Does anyone still shop at HMV?

Right, off to 'test' the vouchers..

.. vouchers work.

I had a wee walk around Fopp at lunchtime. Blue crossing seems very selective if it's supposed to be raising a pile of cash. I spotted the How I Met Your Mother S1-7 box with a blue cross on it, reducing the £105 asking price by 25%, for something that's £50 on Amazon.

Krakow - I would go down the route of contact EMI but for all my research I can't find a way of contacting them about it. Seems that people in the US have had luck getting replacements from EMI directly but in Europe people have had to deal with the item seller.

Pretty pissed to hear that Fopp not only accepting gift vouchers now but also honouring the '£5 off any £35 spend' vouchers they were handing out before Xmas yet I'm sitting with a faulty item that they are refusing to exchange.

Blue crossing seems very selective

Yes, bit of a waste of time if you ask me

There's a 'customer assistance' form on here..

https://shop.abbeyroad.com/help.html

They may help with finding out who to contact on the 'manufacturer' front.

.. it's under "Any other questions"

Thanks Mark. I'll give that a try. Read over on the Steve Hoffman forums that no one has had any response from EMI Europe about faulty pressing issues. Worth a try though!

Serious rarebit action for Lex and Mike - http://sickmouthy.com/2013/01/27/ham-hock-and-onion-rarebit/

Hmmm, that's certainly one way HMV could turn around their business.

The domino effect from HMV appears to be in action.

Went up West on Saturday to try and get some albums (didn’t go out the weekend before due to snow etc.). HMV didn’t have any new releases in at all; only stuff like ASAP Rocky and Villagers which they had clearly ordered before it all caved in, plus lots of unattractively set out Blue Cross/£3-priced stuff. Matthew E White? Hacker Farm? Not even a browser marker (let alone for things like the new Adam Ant).

And why the hell HMV feel the need to sell Ribena and Mars bars is beyond me. You were supposed to be a music shop; sell music and then you wouldn’t be in the shit.

Sister Ray had one copy of Hacker Farm left and zero of Matthew E White because typically they didn’t order enough copies in. I expect this will now be the norm.

Phonica and Sounds of the Universe - useless for practical purposes unless you’re an ultra-specialist.

Fopp at Cambridge Circus was the same story as HMV; nothing new in at all. Desperately trying to offload existing stock.

I could have gone up to Rough Trade and probably found Matthew E White there but it was getting dark, it was cold, both Rough Trades are far away from the centre of town with Saturday traffic and I didn’t consider it worth risking a heart attack to get the CD.

To think that record shopping in the West End (and elsewhere) used to be one of my core pleasures, indeed one of the reasons I moved to London in the first place. Now it’s just a pain and I’ll probably end up sitting at home and relying on Brer Amazon.

Don't use Amazon, please. Places like Norman Records (http://www.normanrecords.com/) and Action Records (http://www.actionrecords.co.uk/) and The Drift (http://thedriftrecordshop.net/) and Rise (http://www.rise-music.co.uk/) all trade online and aren't evil behemoths.

is amazon cheaper tho?

Oh, I finally made my first trip to Sister Ray last week, nearly 5 years after moving to London: rude staff.

Marcello, I share your frustration. I wanted to buy the Matthew E White CD last week, and there wasn't a single place in town that would have stocked it. We have one excellent small independent (The Music Exchange) that's run as a social enterprise, with a full range of new release vinyl, but they don't stock CDs unless they're by local artists. That isn't enough. And so, after forty years of hitting the shops almost every week, it finally comes to an end. Ugh.

sounds like in a better world, matthew e white could have been rolling in ten pound notes this morning

instead he lives in a shed and eats dog biscuits from a dirty bucket. j'accuse, hmv

Bought another 'full price' disc (no blue cross on it) today in Newport HMV and they still took the 25% discount off at the till. They seem to have new stock for major releases - "Rumours" reissue etc - but little else that's new and not mainstream. Also a load of books for 50p each. As someone else said previously, why are HMV selling Haribo sweets? I'd like to know how many Mars bars and bags of sweets they actually sell.

Don't use Amazon, please. Places like Norman Records (http://www.normanrecords.com/) and Action Records (http://www.actionrecords.co.uk/) and The Drift (http://thedriftrecordshop.net/) and Rise (http://www.rise-music.co.uk/) all trade online and aren't evil behemoths.

― i would never inflict the process of making a sandwich on myself (Scik Mouthy), Monday, 28 January 2013 09:36 (40 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM.

is amazon cheaper tho?

