Record Store Day 2025 in Berlin
A whole day dedicated to music
A pounding at my door.
I struggled awake and croaked out, “What?”
“Bro, aren’t we going out today?” It was my flatmate.
Rolling over, I lunged at my phone and stared groggily at it.
“Oh shit, we need to get going,” I exclaimed. Jumping out of bed, I ran around my room getting ready. “I’ll be with you in just a mo, mate.”
We definitely didn’t want to leave it too late today.
After all, it was Record Store Day.
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The first ever Record Store Day was in April of 2007 in the USA and was designed to celebrate record store culture and the community surrounding it. Originally inspired by Free Comic Book Day, whose goal was the same with comic book stores, it has grown from strength to strength in the years following and has spread worldwide.
I had first come across the day in the UK, when I started building my own collection of records. It was a friend of mine who had given it to me after he had won a raffle during our university years. “I always win these things,” he joked at the time.
But he never actually wanted it. And through a conspicuous line of inquiry from yours truly, he had passed it onto me.
“Score.”
—
My flatmate and I showered and wolfed down some food in a desperate attempt to fend off the growing hangover. We had stayed out way too late the night before drinking in some stereotypically cool bars and attended a pop up shop for Steel City Dance at Giri. DJ Heartstring and KETTAMA were even in attendance for a predrink before their Berghain sets (we didn’t even try to get in).
We headed downstairs, my flatmate grabbed his bike, I jumped on a Lime Bike and we pootled down the U12 route with me pointing out Watergate as we crossed Warschauerbrücke. My flatmate asked me what it was like inside as we pulled up the traffic lights. I mentioned the beams, the windows, and how much I loved that smoking area. “Yeah I’ve heard about the smoking area,” he says. “Saw it on the way over.”
As we pulled into HHV in Friedrichshain, we took stock of where we were visiting. It looked like every Dalston resident’s dream. This place sold vinyls, Salomons, jackets, and home decor and gadgets including the latest range of AIAIAI headphones.
I turned to my flatmate, “have you heard of socks_house_meeting on Instagram?”
A blank facial expression greeted me (he doesn’t have Instagram).
—
Record Store Day is one of my favourite days of the year. You go around and look for fun music in cool shops often situated in pretty hip places of the city. It’s a great way of supporting record stores and the community around it and everyone you meet is just as interested in music as you are.
A number of record labels also time exclusive, limited run releases for the day too and digging through them and seeing all your favourite artists is a great feeling. “They have something coming out today? I wonder what’s on it!” And there are some pretty big players releasing music; we’re talking A-Ha, Air, Black Sabbath, Blur, Charli xcx, Fatboy Slim, Taylor Swift, Rage Against The Machine, Mel C, Lil Uzi Vert, and Ice-T to name a few.
We also can’t forget, that these events are normally paired with pubs, bars, or breweries and who doesn’t love a drink listening to music. Because there are often events too, in 2023 I attended the event at the Truman Brewery in Brick Lane and there was live music and DJs playing all day.
It’s a day that’s totally dedicated to music.
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I pulled out a record, it’s Ebi’s Space Teddy Collection on the Transmigration label. I had recently become obsessed with the label after stumbling upon Elliptical Headz’s record at a fair last year. Fortunately, my flatmate had found a player and I worked my way through the throng over to him. “I like the label, let’s see what’s on this.”
Sharing the headphones, we nodded along.
“I found a few things too, check these out.”
More sharing, more nodding.
I bought my find and then we jumped on our bikes to move on to Rough Trade in Neukölln. We meandered our way over the Elsenbrücke and we spotted Renate (which I hadn’t been to yet at that point), OST (which I had), and Else (which wasn’t open yet).
“They’re close!” my flatmate said as pulled up to a traffic light.
“Yeah, I had no idea Else was just across the river from the others.”
—
Not to get too emotional about it all, but it’s a day where it really begins to feel like a global community. So many people come out and are willing to talk to others. Beers help of course, but being amongst so many people who can get weird and nerdy over common interests is something I recommend everyone to do.
The record store social media accounts pop off, with posts coming from all of the places the movement has reached in the world. True, it’s mainly North America and Europe, but there’s also Japan, Australia, and Mexico too.
And clips of events start circling too, DJ sets on sun terraces, bands in record shops, and street food markets in brewery gardens.
—
Sadly, Berlin’s Record Store Day seemed to be a little more limited than the global socials were showing off that day and we pulled into Rough Trade to see it remarkably quiet for such an important day for this kind of store. It’s a stark comparison to its British counterpart which saw a whole array of shows and events happening in each store.
We quickly browsed the big name releases for the day, and then moved on. We had a street party to attend and booked it around Tempelhofer Feld with the sun shining shining in our faces.
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As much as I know there are two record store days in the year, the April day is the one I look forward to most. It lines up exactly with when the weather is beginning to really improve and there’s a chance you could be outside in the sun. Which has been my fortune for the past few years.
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And we were basking in it as we pulled up to Dodo Beach in Schöneberg. They were throwing a street party that day and it was the perfect weather for it. A stage was at the end of a long line of stalls, with a bar, Bratwurst stand, a wrap stand, and some seating behind it.
We grabbed ourselves a drink and sat listening to Shybits, who were playing at the time.
Later, we had a brief gander around the shop and popped outside again to meet some friends. Shybits changed out for The Roxies after that and the crowd went wild. And all walks of life were in it, from the veteran rocker still donning an original piece of merch from back in the day, to the ambient enthusiast with a huge bundle of new records under his arm, to the young parents bringing their child up on hand-me-down classic jazz records mum has been collecting.
It’s days like this that make up the highlights of my year. A worldwide collection of people coming together to bond over a shared love of music and maybe cut a shape or two on the same day. It’s similar to festivals for me, spending time just to enjoy pure joy and creativity.
Our world is becoming darker and darker by the day. Everything from the dangers of social media being realised, to the fascistic developments of geopolitics, to the demonising of migrants, to the willful ignorance of genocide, to the ever growing threat of yet another world war, to inflation, to transphobia, to the manosphere, to the danger generative AI poses to our unsuspecting grandparents, to late stage capitalism, to the dwindling independent creative industry that is free from corporate overlords, to the absolutely pitiful streaming returns that musicians earn from the giants like Spotify and Apple Music, to microplastics, and to the fact that I now pay close to a tenner just to buy olive oil.
But it’s days like these, where you can forget all of that and just turn your head up to the sun and bask for a moment. The beer has started to tickle your mind and the music washing over you is beginning to sound glorious. Two kids have started their own little mosh pit in front of the stage and another is madly ripping the air guitar behind them. The aging rocker and his mate have lit up a joint and are talking about how “it’s been so long.”
And you can take a moment to just escape everything and enjoy yourself. A moment of respite in the chaos.
Apart from the young parents who are now dealing with a smelly nappy situation.
What a day.
Bring on next year.
socks_house_meeting mentioned 🗣️ Lovely write up Phil