Ray O'Brien, the owner of Music Zone, has operated the shop in Cork since 2001 – when he left his position at Golden Discs to start his new business, which is celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year. Like other record stores, Music Zone is brimming with excitement for Record Store Day. Drop 1 of the year is taking place this Saturday, June 12.

Ray insists the event is one of their biggest and most important days of the year, calling it a "mini-Christmas."

"It's crucially important for the shop," he says. "How things normally go ahead, is we sell the records early in the morning and then we traditionally have live music from around 12 o'clock on.

"It's very important for the community to have a bit of music and it's a party atmosphere normally."

Although the current pandemic means they won't feature live performances from local acts like past years, Ray says that Fontaine's D.C.'s release, Live at Kilmainham Gaol, is a record he's really looking forward to selling: "I saw that live stream and it was fantastic."

"The Thrills record is an interesting one too, another hard record to get," he adds. "As you know, there's hundreds and hundreds of releases and everyone has their own tastes and favourites."

Watch some of the in-store performances that Music Zone had back in 2018 on their Youtube channel below.

Music Zone can be found at Unit 4, Deanrock Business & Technology Park, Cork and online at musiczone.ie.

Keep an eye on hotpress.com for more Record Store Day 2021 content.