Music lovers to head to Kiss The Sky Saturday for rare, limited edition vinyl releases

Record lovers looking to pick up rare and limited edition vinyl releases will be flocking to Kiss The Sky record store in downtown Batavia on Saturday.

The store, located at 180 1st St., will open at 8 a.m. Saturday for RSD Drops.

“What it is is all the titles that couldn’t be released on Record Store Day in April and got pushed back to June,” said Kiss The Sky owner Steve Warrenfeltz. “It’s a safety valve for all those titles that didn’t make the cut in April.”

Saturday’s event is not to be confused with Record Store Day, which is an annual event inaugurated in 2007. It usually is held on one Saturday every April and every Black Friday in November to “celebrate the culture of the independently owned record store.”

“The drop is just a drop,” Warrenfeltz said. “There’s limited edition things coming out on Saturday. I think there’s somewhere between 80 and 100 titles that are being released on Saturday.”

He personally is excited that Pearl Jam is reissuing its “Live On Two Legs” album on vinyl on Saturday.

“I think that’s pretty cool,” Warrenfeltz said. “There’s a Paul Butterfield Blues Band release that’s a three LP set. That’s very cool. And the Prince record ‘The Gold Experience’ is finally being released on vinyl.”

A full list of what releases are available is at recordstoreday.com/PromotionalEvent/587. He noted that vinyl record sales have increased significantly across the country in recent years.

“That’s because a lot of young kids all of a sudden have gotten interested in the format and that seems to be sticking and holding,” Warrenfeltz said.

He plans to get to the store around 6:30 a.m. and will pass out numbers to those waiting in line. About 25 people will be allowed in the store at a time. Warrenfeltz expects the store to be busy.

“I think it’s going to be busy just because it is the drop and we have Father’s Day the next day,” Warrenfeltz said. “I think there’s going to be a lot of young people in here getting stuff for dad, and moms maybe getting something for dad. There might be an uptick in gift certificate purchases. And there will always be people that come on Sunday because they couldn’t make it on Saturday.”

For those people who miss hearing live bands play at the store, Warrenfeltz is also bringing live music back to the store on a more regular basis.

“I want to ease back into it, slow and steady,” Warrenfeltz said. “I hope that at some point in time, we get back close to what we were doing before [the pandemic], if not exactly what we were doing before. We’ve got a bunch of things planned for the summer.”

Information about upcoming shows is at Kiss The Sky’s website, kissthesky.net.