Should Record Store Day be a national holiday? There are worse ideas.

Record Store Day

9 a.m. April 13 at CD Central, 377 S. Limestone. 859-233-3472. cdcentralmusic.com.

11 April 13 at Pop’s Resale, 1423 Leestown Rd, Suite B. 859-254-7677. popsresale.com.

12:30 p.m. April 13 at The Album, 371 S. Limestone. 859-225-9059. thealbumlex.com.

No, it’s not a national holiday, though some might suggest it should be. It’s not even the oddest thematic day for this time year given how, within the next month, we will be facing such festive occurrences as Mother Goose Day, Lumpy Rug Day and National Hoagie Day. Still, Record Store Day is a cause for legitimate celebration.

Sure, it’s a largely commerce-driven event – a nationwide happening honoring that vanishing center of musical commerce, the independent record store. With it, comes a flood of limited edition, vinyl-only releases issued specifically on that day before vanishing, in most cases, forever. It’s Christmas Day for record collectors and a one-day equivalent of the holiday shopping season for retailers.

But that’s simply the commercial side of Record Store Day. The whole reason such a celebration began in 2007 was to pay homage to the record store’s role in popular culture. From the late ‘50s through the early ‘00s, the record store was the epicenter for music fanatics. You may have heard the newest song by your favorite artist on the radio (although, in recent years, that’s an increasingly big maybe). But to procure that music in purchasable form, or to go whole hog and buy an entire album’s worth of those sounds, the record store was where you headed.

The charm didn’t stop there. You inevitably ran into friends at the store, along with knowing retailers and, most importantly, like-minded souls who shared a similar passion and need for recorded music. It was a pure toy store mentality at work, but with the toys being two-sided platters of music in a 12-by-12 sleeve.

In a digital, downloadable and, ultimately, disposable age, recorded music has never possessed less permanence. A melody or lyric might stick in your brain, but the lasting continuity of a full album is largely gone. The record, even in compact disc form, has become invisible.

Vinyl has unquestionably made a comeback in recent years, but not as the primary means of distributing music. Its re-emergence addresses more of a niche audience need than a mass one. But that’s been encouraging enough to cause many major and indie labels to issue at least limited edition runs of new releases on vinyl. Yet the demand has come not from older generation collectors who grew up with the format, but from newer generation fans fascinated by vinyl’s often artful design and content.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been moving into a new home for the first time in many years. That meant, among other duties, sifting through shelves upon shelves of vinyl accumulated over nearly five decades, from early Creedence Clearwater Revival albums that were my first purchases at the dawn of the ‘70s to recent vinyl statements picked up at past Record Store Days (like limited-run live albums by Jason Isbell, Gov’t Mule and Drive-By Truckers.)

But the overwhelming feeling that flooded in when looking again at a boxed set of Columbia-era Miles Davis music, a psychedelic obscurity by Soft Machine or a well-worn Ray Charles album wasn’t one of pure nostalgia. It was of permanence, of how a square-shaped sleeve housing a circular-shaped record could be such a complete, substantial and lasting piece of art. That sentiment is what Record Store Day essentially mirrors. It’s not a nostalgia event. It’s a validation of a seemingly ancient means of distributing recorded music that holds true to tradition while aiming at a younger generation of listeners that have claimed the format, quite rightly, as their own.

Record Store Day 2019 will be celebrated Saturday on every continent except Antarctica. In Lexington, three stores will be in on the fun, but, as always, CD Central will honor the day to the hilt with an afternoon-long roster of live local music. This year’s lineup features Dark Moon Hollow (1 p.m.), Sweet Country Meat Boys (2 p.m.), Duo Rocha Gandra (3 p.m.) and NP Presley (4 p.m.).

For more information on Record Store Day, as well as a complete list of the over 300 limited edition titles being made available to retailers (although not all will be available at every participating store), go to recordstoreday.com.

Red Wagon Festival

12 noon April 13 at The Red Mile, 1200 Red Mile Road. Free. redwagonfestival.com.

Want even more free local music this weekend? Then augment your Record Store Day fun with the free Red Wagon Festival at the Red Mile.

Performing at the track’s East Lot will be Coralee Townie (2 p.m.), NewTown (3 p.m.), The Tillers (4:30 p.m.), Justin Wells (6 p.m.) and the Allman Butter Band (7:30 p.m.). The Ranahans will cap off the festivities with a 10 p.m. afterparty set in the Red Mile Atrium. Gates open at 12 noon.

There will be loads of other activities, from carriage rides around the track to chainsaw carving exhibitions along with numerous art and food vendors. Event proceeds will benefit Shriners Hospital.