If you’re an audio enthusiast who likes the old-fashioned record stores of yore, or the hip independent record stores still thriving amid big-box retailers, then mark your calendars for Saturday, April 19, 2008.

That’s when Record Store Day will take place, as a celebration of those traditional stores. Personally, I make a weekly trip to my local Newbury Comics store—a New England-based chain—and was happy to see it is participating in this event.

Record Store Day was launched earlier this month by Metallica at the annual SXSW Festival in Texas. The group, which was a longstanding holdout in the world of digital downloads (you can now find their albums on iTunes, as I checked this morning), will make an appearance for a meet-and-greet at Rasputin Music near San Francisco as part of the event.

In conjunction, Metallica is re-releasing two of its albums—“Kill ‘Em All” and “Ride the Lightning”—on 180-gram vinyl scheduled for April 15.

Keep an eye out at your local indie record store for sales and events that might be going on there on April 19. Click here for a list of participating stores. Record stores might not just be for records anymore, but that vinyl’s still got a pretty healthy pulse.

Arlen Schweiger - Editor of Electronic House Magazine

Arlen writes about home technology installations and product news and reviews for electronichouse.com and Electronic House magazine.