Record Store Day Black Friday 2014's Dozen Hottest Collectibles

If you’re an indie record store regular, while all your relatives are observing Black Friday, you can be hitting the finer music shops to observe Green, Red, Purple, Grey, and Marble Friday. It’s time once again for the semi-annual holy day known as Record Store Day, whose adherents are known by the bagfuls of colored vinyl releases they furtively scurry away with on the day after Thanksgiving. But don’t worry — there are actual black vinyl collectibles to be had, too, in case the holidays are leaving you feeling Goth.

Do you really need very many of the items being released exclusively to independent stores on Black Friday? Probably not. But what if we tell you most of them are limited editions, and you might have to engage in a fistfight to grab one of a couple of copies your local store might get in stock? Ah, now you realize how pitiful your life will be without each and every one of these rarities. Here are a covetable dozen that will have turntable enthusiasts on the prowl — in most cases accompanied by a figure for how many copies were minted, so you know what your chances really are.

NEIL YOUNG: Official Release Series Discs 5-8

(Copies available: 3,500)

Young’s boxed set of four mid-‘70s releases might be this year’s hard-to-find big kahuna. Why, you ask, when all the material has been previously released? Because for now this is the only way to hear the newly remastered versions of the albums, which aren’t being released individually or on CD any time soon. One of the releases, Time Fades Away, has never even been issued digitally at all. This box was supposed to be released at last April’s Record Store Day, but Neil pulled the item at the last minute, just as inexplicably as he pulled the plug on the Buffalo Springfield reunion tour and Stills/Young back in the day. Get your copy as early as possible this Friday, before the mercurial rocker shows up to pluck it out of your hands!

VARIOUS ARTISTS: Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome Mix Vol. 1

(Copies available: no number given)

Almost every year, some joker thinks he’s soooo smart by issuing a cassette-only release on Record Store Day. In this instance, there’s a more tangible excuse for having gotten some poor factory somewhere to fire up their old analog tape manufacturing equipment. And it involves how the world’s favorite comedic space sage uses as a plot point a fabled mix cassette bearing the very same 1970s music as this novelty release. Nothing says “ooga-chucka” quite like trying to remember how you used to use a pencil to unspool the errant tape once your antique Walkman decides it’s tired of the nostalgia.

GREEN DAY: Tune In, Tokyo

(Copies available: 5,000)

The boys in Green Day clearly enjoy being Record Store Day perennials, regularly releasing rarities or live material to indie stores in very limited numbers. They’re at it again with this 12-inch EP of seven songs from a 2001 Japan show, one of which is “Macy’s Day Parade,” in case you want to instantly relive some Matt Lauer memories. Their vinyl color: no, not green — they’re not quite that obvious — but blue.

HOZIER: In the Woods Somewhere

(Copies available: 2,100)

The Irish singer is one of the hottest newcomers going in America, with a debut album that reached No. 2 and a single that went Top 10. His exclusive 10-inch vinyl EP brings fans four songs that didn’t make the album, one of which, a cover of bluesman Willie Dixon’s “My Love Will Never Die,” has never previously been released anywhere in the world. With an unusually low number of pressings, you can take this one to the bank. Or, sure, to church.

FIRST AID KIT: America

(Copies available: 2,500)

Leave your family a note that you’ve all gone to look for “America” — that is, these Swedish lasses’ new recording of the Simon & Garfunkel  classic of that name. It sits alongside the previously unheard original “Brother” and two versions of acoustic songs from their hit Stay Gold album on a 10-inch vinyl EP that, like Hozier’s, has been pressed in surprisingly small numbers.

GOV’T MULE: Stoned Side of the Mule Vol. 1

(Copies available: 3,000)

It doesn’t even matter if you’re one of this cult band’s insanely devoted fans. If you’re a fan of the songs they cover on this six-song vinyl release, that’s good enough — and who doesn’t love the mostly ‘60s and ‘70s-era Rolling Stones tunes that make up the setlist? Culled from a 2009 Halloween show, Stoned Side brings together the Mule’s interpretations of “Monkey Man.” “Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker),” “Under My Thumb,” and other Glimmer Twins favorites. No, it won’t be coming out on CD, so get one of these 3,000 units or prepare to give yourself a Jagger-sized tongue-lashing.