― Blue Collar Retail Assistant (Dwight Yorke), Monday, 28 January 2013 09:42 (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Also, sadly, OTM.

:-(

It's not easy for me, given my location, to get to an indie record shop that'll stock what I'm looking for. Amazon is evil and must be destroyed and I hate myself for shopping there, like with Tesco. But as with that horrible place, sometimes I just end up going there because... well it's so much cheaper and easier and sometimes it seems to be the only place I seem to be able to source what I want.

That said, I'll make a conscious effort in future to check out Mouthy's links first.

Can Amazon be justified if you only buy from the Marketplace? Or am I just kidding myself?

Enough of the Amazon is Beelzebub stuff please; they're stocking my book which is more than can be said for most bookshops.

There's a tax issue; that doesn't make them Colonel Gaddafi.

There's the issue of whether it's worth paying taxes in the first place, if it's all going towards 32% pay rises for MPs, but that's a discussion for another thread.

That is a good point, Marcello, and in many ways (i.e. the Marketplace) there's an argument that Amazon are managing to help independent music as much as harm it.

there's an argument about whether capitalism is cuddlier if it's smaller and more inept but hey

but y'know, simple logic says getting low pay plus paying highest possible prices is a thing that's not gonna work

Can we talk about Sister Ray briefly? Was I looked at with disdain because I was only dropping a few quid on posters?

How did they treat you? IME employees of any company can be helpful or unhelpful depending on, well, whatever...

Oh, I finally made my first trip to Sister Ray last week, nearly 5 years after moving to London: rude staff.

same as it ever was

eyerolling/sighing. I'm making a lot of out nothing, essentially. They had a decent CD sale on as well, some nice stuff in there for about £3-4 a go. Vinyl seemed a little pricey.

Have to say I've never had a problem with the staff at Sister Ray, but then they know me well enough since I've been buying stuff there since they opened (their original shop) round about '89/90.

Cosign on Sister Ray, never think about going in there anymore

It's at times like these when I really miss the old Rough Trade shop at Neal's Yard.

YEah, sigh, went down there one time to see if it was still there, a couple years ago...

did Slam City Skates go with it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev1n_4xkU9E

No Slam is still there last I looked, dunno what's in the basement, more Vans?

is amazon cheaper tho?

― Blue Collar Retail Assistant (Dwight Yorke), Monday, January 28, 2013 9:42 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Only if you're buying chart or major-label back catalogue ime; the difference for labels like Sublime Frequencies can be crazy. I order online from Honest Jons/Piccadilly/Norman - it's usually quite a bit cheaper than Amazon and I can do my bit to help them stay in business.

In my experience, the ppl in Sister Ray were always p polite and helpful - it was Selectadisc that used to have the arsey staff, so maybe some of them transferred over when SR bought them out/relocated.

Sad to hear that the Covent Garden Rough Trade has gone, bought some amazing discs there in my time and once saw Jad Fair give a great solo performance on the shop floor, too.

Went some time ago - the Brick Lane shop is essentially the Covent Garden branch moved several degrees to the east and expanded a bit. It's a perfectly fine shop but unless you live in the neighbourhood it's awkward to get to.

It *is* awkward to get to. Tube trains are close by normal standards, a fair stroll away by London ones.

http://twitter.com/hmvtweets is liveblogging their firing

ha, tweets getting deleted as soon as they're posted.

And those tweets which had the hashtag hmvxfaxtorfiring have all disappeared

hmv ‏@hmvtweets

Just overheard our Marketing Director (he's staying, folks) ask "How do I shut down Twitter?" #hmvXFactorFiring

Under usual circumstances, we'd never dare do such a thing as this. However, when the company you dearly love is being ruined...

hmv ‏@hmvtweets

...and those hard working individuals, who wanted to make hmv great again, have mostly been fired, there seemed no other choice.

hmv ‏@hmvtweets
Under usual circumstances, we'd never dare do such a thing as this. However, when the company you dearly love is being ruined...

let's just hope that one day, when they think their heart is barren as the desert, a new company can come along and raise up their love like a beacon once more.

hmv logo looking more and more like a dog looking down the end of a bazooka

hmv ‏@hmvtweets
Especially since these accounts were set up by an intern (unpaid, technically illegal) two years ago.

HMV tweets now deleted. Good luck with the money you're never going to get, old men; you've lost any hope of getting any more of mine.