The Tuesdsay Club See You Next Tuesday

St Albans band The Tuesday Club are hosting their very own Real Record Store Day in Hoxton.

By Rosy Moorhead, Watford Observer

The Tuesday Club are taking Record Store Day back to its roots

Record Store Day came into being in 2007, when more than 700 independent stores in America came together to celebrate their unique culture.

The UK followed suit and 2013’s sixth annual celebration will see musicians join forces with the record shops to celebrate with special vinyl and CD releases made exclusively for the day, and hundreds of artists and DJs up and down the country putting on special performances instore. It’s supposed to be a sort of modern-day punk ethos event. But is it? St Albansbased eight-piece band The Tuesday Club think it’s anything but. Vocalist Andreas Vanderbraindrain believes the day has come a long way from its free-spirited, punk roots.

“We’ve all played Record Store Day with previous bands we’ve been in,“ he explains. “It was always about the little band and the independent retailers, but as time has gone on it seems that the big companies have muscled in – they’ve seen there’s money to be made, so now you get Suede appearing in the stores and special releases of Coldplay’s live sessions in green or yellow vinyl. The initial idea has been squeezed out.“

So The Tuesday Club have decided to reclaim Record Store Day for ‘DIY’ bands like themselves and are hosting Real Record Store Day in a florist’s shop in Hoxton, where true music fans will be able to bag one of 100 signed copies of the band’s white vinyl debut album, See You Next Tuesday, and sample branded Tuesday Club tea and cakes, served by members of the band. They and DJ Sonic Medusa will be providing the live entertainment, a podcast will be recorded, a one-off special Sound of the Suburbs magazine will be produced about the day and will be available online, and a number of other special guests will be putting in appearances.

“This is the first vinyl album that we’ve done,“ says Andreas. “We’ve always been a DIY band, releasing our own material and funding it all ourselves, and now that we’re an eight-piece band we’ve been able to fund this vinyl edition.

“You hear the same thing from every band you talk to on the circuit, we’re all doing the DIY thing – we can’t get into the record stores, so we thought we’d do it ourselves, let’s do something different.“

The Tuesday Club recorded the album at Hackney Road Studios, directly below the Rebecca Louise Law florist shop in Hoxton where Rebecca was kind enough to donate her shop to the cause for the day.

“The bottom line is to sell some white vinyl to enthusiasts and fund our next release,“ says Andreas, “but, bigger than that, we’d like this thing to grow, do a tour of more unconventional places.

“This is a chance to see how music used to be done. And hopefully we’ll inspire a new generation of musicians – if you can play three chords, get up there and play them! It’s the punk ethic.“

Real Record Store Day is at Rebecca Louise Law Floral Artist, Hackney Road, Hoxton on Saturday, April 20 from 12noon to 6pm. Details: www.thisisthetuesdayclub.co.uk