Record Store Day is still about five months away, but vinyl lovers can get satisfy their urge to collect thanks to the launch of a secondary event timed to correspond with the American shopping ritual Black Friday. The post-Thanksgiving American retail frenzy has never really taken hold north of the border, but I doubt that'll stop local record buyers from taking advantage of the rarities made available as part of the event. And given its continued growth since 2008, it makes sense that Record Store Day expand beyond its single-day event in April.

It probably doesn't make much sense to put together a list of the most promising releases, as there's considerable generic variety represented by the various EPs, LPs and box sets. Being a hopeless nostalgic, I've got my eye on the set of singles from Nirvana's Nevermind, but Wilco's Speak Into the Rose, a 4 track 10" vinyl EP with two unreleased tracks also piques my interest. These, however, are just two of the 60 some-odd releases.

Here's the one problem, though. Because quantities are limited, the number of records that make it to a given store is totally up in the air. Not only that, but the store listings on the official website are related to participation in the main event, so might not apply to the promotions made available on Friday. So if there's something that you really want, it might be a good day to do a record store tour of Toronto. I guess you could always call ahead after the releases have been made available, but where's the fun it that? You must suffer for your vinyl! This is is 2011, after all.

Here's a PDF list of releases for Record Store Black Friday, but some new stuff has been added on the website. You can use the listed quantities of each record to guess whether or not it's likely that it'll make it to all stores, but there's no guarantee.

And here's a list of local record shops participating in the event:

• Sonic Boom
• Sonic Boom (Kensington)
• Soundscapes
• Neurotica
• Sunrise Records
• Hits & Misses
• Rotate This!
• Slinky Music
• Kops Records
• She Said Boom!
• Vortex Records

See also:

• The Best Vinyl Record Stores in Toronto