National Record Store Day

the stuff that's not crap will still be in the stores two weeks later

Sometimes it's fun to go to a store early and get something a little rare that also looks pretty

I don't know why ya'll are in here doing a cost/benefit analysis on it

Thanks, a passing spacecadet!!

the stuff that's not crap will still be in the stores two weeks later

― espring (amateurist), Friday, April 18, 2014 4:53 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think the people (not me for the most part) who would disagree with you about what you're considering crap would be very confused by the logic of this sentence.

Isn't colored/clear vinyl noticeably/notoriously crappy-sounding compared to regular black vinyl?

i dunno, the actual interesting/new music (not just familiar stuff in fancy packaging) that is released in RSD is often the stuff that people sleep on, and that I see hanging around the store weeks later. whereas the ultra-deluxe box set of 480-gram cake LPs complete with a bottle of no-doze will probably be gone in hours.

xp

xxp from here: http://thequietus.com/articles/13250-steve-albini-interview-rapeman-shellac

Joe Foster, who recorded The Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine, told me that the best sounding vinyl is clear vinyl. Do you agree?

SA: There's a theoretical point there, which is that polyvinyl chloride is colourless, so if you're adding something to it to colour it, then you're changing the chemistry of it slightly, and that has potential to make it sound not as good by having inclusions. Like if it's carbon black then there can be little granules of graphite or whatever. The biggest problem is that presses are set up to run black vinyl regularly, and if you have to clear the presses of the black vinyl, then put in the clear vinyl, then the presses have to come up to temperature from cold, and until they're operating at a stabilised temperature the pressings will not be filled properly. That is, you'll get much more surface noise. So, coloured vinyl typically sounds noisier than black vinyl because it has to be run in a special production run, during which the presses have not quite gotten up to temperature. So you end up with poor in-fill. In-fill meaning the vinyl doesn't penetrate all the way into the back of the stamper, and you end up with more ticks and pops, and more surface noise. So while it's conceivable that clear vinyl would sound better were all records made out of clear vinyl, when you make an edition of a record on clear vinyl – interrupting a normal production run of black vinyl – you're creating opportunities for that record to sound worse. So it's sort of a theoretical point. If all records were made out of clear vinyl, then it's possible that there would be slightly less surface noise on those records. But they're not. And so if records are made specially out of clear vinyl, there's a real good chance that your records will be noisier than the black records that were made the day before.

But what about the vinyl that's filled with chocolate-chip cheesecake!?

it's really weird to read a whole paragraph written by steve albini that's completely devoid of whining about major labels

like i said elsewhere, a lot of my best customers came in today and bought a ton of records and none of them knew about record store day. these...are my people.

xp
There's implicit whining about the record companies not bringing the presses up to their optimal heat before stamping clear vinyl, and because of this we'll never know vinyl's potential best sound.

Agree w amatuerist. My store has had stuff like a rough guide to desert blues, lots of cook stuff after. There's always some cool stiff that's hot like the Big Star Third or that Unreleased Husker 7 inch....I got Live at the Old Waldorf by Television at 4 pm that day

Also amatuerist you must not read many Albini interviews

tasty

http://static.gigwise.com/artists/Lcd%20Last%20Good%20feat%20600.jpg

posted this on our facebook page:

