For those who are interested. Went to 2 local stores out of about 10 I could choose in the city. Got what I wanted Wilco – The Whole Love box set. Threw back Lennon Mind Game EP $45 (about 30 quid after tax) for 4 songs! Also saw Talking Heads live album I was interested in, but decided against it (was about 40 quid for a double)
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fentonsteve says
The Talking Heads is a 45rpm cut and initial reports are it sounds great. Also, it isn’t the same gig as the Live On Tour promo LP which I thought it was going to be. My local shop had run out by the time I got there – I was going to go straight after lunch but a friend brought their baby grandchild round for a cuppa. Oh well, a copy will turn up sometime.
The shop did have their bargains outside on trestle tables and I picked up 62 12″ singles for 30 quid. The shop is in a garden shed so the S/H bargain stock is usually in a barn and off-limits to punters. I’m well chuffed, as they were a quid each last year.
dai says
Think I have about half of it on their first live album, also not my favourite Heads era which figured into my thinking.
H.P. Saucecraft says
You’re forcing tea into the mouths of babes and sucklings?!
fentonsteve says
You know what, I looked at that after I’d written it, consulted with Edith and she said “it is fine, nobody will notice”.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Nobody? Is that who I am to you?
sarah says
There were a few things I would have liked this year, but had to really narrow it down due to the cost. I managed to get X-Ray Spex, Bowie and the Fall. The Kate Bush single alone was almost £30.
fitterstoke says
Also my issue – can’t afford RSD this month.
fentonsteve says
It wasn’t all bonkers pricing, the Gemma Cullingford and EBTG 12″ EPs were £16, and the Blue Aeroplanes double was £28, which – according to We Buy Records podcast – is the current average price for a single LP.
Ten 12″ singles for a fiver was a bargain, though – even though they need a good clean first.
duco01 says
I was interested in the Fleet Foxes Live on Boston Harbor album, but none of the Stockholm stores managed to get it. Pity.
SteveT says
Well I was I working in the local record shop today and we had a blast. I got there just after 6am and there was already a queue outside of about 60 people – the earliest of whom was there from 1.15 am and temperature was minus 1 degree.
The queue grew and we operated a ticket system where we took wishlists, picked accordingly and allowed the customers in sequentially. It works really well and we cleared the queue by about 12 noon after an 8am opening. The afternoon we took even more sales of both RSD and non RSD releases.
I got some pretty good items myself including 2 Future Sounds of London releases, a Harmonia album, The Goat Gallows pole soundtrack and Neil Young and Crazy Horse fuciking up.
mikethep says
It went very well in the son-in-law’s shop today – lots of traffic, lots of sales (all the Fleet Foxes went), live music, newly installed beer taps, quite the party atmosphere.
ernietothecentreoftheearth says
For a long time I didn’t live anywhere near a participating shop. I do now, but it’s still not worth my taking a day off work on the off chance that they might have what I want. In any event, with one exception, I have always been able to get what I want online within days or weeks, and usually without paying a mark-up. Of course, this does mean spending the money elsewhere and not in the local shop, but thems the breaks.
DanP says
My local – Beatdisc Records in Parramatta if you’re ever Sydneyside – always do it well, and have other markdowns and such, different merch every year, and they’re really nice guys. It feels like a good celebration and they know many of their customers (myself included) by name. Soul Jazz Studio One 300% Dynamite for me.
I did however read an interesting take on one of those FB posts that get thrown into your feed algorithmically which I then couldn’t find again. In it, a shop owner talked through his reasons for sitting RSD out. Mainly, and forgive my memory:
– a co-opting by major labels of the organic nature of the vinyl resurgence, kept afloat by the ethos of vinyl communities in the lean years
– a co-opting of the tools of production, the majors having long since sold up their bricks and mortar manufacturing at the height of the CD boom, leaving much longer lead-in times for fewer plants, leaving independent artists to slot their regular releases around RSD stock. (And of course the ubiquitous Taylor Swift variants)
– the non-returnable aspects of the stock supplied by record companies, meaning all the financial risk falls on the record store, while the majors walk away risk-free.
