Please check out my picks for RSD, 2013.
http://www.mockandroll.blogspot.com/
I've just returned from today's Record Store Day experience at J&R Music World. I chose this location over the handful of mom & pops in my general vicinity for two reasons: I was trying to avoid the potential insanity this day incites and I generally can't stand the smug clerks who know nothing at just about every Greenwich Village shop.
Let me go on record today by saying, I think Record Store Day blows.
Yes, I know. I'm cranky and bitter, blah blah. But hear me out.
I have good reason to be bitter. I stood behind the counter of my own record shop, twiddling my thumbs for the last three years of its existence, while everyone threw their LPs onto the nearest curb and basically stayed home downloading MP3s. Give me that, will ya?
But also, as a record collector, I just don't see what is fun about record labels creating product that you probably wouldn't have bought in the first place, occasionally pressed on shitty vinyl, for a premium, and in very small numbers, simply to get people into the record stores, which you cannot browse in due to the amount of people who never show up the other 364 days of the year.
I stood on a line outside of J&R for 30 minutes and then inside for another 30 minutes, being directed around in circles, while employees barked rules and regulations at me. I imagine this is what Vito Corleone must have felt like when he disembarked on Ellis Island in 1907.
Friends and readers outside of the NYC area will probably tell me how much different their RSD was. But once again, RSD here in the Big Apple is simply an empty experience, where long time loyalists are led about like cattle and treated only slightly better.
6 comments:
Hilarious! Love the "2 month remaster"...
Enjoy this crazy day, Sal- it's kinda weird, but at least it focuses people on record stores. That can't be all bad.
I remember record stores.
All the items over at Mock are hilarious. I can't wait to sink my teeth into the solo Beatles.
Any day I go to a record store is Record Store Day. So I actually observe more Record Store Days than Record Store Day does.
I'm lucky if I buy a dozen CDs a year these days. Never been a collector in the sense of owning physical product (although it was the nature of the beast that I accumulated hundreds then thousands of records/CDs before digital files came around).
I recall those years in the mid-00s when it dawned on me that I was buying less and less CDs, and downloading far more (most of it legally, what was [and is] illegal tends to be out of print and bootleg stuff for me). It used to be a Saturday ritual to hit your store on the Upper West Side although, even then, more often than not I'd be partaking in your "buy 4/get 1 free" used CD deal as NYCD had such a solid used section.
You shouldn't feel too bad on Record Store Day as it underlines what it now means to sell physical product: the audience is determined collectors and hipsters who have locked into the vinyl trend. Product is not being sold so much for music itself, but for the format the consumer buys it on (generally vinyl of varying sorts). That's the difference between now and then. And you bore unfortunate witness to the changing of the guards in terms of preferred media types.
I think we all miss the days of record stores, if only for the physical sensation of searching for new music and sometimes holding it in our hands. You would know the vibe of an indie record store much better than I would -- and I can assure you from the consumer end, it was a dice roll as to whether I'd have a pleasant experience or walk out muttering "twat" under my breath!
I was amazed at how many of the releases did nothing for me. I buy music to listen to not to collect so all those insanely expensive 45's get skipped right over as I go through the list. I did grab the Kasey Chambers & Shane Nicholson from a few years back...loved it then and still do. I also admit I jumped on the Last Waltz re-issue. One of my all time favorites and my copy was getting a bit long in the tooth and definitely worse for wear. Aside from those nothing else fired me up. I did get to buy a couple of Uncle Tupelo release from last year for half price though which was great. Oh year, I did this yesterday when there were no crowds at my local indie. They had tons of product and the only one I would have bought that I didn't get was the Dead piece. I'll live.
Post a Comment