning,” he says. “Last year there was 50 people in line as soon as we opened. Everyone was pretty well behaved….I’m just telling people you got to wait in line.”

Red Onion Records and Books:

The store is opening at noon. Owner Josh Harkavy says they will be having a 10-percent-off sale on everything except the Record Store Day releases. He says he’s got a bunch if not the bulk of the special vinyl releases including the Matador stuff and the amazing compilation This LP Crashes Hard Drives which features tracks from Sublime Frequencies, Numero, Honest Jons, etc.

“I’m hoping it’s not too crazy,” Harkavy says. “I’m glad there’s all this interest in Record Stores.”

Som Records:

The 14th Street shop has one thing the other stores do not: Benjy Ferree. The singer-songwriter will be playing at the shop at 7 p.m. We interviewed him recently and admired his latest album. So except a few Washington City Paper employees in attendance!

The store will also be doing a 10-percent-off sale all day long. They’ll have the Domino and Thrill Jockey compilations. K Records has sent them some stuff as well. Also among the stacks will be Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life on 180 gram.

Melody Records:

The store will be opening at 10 a.m. They will have the Wilco DVD. They will have a bunch of vinyl giveaways (samplers) and some limited-edition seven-inches such as Green Day and Jane’s Addiction reissues.

“It’s great to showcase the independent stores,” says indie buyer Heather Horne. “We’re obviously doing something right if we beat out Circuit City. It’s going to keep getting bigger….We’ve gotten tons of calls. Everyone is excited.”

Horne says people have already started coming in to the store thinking it’s already Record Store Day. “We had a group of four or five teenagers come in earlier (today),” she says. “They were like ‘What do you have for Record Store Day?’ We showed them what we have but obviously we can’t give away anything until tomorrow.”

This Saturday, hipsters nationwide will saddle up their fixie riders and head down to their local vinyl outlet for Record Store Day. The holiday, created two years ago by a coalition of well-connected romantics (presumably while smoking a peach hookah and watching Empire Records), celebrates the culture of indie record emporia in the face of encroachment from “corporate behemoths.” In order to participate, a store must be a “physical retailer whose product line consists of at least 50 percent music retail, whose company is not publicly traded and whose ownership is at least 70 percent located in the state of operation.”

The event is a fine idea. It promotes community and a healthy disdain for corporate homogenization, which is what a lot of good music is about. But big-box music retailers aren’t exactly going gangbusters these days. Trans-World Entertainment Corporation, the exquisitely evil-sounding conglomerate that owns Sam Goody, F.Y.E., and Strawberries, has seen its stock price fall by 92 percent in the last five years. Really, these stores and your local Championship Vinyl analog are similar inasmuch as they share a common foe: the iTunes Music Store.

Record Store Day implicitly condemns iTunes, and official event ambassador Jesse Hughes (from The Eagles of Death Metal) even goes so far as to liken buying music online to playing Guitar Hero instead of guitar. But as New York Times blogger Verlyn Klinkenborg notes in a 2008 post, iTunes, with its vast catalog of far-flung artists and user-generated reviews, is far from an indifferent, imperial merchant. Local bands can get their self-recorded album on iTunes just as easily as they can get it on the shelves of their local indie shop. Even artists are grateful for iTunes’s astounding ability to lure customers away from free-download sites, which seemed destined to cripple not only indie music stores, but musicians as well. Sure, a lot of them are using Record Store Day as an excuse to put out a bunch of b-sides; but how much you wanna bet those go right to iTunes, with the bands’ blessing?

Those who bemoan the decline of the indie music stores shouldn’t villify iTunes. If anything, they should be thankful, on an aesthetic level, that it has driven many of the big chain stores out of business. Indie shops, meanwhile, will always be around, just like vintage clothing stores and antiques dealers. They serve a niche market, and that market is entirely justified in gathering to celebrate them. But celebrants should not be too hard on iTunes: It may be a huge corporation that wants your money; but it may let you hang on to your soul.

Be sure to check out Jason Cherkis‘ upcoming roundup of local Record Store Day events.