17

IN WHICH… I EXPRESS MY DISDAIN FOR RECORD STORE DAY

Count the ways in which I am completely indifferent, if not occasionally hostile, to Record Store Day…

For starters, why isn’t it called ‘Record Shop Day’ in the UK? That’s how such establishments are generally described here. BBC 6 Music presenter Stuart Maconie agrees. Writing about the event, he declared, ‘Record Shop Day, as I insist we over here should call it.’

This is how a record shop of my acquaintance in Essex endeavoured to enthuse potential shoppers on Friday 12 April 2019 – the day before that year’s Record Store Day took place:

‘All releases are first come first served

You can buy as many different releases as you like, but only one of each

We’ll be taking a list of the first 10 in the queue and bagging it up ready for 8am opening

10 people will be allowed in at a time until the queue dies down

There will likely be queues, so please be respectful of others

We open at 8am and will be closing at 6pm

We don’t have loads of staff, so bear with us, especially in the first few hours, we’re doing our best

Enjoy yourself, this is supposed to be fun!’

‘Fun!’? Seriously? I can’t think of anything less likely to encourage me to visit that shop on that particular day. It is as though record collecting is being turned into a sport, with rules to ensure that everyone behaves properly, does what they are told, when they are told and how they are told.

Alerted by spurious ‘special offers’, ‘limited edition releases’, ‘expanded versions’, ‘remastered rereleases radically reimagined’ and other heavily advertised and promoted pointless purchases, once-a-year vinyl enthusiasts, and those buying to sell, are drawn like dust to a stylus into a shop they haven’t visited for 364 days since the last time they pitched up. There they are told by the frustrated and harassed guy behind the counter that, ‘they only let us have one of them; the others didn’t arrive as promised, but we do have a limited white vinyl ten-inch of Gary Glitter’s Greatest Hits which is bound to increase in value, er… when he finally gets his official pardon.’

Declares the event’s official website:

‘Record Store Day was conceived in 2007 at a gathering of independent record store owners and employees as a way to celebrate and spread the word about the unique culture surrounding nearly 1400 independently owned record stores in the US and thousands of similar stores internationally. Today there are Record Store Day participating stores on every continent except Antarctica.’

What does RSD have against Antarctica? And how do I make sure I am there on the relevant Saturday in April?

The official website has more:

‘This is a day for the people who make up the world of the record store – the staff, the customers, and the artists – to come together and celebrate the unique culture of a record store and the special role these independently owned stores play in their communities.’

Ah, I see. Nothing whatsoever to do with rampant commercialism, or corporate greed, then. The site is then unable to resist mentioning:

‘Special vinyl and CD releases and various promotional products are made exclusively for the day. Festivities include performances, cook-outs, body painting, meet & greets with artists, parades, DJs spinning records, and on and on.’

I don’t know about you, but these are the very things which I have always wanted to be absent from record shops.

I ran some of my doubts past the very helpful Megan Page, who handles media queries for RSD. She confirmed that the whole promotion began as ‘Store’ rather than ‘Shop’ and that is how it will remain.

‘The aim of the Day is to encourage new people through the doors into record stores, usually young people who have never experienced them before. It is a really good way of recruiting new enthusiasts. The Day is partly about encouraging the new generation of record buyers, partly about reminding those already connected to vinyl.’

Megan accepted that the emphasis of the day is much more about ‘celebrating, and keeping new music going’, and aimed towards shops stocking the latest releases rather than those specialising in the second-hand market.

This is fine by me, as, ultimately, nearly all new vinyl will eventually become second-hand vinyl, and new vinyl buyers are the keepers/collectors of the future

When I discussed the 2019 RSD with my old pal Graham Jones, author of the excellent Last Shop Standing, and its recent follow-up The Vinyl Revival, I disagreed with his suggestion that ‘within a week of RSD only around 2 per cent (of RSD “special issues”) will be listed to sell. Pity these greedy flippers spoil it for true music fans.’

