With national Record Store Day approaching, local orchestral folk rockers The Ridges are looking to put a new spin on the day.
In addition to offering a new live recording of their “The Insomniac’s Song,” The Ridges will play a 30-minute acoustic set at Haffa’s Records, 15 W. Union St., at 3 p.m. Saturday.
“Haffa’s is really small, so it should be a really cool intimate, crammed house show experience,” said Victor Rasgaitis, lead singer and guitarist for The Ridges.
They have made a new live recording of their song “The Insomniac’s Song,” originally off their self-titled debut album that was released last spring. The band will sell a limited time, hand screen-printed poster with a download code for the original audio track, the new audio track and the video for $5.
The new recording is special because The Ridges are joined by several Ohio-based bands — Indigo Wild, The Happy Maladies, Young Heirlooms and Molly Sullivan — in a combined choir called The Sleepless Singers, who replace the stringed instruments normally used in the song.
The recording was done in Cincinnati at The Rohs Street Cafe Sanctuary Concert Hall, 245 W. McMillan St., which provides an acoustic sound that Rasgaitis said gives the song a sorrowful feel.
“Record stores are a really important corner stone of the independent music community … Record stores struggle and there aren’t as many as there used to be,” Rasgaitis said. “We thought this would be a cool opportunity to make something we thought would be cool and distribute it in such a way that draws attention to record stores.”
Haffa’s tries to obtain limited titles for Record Store Day, but only so many copies are made and there is competition among record stores to get the limited copies, said Andrew Lampela, the co-owner of Haffa’s Records.
Lampela did say that the store has acquired a limited edition vinyl box set of The Flaming Lips only out Saturday.
“There will be no room for (The Ridges) in here they’ll have to make their space … I hope people come out to love music,” Lampela said.
wh092010@ohiou.edu