A letter from the management:
Here at John Doe Jr. we celebrate record store day EVERY day. Duh. Except on Sundays. Well, some Sundays we do. And come to think of it, when we aren't here on Sunday we are more often than not at yet another record store looking at records. Let's just say we are pro-records and leave it at that. Some may wonder why we don't carry the limited-edition 180 Gram virgin vinyl 10 inch picture disc exclusives that have come to represent Record Store Day every year. And we say, dude, do you know how much that stuff costs? Do you know how many old Hank Snow records we could buy for the price of one limited-edition Ray Parker Jr. “Ghostbusters” RSD 2014 picture disc? Probably a whole bunch. We haven't done the math. Which is just one way of saying that our priorities are a little different here. Some of our best customers came in today – people that have been shopping here for the entire five years that we have been here – and NONE of them either knew of or cared about RSD. Which is another way of saying that we are old. Hahaha! Oh, man, we have fun here. We just really like the old stuff. We can't help it! Some recoil from the smell of old records when they come in the door. Those who don't are our friends for life. We are also pro-other record stores making tons of money selling Cake box sets on RSD. We really are. We want every record store to do well, because we need places to go on our day off. Well, maybe not every store. Not the stores where hardly anything is priced and you bring a record up to the counter and the guy looks you over and says “hmmm, that's a rare one...let me get the book..” And you're thinking, oh jeez, the book. And his chair creaks REALLY loudly and it hurts for him to move and he finally grabs a dusty price guide that he bought on sale at Walden Books in 1998 and Fabian still commands top dollar within it's pages and you know no good can come from it. Those stores can go away if they want. To be honest, most of them have. But we want the good stores to stay open for as long as they want to stay open. We want to go to Brattleboro and check out Turn It Up! And In The Moment and go to Northampton and check out Feeding Tube and yet another Turn It Up! And we want to go to Easthampton and check out Dave at Platterpus and stop by Mystery Train and say hi to Josh and Cynthia. Forever if possible. Oh, and we want to go to the new place in Florence! We have heard great things! We'll get there. Save some good stuff for us. We just want every day to be record store day for everyone. Because we are strange like that. So have fun tomorrow if you go record shopping no matter where you are. Records are fun! And we'll be here putting lots of weird old shit out if you need any. Oh, and one more thing. The main reason we are listed on the official Record Store Day website – even though we don't sell any of the new shiny stuff - is so that Japanese record dealers can find us when they hit the states. We love you, Japan!

i dunno, the actual interesting/new music (not just familiar stuff in fancy packaging) that is released in RSD is often the stuff that people sleep on, and that I see hanging around the store weeks later. whereas the ultra-deluxe box set of 480-gram cake LPs complete with a bottle of no-doze will probably be gone in hours.

― espring (amateurist), Friday, April 18, 2014 6:44 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, I'm just saying that there are people like the majority of /r/vinyl (I lurk there to see what the younger buyers talk about) that want that Cake box really bad and it would be amusing to see their faces contort as they try to make sense of the idea that the good records are the ones that people aren't buying. Like there is so much r/vinyl-demographic obsession with those arbitrary manufactured rarity details like multiple vinyl color etc. that it's no wonder why the Jack White cheesecake tactic works so well.

Wait srsly is there a CAKE vinyl box? The Cake that did The Distance and so on?

Oh it has more than one album, that's not a stupid as I ws imagining, I suppose

It's still a box containing Cake records

it should really come in a cake box, but i don't think it does.

After my RSD experience last year, I am done with it.
I just bought some CDs at a show and stopped at a random store I've never been to to buy shit.
I also bought some shit on Amazon and preordered a friend's CD from his label's website.

I don't need a day. Fuck days.

Oddly enough in Auckland New Zealand it sounds like this ws a fun day, bt I missed it

I'd love to get the School of Seven Bells one, but it's a very small amount... but I'm going to go and enjoy the spectacle relatively free of desire.

Lorin Stein - Editor, The Paris Review:

Chris King, the "aural archaeologist" behind Angry Mom Records, is known for his blues and Cajun archive, but at a recent Paris Review party he brought out some rare 78s of northwestern Greek shepherd music—a genre with which none of our guests were familiar, and which blew us all away. One track in particular lingered in the air, the shiver-inducing "Epirotika Mirologi," by the violinist Alexis Zoumbas. I can't wait to hear it again this April when King releases his vinyl LP of Zoumbas recordings, "A Lament For Epirus 1926-1928." ~ Wall Street Journal, March 21, 2014

Alexis Zoumbas was the "Robert Johnson" of Greek Epirotika, the hypnotic mountain music of Northern Greece, an expression that is just as raw and emotive as the Delta Blues. This record captures the sublime beauty and sadness of these powerful, otherworldly instrumentals by what was Greece’s and New York City’s finest traditional violinist of the 1920s. The LP will be released on April 19th (a Record Store Day Exclusive) on the Angry Mom label. A CD version will be available later this year. Artwork by Robert Crumb.