I responded: ‘Two per cent? Where’s that stat from? Suspect it is rather higher than that. And to judge from most record shop stocks during the rest of year, another significant percentage doesn’t get sold at all – at least until it is drastically reduced!’

Graham told me that his stat had come from RSD, but added: ‘You can do as much as you can to try and stop it but you will still get greedy sods denying true fans. Certainly a lot of RSD vinyl devalues quite quickly. I try to concentrate on promoting the shops and the Day as opposed to the product.’

John McCready of Manchester’s Kingbee Records tweeted his take on RSD 2019:

‘You won’t find 50 quid mauve vinyl Bananarama box sets at Kingbee records as they don’t do RSD. Every day is record store day at the best shop in the world. Maybe when you’ve finished fighting over Police 45s you could bob in and see what some of us do 365 days a year!’

To which I could only add ‘Hear, hear’…

For RSD 2018, The Guardian took it upon itself to treat its readers to an article about the paper’s ‘record store crawls’ around four UK cities. Off they went, to London, Bristol, Manchester and Glasgow. In London they chose Low Company in Hackney, but, ‘not only is it not participating in RSD, it had considered not even opening on the day as it’s the business’s first birthday the day before and they’ll all be hungover.’ At Rye Wax in Peckham The Guardian talked to ‘owner Tom’, and learned, ‘they’re bypassing RSD releases and instead cutting their own single-copy dubplates.’ Whatever they may be.

In Bristol’s Idle Hands, The Guardian spoke to Chris Farrell, discovering that, ‘RSD doesn’t make much of a difference to the shop in terms of sales’ and can also adversely affect the arrival of new stock ‘in the weeks leading up to it’ because ‘all the pressing plants are booked up with limited edition novelty items such as translucent green vinyl Doctor Who soundtracks.’ Glasgow’s Rubadub told The Guardian they don’t take part in RSD, and local label owner-cum-DJ, Dan Lurinsky, who works there, confides, ‘I think most people feel it’s all got a bit commercial.’

Another London shop mentioned in the article is Rat Records in Camberwell, on whose website, the following appeared:

‘RSD has outlived its purpose, and the fact it has been hijacked by labels keen to get max dollar for Bee Gees B-sides and the new “Star Wars” soundtrack is so well known the music press are mostly too bored to talk about it.’

And that was written back in 2016.

I admit I do take advantage of/exploit RSD – by the simple expedient of ignoring every gimmick/special/limited record they produce – for the best part of a year, then making a point of visiting shops which I know support and promote RSD to check out which of those specials they are now flogging off at a vastly reduced price.

BBC 5 Live’s morning programme, with Chris Warburton reporting on 2018 RSD and the queues outside shops in Letchworth and Hackney, saw the presenter musing:

‘There seems to be a feeling that it (RSD) has been taken over by punters looking to make a quick buck.’

He was talking about how big a percentage of queuers were doing so to buy a record, whose seal would quite possibly never be broken and would very quickly find itself for sale at a mark-up. In this respect it would be no different from the instant and hugely marked-up relisting of tickets for big gigs and events, of course. But I suspect that only a small percentage of RSD ‘rarities’ appeal enough for buyers to want to pay through the nose for them, and those scalpers speculating on buying to make a future profit may have to wait a considerable time to do so.

An intriguing and welcome passing comment came from a Guardian interviewee from Manchester, 37-year-old Henrietta Smith-Rolla:

‘I think record shops have got kinder. There’s been a change in how women are looked at and observed. There’s no surprise when a woman walks in to buy a Detroit techno record. I would get nervous going into shops when I was younger, but things have become more welcoming.’

On Record Store Day 2018, I headed for Sound of the Suburbs in Ruislip Manor. I didn’t take to this shop that easily when it first opened but it is on my way to Wealdstone FC’s ground, a semi-pro team in the National League I support, and I now show my face there frequently. I found the gent in charge being happily hassled by a couple of acquaintances enjoying ska music and attempting to sell him some sounds of their own. Someone else came in and enquired about RSD. ‘I’m not involved with that. I have nothing to do with it and it doesn’t make any difference to me,’ he explained.

