Let us delay our eulogies for that repository of musical geekitude, that late-night hangout, that place where the clerks are supposed to be cool: your local record store. The iPod and the mp3 have not yet killed it completely. Don't say a prayer for it yet. Well, do say a prayer for it. And celebrate it this Saturday, which has been dubbed National Record Store Day by an alliance of music retail outlets across the country.

Now, speaking as a former employee of two record stores in Maine (Bull Moose Music in Bangor and the music department at Mr. Paperback in Belfast), I've had first-hand experience with what purpose the record store serves in a community that has one. Sure, you go there to buy CDs, and maybe vinyl and magazines and t-shirts and stuff. But you also go to talk - about music, about whatever's happening around town, about TV and movies, and your worthless/awesome boyfriend/girlfriend, your shoes, your Mom, your friends, your life. Uniquely among retail outlets, the record store is both a place to buy stuff and a place to hang out. Something about the racks of albums inspires that kind of atmosphere.

All my favorite record stores in Maine are like that. Wild Rufus in Camden is a great example - vintage vinyl on the walls, groovy music playing, and an owner you can chat with. Dr. Records in Orono, Record Connection in Waterville, Strange Maine and Empire Records in Portland, and many of the Bull Moose locations, especially Bangor and Brunswick. They all have that vibe. It used to be that if you had nothing to do one evening, you could just go to the record store and brose and hang out. Would you do that at Wal-Mart? Would you do that at Blockbuster?

I am not against the new-ish frontier of digital media. I embrace it, in fact, as a way to put more control of the means of production and distribution of creative content into the hands of the people that are doing the creating. Cutting out the middle man, if you will. But that doesn't mean that I don't care if the record store goes the way of the CD - and it doesn't mean I don't care about hard copies of albums. It's been said plenty of times before, but nothing can replace having an actual copy of an album in your hands. The artwork, the correct sequencing of tracks, the cracks in the case. This is why I still have a shelf full of several hundred CDs at my apartment - because even though I listen to music primarily on my computer and my mp3 player, I still like to have the album on hand. And that's why I have an exponentially increasing collection of vinyl, too.

And that's why I love record stores: because it connects you with the music, which in turns connects you with other people, and your community. If we lose hubs like that - be they record stores, music venues, other local businesses - we lose identity. We lose interest in each other. And that's a challenge we have to face, as we become further enmeshed in our cell phones and laptops and PDAs. There's still a world out there that's not made of ones and zeros, and the crackle of vinyl still sounds nicer than the click of an iPod wheel.

So on Saturday, go buy yourself an album. I don't care if it's Mariah Carey, Megadeth, Mozart or the Magnetic Fields. Go out, get a record, and talk to the other people at the store. Who knows? You might just stumble across something you've never heard before. Or you might just kill some time hanging out at the record store.

Local celebrations of Record Store Day include a performance from the band Headstart! at the Bangor Bull Moose. Bull Moose has bands at all 11 of their locations; check the web site for more. Wicked cheap sales all day, too.