Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that this Saturday, April 21, is the fourth annual Record Store Day. Like the past three years, record stores around the country are offering exclusive releases, great deals, free goodies and even in-store performances for Saturday’s celebration of independently owned record stores. The event is even better if you live in Chicago because there are many great record stores strewn across the city, but it’s hard to keep count of which one is doing what. Therefore, once again, we’ve done the dirty work for you in this handy guide to record store day in Chicago in which we break down which stores have what releases and even which bands you might find playing.

One thing to keep in mind: If you’re on the hunt for the Record Store Day Exclusives, GET THERE EARLY. All of the exclusive releases are being released in limited quantities. Plus, some stores are even offering free goodies, but only to the first few who show up. Finally, we’ll be updating our guide up until Saturday morning with more information as to who will have what and maybe even add some additional locations that we’ve found will be participating as well. But enough small talk. On with the Loud Loop Press Guide to Record Store Day in Chicago:

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TODAY IS OUR INDEPENDENCE DAY.

And by that I mean, we survived a digital alien invasion to bring you a very special SXSW edition of Weekend Diversions. Won’t you follow me…follow me to freedom?

Yes. Yes, you will.

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While we can’t be certain Sausage Fest 2012 will actually have sausage, we definitely know it will offer some excellent Chicago rock ‘n’ roll goodness.

Presented by Permanent Records, in conjunction with Captcha Records, Troubled In Mind Records, Rotted Tooth Recordings and Moniker Records, Sausage Fest 2012 is a two-night, SXSW send-off that’s set to go down at the Empty Bottle on Saturday, March 10, and Sunday, March 11.

The line-up features quite a few known Chicago noise, punk and garage rockers. Running, Bad Drugs, Stacian and Bitchin Bajas will do it up on Saturday. While Sunday offers the head-banging sounds of Apache Dropout, Heavy Times, Zath and Supersonic Piss.

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Listen up, record nerds. CHIRP has decided to enhance your music buying experience by turning it into a group activity with its first ever Record Crawl on Sunday, Nov. 13.

Crawl participants will enjoy special discounts and gifts along CHIRP’s planned route.

The fun kicks off at 11 a.m. at Atomix Coffee (1957 W. Chicago Ave) where crawlers can pick up their golden crawl badges and receive 10 percent off coffee. Then, mosey on down to the first stop of the day: Permanent Records on 1914 W. Chicago Ave.

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We touched on this a bit yesterday in our Monday Afternoon Quick Fix, but since Permanent Records is one of our favorites, we just had to share this news as well.

Chicago Avenue’s killer record store, Permanent Records, is about to celebrate their five-year anniversary with a few shows and a free sampler.

For a great and more detailed read, be sure to take a gander at Miles Raymer’s story on Permanent over at the Chicago Reader.

The points hit in Raymer’s story that we’d like to echo here is that in celebration of Permanent’s milestone, Royal Headache, Bed Wettin Bad Boys, Daylight Robbery will all rock the Hideout this Saturday, September 17.

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Monday Afternoon Quick Fix runs every Monday afternoon to showcase the best of Chicago music news, views and stories from around the interwebs and blogosphere that we might have missed.

• • Former Q101 DJ James VanOsdol takes Time Out Chicago behind the scenes at the now-defunct station and we learn how to easy it is to make an enemy out of Eddie Vedder.
• • Jessica Hopper checks in with Polish-born, but Chicago-based, singer Aleks Tomaszewska about her new project Magic Key, which played the Logan Square Monument this past Sunday.
• • Jim DeRogatis takes some time (and heat) off Lollapalooza’s tax dealings with the City of Chicago to review the long-awaited album by Chicago’s The Cool Kids.
• • Good news for indie rockers Portugal. the Man. The group received all of its gear back after it was stolen during its appearance at Lollapalooza earlier this month. And as a thank you, the band gave doughnuts and croissants to the officers who helped recover its musical equipment.
• • Gaper’s Block alerts us all to the sad news that Zaireeka the cat, a Permanent Records store staple, has passed away.

In 2001, a four-day, female-centric indie rock festival known as Ladyfest Midwest landed in Chicago with a mission to raise funds and treat spectators to sights and sounds of famed lady rockers such as Le Tigre, Tegan & Sara and Bratmobile.

Ten years later, the organizers have announced an anniversary edition to take place August 19-21 boasting talented local female musicians. The festival will also once again raise funds for the Chicago Women’s Health Center.

The festivities kick-off on Friday, August 19 with a dance party at Northwest side club Late Bar, 3534 W. Belmont Ave., featuring guest DJ’s Sam O’Rama from Laurie’s Planet of Sound, Maybenauts’ drummer and CHIRP DJ Emily Agustin, and Rebecca Crawford from Permanent Records. Crawford is also one of the original organizers of Ladyfest Midwest 2001.

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