Initially I found his stock wasn’t changing that often and if I was going to buy something it would be one of the reasonably priced and nicely different selection of CDs. Thus it was again today – although I must admit he finally seems to have found a source of interesting new vinyl reissues of 1960s and early 1970s obscurities, just the type of stuff to appeal to me. But I note he is pricing them at the top end of where they should be, so flip through the CDs, and come across a double set from a group I’ve been looking to buy into for a while. The CD is entitled AMMO – the group members are Chris Arnold (A), David Martin (M), and Geoff Morrow (MO). They also recorded from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s as Butterscotch, Moonlighters and Sky & Company – all to good, tuneful effect. Here were 40 tracks for a fiver in the shape of a promo copy of a double CD and booklet combo, including their best-known track, ‘Don’t You Know’. And you would know it if you heard it, I’m sure. I also selected a ridiculously cheap, sealed double CD of 59 tracks of Rolling Stones’ early live material, The Complete British Radio Broadcasts 1963-65, taken from such programmes as Saturday Club, The Joe Loss Pop Show, Top Gear and Big Beat for just seven quid. It beats their recent Blue & Lonesome into a proverbial cocked nut-cover.

Over the next few days we visit Brighton, and in Vinyl Revolution I am welcomed by a female member of staff who asks ‘Is this your first visit to the shop?’ I tell her no, and she asks whether I’d been to a shop for Record Store Day.

‘I might have done had it been Record Shop Day – who calls a record shop a record store in this country?’

She laughs and says, ‘Well, yes, it is an American invention – but we had a great day. They were queuing outside at 3am.’

‘Are you sure it wasn’t a few stragglers coming out of clubs, looking for somewhere to sit?’

‘No, they were all there for what they wanted and most of them were able to get that. There was a lovely moment when a guy bought the last Bowie Live LP we had. The woman behind him was almost in tears as she’d wanted one to give her husband for his birthday. When he heard that the guy just turned round and handed it to her – didn’t even want paying. It was a lovely gesture.’

Even cynical old me can’t argue against that!

‘Then there were the four- and six-year-old sisters with their dad. The four-year-old “bought” the White Room’s record after seeing them playing here on RSD – so that’s the next generation of record lovers coming through.’

OK, I was now weakening somewhat and admitting that perhaps RSD had a little something to recommend it after all. So I did the gentlemanly thing and bought a record for a tenner – one I’d wondered about for a while – Naz Nomad and the Nightmares’ 1984 LP – a purple vinyl copy. Naz etc was a cover for members of The Damned, including Messrs Vanian and Scabies, and the record something of a tribute by them to the early days of psychedelia.

Perhaps the marketing and PR for RSD does have an effect and stimulate general interest and sales. Steve Burniston, of Glasgow’s Love Music shop told Record Collector in May 2019 that ‘without the annual sales boost from RSD we would struggle to keep the doors open.’ A few weeks after RSD I buy something in a record shop and am given my purchase in a white, plastic Record Store Day UK bag. It is adorned with the names of the official sponsors of the Day: Rega, the turntable manufacturers, and Sound Performance, who specialise in ‘CD and DVD replication’ and ‘vinyl manufacturing’. Fair enough, I understand why they’d want to support RSD. But the other two official sponsors listed on the bag are Fred Perry – whose clothes, I accept, are identified with musical culture– and Friels vintage cider.

I wrote to both of these companies, asking why they became involved with RSD UK, sending my request via their official website ‘contact’ sections. It took a month to receive a reply from Dominique Fenn, a ‘Brand Reporter’ at Fred Perry:

‘Sorry it’s taken so long to get back to you!

We’re really proud to support Record Store Day which we’ve done for a couple of years.

We share the same spirit of independence, and of course music is core to the Fred Perry brand with many of our customers being musicians and vinyl collectors! We’ve also profiled independent record shop owners (on the company website) to give them a platform too.’

Dominique also offered to feature this book on the FP website. Friels never replied.