Record Store Day 2012: What the Employees Are Buying

See also: Record Store Day 2012: Our Comprehensive Guide to Steals and Deals, Free Grub and Live Performances

Listen, we're sure you're a crate-digging ninja and your vinyl collection is a wonder to behold. And we're sure you've been talking everyone's ear off all week about how you're gonna clean the fuck up tomorrow's Record Store Day, the biannual frenzy of limited-edition everything hosted by independent record shops throughout the land. (And throughout L.A.) But, no offense, we're more interested in musings from the people who own and operate the actual record stores themselves.

And so we asked some of L.A.'s top purveyors of musical artifacts what they were planning on adding to their collections this Saturday. Here are some of the titles they mentioned.

Lee Hazlewood
The LHI Years: Singles, Nudes, & Backsides (1968-71)
Format: LP
"I'm really excited about finally getting these songs on wax. Sean Stentz, who works with me at Origami, turned me on to his more obscure and weird stuff while we were working on opening the shop. Since then I've been anxious to purchase any LH I could get my hands on. Thanks to Light in the Attic [the label that assembled this compilation], my wishes are being granted." - Neil Schield, Origami Vinyl

The Baseball Project
"El Hombre" / "Harey Haddix"
Format: 7-inch 45
"They're a band that does all songs around the subject of baseball. Peter Buck is the silent bass player, but Steve Wynn from Dream Syndicate and Scott McCaughey from Young Fresh Fellows, they're the main guys. Their single came in, it's great. Original artwork with a lenticular [inside] cover." Lenticular? "What we used to call the winky-eyed Jesus. It's a piece of art." - Tom Gracyk, Freakbeat Records

Various artists
Never to Be Forgotten: The Flip Side of Stax 1968-1974
Format: 7-inch 45 box set
"I'm pretty excited about the Stax box set. It's some of the harder to find stuff: Mable John, Bernie Hays, Johnnie Taylor. We're pretty much a used record store, so that's pretty much the only one we're stocking on Record Store Day. We're not quite as heavily involved as far as the releases. But we're still doing some stuff, opening a couple of hours early, having a sale, having some people come down and play. It should be a good day." - John Roller, Mono Records