Hungry Ear Rings In Rocktober

Hungry Ear hosts events throughout the month for ‘Rocktober' PHOTO COURTESY HUNGRY EAR

Hungry Ear hosts events throughout the month for ‘Rocktober’ PHOTO COURTESY HUNGRY EAR

October marks the part of the year when the holiday season starts showing itself, mostly with Halloween candy and costumes filling the front aisles of every Longs. Most of us wait until the week of Halloween to buy our bags of fun-size M&M’s for the 31st, even if they’ve been on sale the entire month.

I’m pretty confident in my ability to resist the sales on Halloween candy (although admittedly I almost gave in and bought some last week, but I didn’t have a CVS card on me so I couldn’t get the sale price at Longs), but when I heard about Hungry Ear Records’ month-long celebration with back-to-back sales and events throughout October, I knew I couldn’t (or shouldn’t) resist the chance to pick up some great music from the shop.

The month-long “Rocktober” is Hungry Ear’s way of thanking its customers for 35 years of business. As the oldest record shop on the island, it’s definitely seen its share of trends come and go (and come back again). Take, for example, Cassette Store Day on Oct. 17, now in its third year and boasting new titles, used classics and more than 100 titles releasing exclusively for this day — notably Green Day’s Dookie album, which was probably the first cassette my brother and I purchased back in the day and played all the time in our dad’s car.

Rocktober wouldn’t be complete without some Bowie. To help celebrate the release of David Bowie’s new box set collection, Five Years 1969-1973, the guys and gals behind the counter have enlarged some classic Bowie album covers, in front of which customers can strike a Ziggy Stardust pose (with the hashtag #bowieselfie).

The Beatles also get plenty of attention Oct. 23-25. That’s when Hungry Ear hosts its first-ever “Beatles For Sale” event where everything by the band will be 10 percent off. This also means the shop will be bringing out all kinds of rare, collectible and obscure Beatles stuff.

I learned that October also is the birthday month of both Ward and Jim at Hungry Ear — happy birthday, guys! Maybe they were feeling extra giving when they marked all their $3 records to just 50 cents and gave away their $1 records for free. That was Monday, Oct. 5, the tail end of a weekend sale that saw massive price drops at the store. Don’t fret if you missed out: There’s another big sale coming Oct. 30-31 with everything 30 percent off. Spirited customers donning a Halloween costume on either day will receive an extra 5 percent off (Ziggy Stardust, anyone?).

Check Hungry Ear’s Facebook page (facebook.com/hungryear) before you go to find out what’s happening at the store this Rocktober, and be sure to tell them happy 35 years!

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