― dow, Thursday, April 17, 2014 9:42 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The link expires in two days but you can download this from the website of the guy who's putting it out. It's pretty great:

http://longgonesound.com/current-travails/2014/1/18/alexis-zoumbas-a-lament-for-epirus-1926-1928-original-artwork-by-robert-crumb-10-recordings-with-deluxe-gatefold-lp

this "exclusive" shit they put out is 90% worthless in any artistic/aesthetic sense, it's practically designed for folks to buy and then flip to some asshole who wants to pay $200 for their 85th-favorite record on puke-colored vinyl.

otm, also p sure I said something similar last year itt

thanks for that link, kind of obviates the remaining desire i had to attend RSD. have funk, folks!

also, scott, you've been kind of needlessly cruel to me on ILX at times and you kind of hurt my feelings but i love you for that FB post and your general opting out of RSD. if was in town I'd go to your shop and pick up a bunch of that ragtime piano stuff.

xpost

also, i didn't mean to write "have funk" but i kind of like it.

the weirdest most pointless shit IMO is the thing where they take a proper album and divide it among 10 or 12 7" 45rpm discs. i mean, vinyl died and came back* for THIS?!

*note: vinyl did not actually die and come back. it never died, and it hasn't really come back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaOgZwk9rN8

It's 8:26 a.m. and the Rough Trade line is literally around the block.

cwiii - thanks for that link to the zoumbas!!

'Is Record Store Day In Crisis? A Quietus Investigation' -

http://thequietus.com/articles/15031-record-store-day-2014-problems-distribution-vinyl

xp No problem!!

Coulda done that but didn't know if it was kosher (guess the label guy knew it might get around, though). Have a happy NRD; no stores around here, but think I might go to the Book Fair.

NRSD, even.

Got shoved by a huge dude clutching a Death Cab for Cutie record

http://fastnbulbous.com/happy-record-store-day/

Will my suggested rebrand, "Just Buy A Fucking Album Day" take?

omg lolololol @ UMS
that's hilarious! i live for moments like that

i have secured the one thing i really wanted (thanks d@ve!), and if i'm feeling fresh and motivated, i'll go to reckless to lurk all day waiting for kim and kelley deal to show up so i can run over, introduce myself, and say thank you. and also listen to their set if i can handle the throng, which depends on my sight line. if it is an impenetrable wall of pits, depart.

i waited in line for an hour at Rough Trade and didn't get my Death Waltz vinyl :(

None of the other stores even got it, apparantly

RECORD STORE DAY IS RUINED

i didn't even bother; maybe i'll drop by and rifle through the dregs tonight.

Well got the Glenn Jones thing I wanted. Struck out on Solar Motel Band. Picked up the Numbers Band reissue which is better than most RSD things anyway

All I'd like afaik is the REM unplugged thing, which I can prob buy for too much online one day, I guess

i would have liked to get moles, cardinal, alvarius b. the first two i'm probably SOL (if they would have even had them at local stores), the last I can probably pick up two weeks from now.

Popped into my nearest RSD shop for the Songs:Ohia box and Gil Scott Heron LP on the off-chance they still had them but no joy. Couldn't believe how expensive some of the stuff was - £10 7" singles!

yeah. supposedly that cardinal LP was $30.

what was the GSH one?

GSH: http://xlrecordings.com/news/nothingnewouttoday

my pal ted's store. we are kinda cranky around here at times.

https://scontent-b-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/t1.0-9/10246422_10200936905225339_344628976323630788_n.jpg

Record Store Day is like tax season for the pressing plants, btw, not surprising there are some did-not-arrives