– the damned if you do or don’t situation then created for smaller for whom the outlay would be prohibitive, but do want the foot traffic and don’t want to be seen as ‘inferior’ to those stores who are better placed to participate.
Anyway, that was the gist, and I’ve been thinking about it since. I like the idea of the day and, as I said, my local guys looks to be well placed to benefit from it all, but also wondered about other shops up the Blue Mountains who want to compete for business but don’t have nearly the same accessibility.
I’m not trying to be a killjoy, and the original FB poster was quite clear headed in his appraisal. Certainly food for thought anyway.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Never participated at any level, but I always smell a rat in any designated “day”. Back then (Old Bore writes), a record shop day was a day you went to a record shop, which was most of them. Mothers’ Day (etc.)? One day for “celebration” (and the associated merch bonanza) and the rest of the year *pffft*?
I can understand the appeal of the physical thingy object, and the sense it gives you of “owning” the music, but haven’t felt it for decades. It’s just stuff, not inherently beautiful or valuable, and it’s not the music.
https://falsememoryfoam.blogspot.com/2019/04/rsd-special.html
dai says
I go other days too, sometimes several times in a month. I think a lot of crap is released, and a lot of the queuing is by “flippers”. But that is probably getting less now as the market gets saturated. I only buy stuff I want and don’t spend half the night outside a store. I read on the Hoffman forum about some poor sod in the UK who was queuing for ages in a tempersrure of -1C and never got in the shop, before he had to leave for another appointment!
There is a social aspect too, you can meet like minded punters and some stores have bands playing, free coffee, big discounts on old stock etc. Fun!
H.P. Saucecraft says
The social side I can understand, although years of rubbing shoulders with the haunted obsessives (guilty as charged) at record fairs has left me with no desire to repeat that interaction.
SteveT says
If is not just the social side though as good as that is.
The day is pretty important to the stores that participate.
On the day the shop I work in took approx 8 percent of its annual takings and then the following day took double its usual Sunday takings as customers came to see what was remaining. There is a lot of cynicism but my view is it is a fun day out and a shot in the arm for those retailers who have invested a lot of time, money and effort In providing a store for us to enjoy. Their risk should be rewarded.
ernietothecentreoftheearth says
I also read thr FB post you saw. The author also mentioned the inflated cost ( to both shop and punter) of thr items produced for RSD, and the monopolisation of pressing plants in the run up and the consequent negative impact on contemporary music
mikethep says
The s-i-l told me about a guy who bought some RSD goodie and went away happy with his purchase. He came back a couple of hours later with steam coming out of his ears because he’d seen it somewhere else at half the price, accused the s-i-l of profiteering and demanded his money back. The s-i-l said, ok, let’s look it up and if I’ve made a mistake you can have your money back. Turned out the half-price shop was selling it at below wholesale price, which is novel.
Matthew Best says
I suspect it was this post:
https://www.facebook.com/reverberationvinyl/posts/pfbid0GZ6JduNB1nkwXqxJLeefKXqmtaxwq8mKQkUSUJ22EBKjH9fV3yZmo4jUC5sMJoCnl
simon22367 says
I don’t usually bother queuing at places in Sydney, but we were in Tokyo for a few days. Picked up the Steven Wilson and Thin Lizzy albums. Queued for the tiny lift to get up to Disk Union. Given a ticket and sheet to select items. Queued in the shop, they take the sheet and have your items waiting for you when you get to the counter. Very efficient.
ernietothecentreoftheearth says
In other record sale news, the post person asked me today what was in the parcel he handed to me. He said “we have loads of these to deliver today.” It was a copy of Taylor Swift’s new album. Overseas, I see 1.4 million copies were sold on the day of release in the US.
fentonsteve says
If anybody is looking to pay £30 for a copy of Northside’s Chicken Rhythms, the unsold RSD stock goes online at 8pm today.
I’m betting this one will go down in price fairly soon.