The 9th annual International Record Store Day will take place from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday at Euclid Records on Chartres Street. The store specializes in used records and CDs and will the party to celebrate all things vinyl.

The event boasts free food and beer, as well as a variety of performances from The Kid Carsons, Chicken Snake, Luke Winslow King and others. Some customers may be focused on scoring the newest releases on this day, but the mindset at among the employees at Euclid remains a little bit different.

“We try to focus on what we love and what our customers turn us on to,” Weber said. “The conversation is key in exchanging musical information. That happens best in record stores.”

The store focuses not only on the most popular music of the moment, but on more obscure music, as well.

“Some folks get caught up in the ‘rare releases’ hysteria,” manager of Euclid Records James Weber said. “While we certainly carry all those releases and are just as excited about them, we try to keep the focus on the customers.”

Record Store Day, for Weber, is not about the collection of limited edition items and rare releases. It’s about the celebration of a unique community and cultural center that supports artists both big and small, and allows for that exchange in musical information.

“While the public perception is that record stores went away over the last 10 years, the fact is the idea and actuality of the record store remains vital and strong,” Weber said. “They are important cultural hubs, and our customers and neighborhood make us what we are.”

Record Store Day is a time to add that special release to your collection, whether it is an old favorite or something new. Though Weber thinks the day should be more about the spirit of community and less about the material, he believes that record collections are something special that everyone should be able to enjoy.

“Collections are most interesting to me as a changing catalog of who you are and where you are at various points in your life,” Weber said. “To be sure, we are not ‘what we own.’ But sometimes it’s a pretty damned good snapshot.”