Saturday will mark the 2011 installment of Record Store Day, celebrating the art of music and independently-owned record stores.  Main attractions include special vinyl and CD releases, in-store performances, and giveaways, like Record Store Day’s website giving away a Buddy Miller guitar.

Schoolkids Records in Raleigh will open at 10:0 a.m. Saturday and have in-store performances by Radical Classical, Dex Romweber, The Raveonettes, and Adventure. CD Alley in Chapel Hill and Offbeat Music in Durham will open at 10:00a.m. as well. Durham’s Bull City Records will open at 11:00 a.m., with refreshments and surprise performances.

“I think it’s a great celebratory day that brings awareness to the physical stores,” said Chaz Martenstein, owner of Bull City Records. ”It’s a joint day shared between the stores and the people who keep them open. I love the spirit of it.”

As an added bonus, any purchase made at Schoolkids, Bull City, and Wilmington’s Gravity Records will enter you into a drawing for two All-Show writstbands for Hopscotch music festival. The lineup for the September festival will be announced April 20.

For more information about Record Store Day and participating stores, visit RecordStoreDay.com.

Durham trio Hammer No More The Fingers are set to release their new album, Black Shark, on April 5. To celebrate the release, the band will play three in-store shows at local record stores. The band will play at CD Alley in Chapel Hill at 3 p.m., Bull City Records in Durham at 5 p.m., and Schoolkids Records in Raleigh at 7 p.m. The shows are free, so get out and support some local music and businesses.

Last Friday on the Local Beat, we had a fantastic show thanks to the wonderful musicians who came by.

Lizzy Ross was the first to come in at 5 p.m. to show off her newest release, Traces, which was released June 26. Only in her early 20′s, Lizzy has already begun making quite a name for herself in the area with her stunning soulful voice and beautiful songwriting after setting a precedent with her previous band Lafcadio. Lizzy and I talked about the creation of her self released album and the different processes that went into it. We also compared her live show to her recorded material and she sang us three songs, which you can listen to in the music player above and download from our Local Beat ReverbNation page. You can purchase Traces from her website, Lizzy.net, CD Alley in Chapel Hill, as well as iTunes. Take a listen to our conversation below:

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At 6 p.m., David Mueller came in to talk about his new solo album from Heads on Sticks titled Mocking Bird. In this project David takes on the role of a mad scientist as he mixes and matches various sound effects on a whim that ends with a remarkably unique and sonically satisfying album, even taking clips from an actual mockingbird from his iPhone, which he calls a true “organic sampler.” David and I compared his newest music to his last three EPs ( you can download for free on his BandCamp page and I highly recommend) and listened to several songs off of the new record.

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For the last hour of the show, the guys of Jeremy Blair From Effingham dropped in for what turned out to be an immensely satisfying hour of conversation. JBFE has been playing live shows in the area for almost exactly a year now and are well on their way to local stardom. The three J’s in the band, Jeremy Blair, John Hill, and Jim McConnell came by and played some live tracks for us, which you can listen to in the widget above and download from our Local Beat ReverbNation page. We talked about the beginning of the band, how they came together, and their live show. We also had an interesting talk about the Triangle music scene, Durham in particular, which is on the verge of taking over the region as far as artistic and musical prominence is concerned. Take a listen:

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Jeremy Blair From Effingham is having a show August 7 at the Black Flower in Raleigh with Joy in Red and the Once and Future Kings. Also, check out the SWEET cherry pie the fellas baked me!

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Couldn’t make it out to the show last night at the Cats Cradle but still want a copy of Hear Here?  Well, don’t fret because the compilation will be available for purchase at a variety of places including:

• Schoolkids Records (Raleigh)
• CD Alley (Chapel Hill)
• Bull City Records (Durham)
• Every week at Local Beer Local Band
• And don’t forget about the the Oct 3rd show at the Pour House!