DAVE MATTHEWS BAND: Recently

(Copies available: 4,000)

The DMB folks are Record Store Day perennials, usually with boxed sets of live material that sell out instantly. Expect this release to quickly follow suit, even though it doesn’t debut any previously unheard recordings. The double-10-inch EP set offers their seminal Recently on one disc and a rare collection of promo radio edits called Pumpkin Recently on the other slab. The band assures fans there will be little if any opportunity to buy this on the DMB website at some unknown point in the future, which is to say, now’s the time for Recently.

JENNY LEWIS: Pax-Am Sessions

(Copies available: 6,000)

She is America’s heartthrob — well, the crush, at least, of every indie boy who hasn’t already promised himself to Neko Case — and now Lewis wants to be collected by you, in the form of a 7-inch single that offers alternate versions of two songs from her latest album, “Just One of the Guys” and “You Can’t Outrun ‘Em.” Outrun your fellow suitors to the store, boys, because once this one’s gone, it’s gone.

BLEACHERS: Strange Desire (The Demos)

(Copies available: 2,200)

The title just about says it all: This 12-inch EP offers exclusive rough versions of a half-dozen songs from Bleachers’ debut album, just in case you need a reminder that Jack Antonoff had a career before becoming Taylor Swift’s enabler.

ST. VINCENT: Pieta

(Copies available: no number given)

If you weren’t sated by St. Vincent having one of the most critically acclaimed albums of the year, it turns out there were a couple more where the rest of those came from. “Pieta” is previously unheard, unless you’ve been catching Annie Clark on tour, in which case your appetite is already whetted for this outtake. Another tune that got left on the cutting room floor, “Sparrow,” is on the flip side of this 7-inch single — which, unlike the less impressive 45s of old, comes in “a deluxe, die-cut, foil-embossed package” that also happens to be individually numbered.

THE FLAMING LIPS: Imagene Peise—Atlas Eets Christmas

(Copies available: 5,000)

The Lips previously released their wackazoid version of a Christmas album on a completely pseudonymous, limited-edition 2007 CD, but they’re giving it a more authorized issue with this red-colored LP. Try not to be confused by a title and elaborate liner notes that still keep up the pretense that this is a lost artifact recorded by a female Iraqui émigré back in the 1970s. It shouldn’t come as any surprise that any holiday with the Flaming Lips is truly a Christmas on Mars.

5 SECONDS OF SUMMER: 5 Seconds of Summer

(Copies available: no number given)

We had to throw in something that you could pick up for your kid sister or daughter or niece or… oh, just admit it, you want this boy band all for yourself, if only because they’re the sole representatives of anything remotely resembling rock & roll still allowed on TV. Their Record Store Day release is a full-sized picture disc — of course it is! — that bears the only American release of their otherwise import-only song “Wrapped Around Your Finger.”

The fun hardly stops there. You can pick up oddities like Morrissey Curates the Ramones (7,755 units only, Moz and Joey fans), or a Joan Jett photo book that also includes four live songs on an accompanying single (a scant 1,250 copies). The Big Lebowski soundtrack is being re-released on cream-colored vinyl (2,300 units)… an item that should not be confused with Wu Tang Clan’s C.R.E.A.M., a yellow-colored single that is “on special die-cut vinyl in the shape of the group’s iconic logo” (5,500 copies).

Rest assured that it will be beginning to look a lot like Christmas inside the grooves of some limited-edition Xmas singles and albums. Phil Spector’s A Christmas Gift for You gets yet another reissue, this time on red vinyl (2,000 copies), and you can also pick up Miles Davis’s “Blue Christmas” single (you know the color), Seth MacFarlane’s new Holiday for Swing album (green), Joey Ramone’s Christmas Spirit at My House (red), Bessie Smith’s “At the Christmas Ball” (red), Ben Kweller’s new “It Ain’t Christmas Yet” (red with green spatters), the 1987 Christmas Rap album (in either green or red — you’ll have to crack open your copy to find out which one Santa brought), and Wham!’s “Last Christmas” (all copies in red AND green).