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[Music] The downside of Record Store Day
Apr. 20th, 2013 03:55 pmAs you may have noticed from a few of my tweets today, this is the first Record Store Day where I left the store after less than twenty minutes with nothing at all to show for it. More to the point, I walked out of Amoeba pissed off and annoyed. Not because there were a lot of people there, which was a given. And not because I just couldn't find anything that I was looking for (granted, I forgot my list, but I usually end up finding a lot of good stuff regardless, though all the specific things I was looking for weren't there).
It was a couple of things, really. One was that the checkout line was backed up from the register area near the front doors, going along the east wall, across the back (southern) wall, and up the west wall. Mind you, Amoeba San Francisco is in a former bowling alley, so picture a line against all the far walls and reaching back to the vantage point of this picture:
I wasn't about to stand in line for a good hour after finding what I wanted to buy. It just wasn't worth it.
There was also the fact that the Haight was packed with people, most of them making their way to Hippie Hill (it being 4/20 and all), and I hit the trifecta of breathing in secondhand pot, nearly stepping in dogshit and smelling pee all in one block. There are days I don't mind the Haight, but there are also days I wish it would join the 21st century and take a shower while it's at it.
But that wasn't the main thing. The main thing that bothered me was that nearly everyone in that ridiculously long line had all the Record Store Day Special Releases in their mitts, and the store had only been open for about an hour. Don't get me wrong, I'm totally fine with musicians releasing nifty collectibles for consumers to pick up while celebrating the awesomeness of a record store. But what cheesed me off--and this is something I've seen over the last few years with every Record Store Day I've been to--is that these are people who will line up outside the store a good half hour before it opens just so they can pick up these collectibles then flit on their merry way out of there. Sure, maybe I'm jumping to conclusions, but this was an insanely long checkout line a mere half hour after the store opened, and many people were carrying the same titles.
I think what bothered me most about this was that this is a store that just shortened their hours, closing an hour or two earlier and opening a half hour or so later. That's a good two hours they're not open now, and when this happens, it's usually due to the fact that they're not making as much as they used to, and the aisles are relatively quiet after dinnertime. I started thinking...yeah, it's great that you're all here, getting your collectibles that I have no interest in, but where are you on days other than Record Store Day? Do you frequent Amoeba or any other record store in the area on a semi-frequent basis? The more I thought about this, the more I was pretty certain that had I gone to the store at 4pm rather than when I did, the store would have been nearly out of its collectibles and navigating the store would be a hell of a lot easier. It just bothered me that Record Store Day, to most of these people here, was all about getting the collectibles and not what the day is really about--celebrating your favorite store where you're going to buy your favorite music.
I gave it my best, but after twenty minutes of this manufactured excitement, I'd had enough and walked out emptyhanded.
The really sad thing is that they just opened up a satellite store of Rasputin Records right down the street--the small chain that originally created Record Store Day in the first place--and it was nearly empty, partly due to the fact that this store is primarily a used shop and wouldn't be carrying most of the Special Titles. I personally have an issue with the chain, due to their "fuck it" attitude to stock and especially due to their habit of playing distasteful music over the speakers (I'm not talking personal tastes here, but bad as in 'may contain profanity, misogyny and violence')...but I digress. It was sad to see an empty record store on this day solely because they didn't have the collectibles.
In an ironic twist of fate, I did happen to get one cd today, and it happened to be an import I'd ordered through Amazon a few weeks ago. For the record, it's Bostin' Steve Austin (Splendiferous Edition) by We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It!!, an influential and personal favorite of mine from 1986, and one that had never been on cd before. [Which just goes to show once again that a lot of my physical music purchases nowadays are reissues, box sets and older titles that I can't find on mp3.] I'd bought the cassette of that album (self-titled here in the US) I believe either at For the Record down in Amherst, or at Strawberries in Leominster, after reading about them in Smash Hits and thinking that their punky looks and silliness were right up my alley. This album and Sigue Sigue Sputnik's Flaunt It, which I bought the same year, were two big albums for me. They're both horribly dated and completely hilarious, but they were deeply influential in my deciding to do my own thing instead of fitting in as a teenager, and are some of my favorite record store purchases.
So all told, I wasn't terribly let down that I didn't buy a damn thing today and I'm not about to boycott anything--in fact, we're probably going to head over there again next week so A. can pick up something at a store that happened to be closed today, and I'll be bringing some of my cds over that I can sell. And the neighborhood will be a hell of a lot quieter and (hopefully) a bit less stinky.
I think if anything, there are two types of music collectors: there are those who are obsessed with music in general, want to try out all kinds of things, and just love the idea of music...and there are collectors, who buy the titles that they know are rare and/or could be worth something in the future. Me, I'm the former, I've never been the latter, and it may have just bothered me to see so many of the latter and hardly any of the former today at Amoeba.
It was a couple of things, really. One was that the checkout line was backed up from the register area near the front doors, going along the east wall, across the back (southern) wall, and up the west wall. Mind you, Amoeba San Francisco is in a former bowling alley, so picture a line against all the far walls and reaching back to the vantage point of this picture:
I wasn't about to stand in line for a good hour after finding what I wanted to buy. It just wasn't worth it.
There was also the fact that the Haight was packed with people, most of them making their way to Hippie Hill (it being 4/20 and all), and I hit the trifecta of breathing in secondhand pot, nearly stepping in dogshit and smelling pee all in one block. There are days I don't mind the Haight, but there are also days I wish it would join the 21st century and take a shower while it's at it.
But that wasn't the main thing. The main thing that bothered me was that nearly everyone in that ridiculously long line had all the Record Store Day Special Releases in their mitts, and the store had only been open for about an hour. Don't get me wrong, I'm totally fine with musicians releasing nifty collectibles for consumers to pick up while celebrating the awesomeness of a record store. But what cheesed me off--and this is something I've seen over the last few years with every Record Store Day I've been to--is that these are people who will line up outside the store a good half hour before it opens just so they can pick up these collectibles then flit on their merry way out of there. Sure, maybe I'm jumping to conclusions, but this was an insanely long checkout line a mere half hour after the store opened, and many people were carrying the same titles.
I think what bothered me most about this was that this is a store that just shortened their hours, closing an hour or two earlier and opening a half hour or so later. That's a good two hours they're not open now, and when this happens, it's usually due to the fact that they're not making as much as they used to, and the aisles are relatively quiet after dinnertime. I started thinking...yeah, it's great that you're all here, getting your collectibles that I have no interest in, but where are you on days other than Record Store Day? Do you frequent Amoeba or any other record store in the area on a semi-frequent basis? The more I thought about this, the more I was pretty certain that had I gone to the store at 4pm rather than when I did, the store would have been nearly out of its collectibles and navigating the store would be a hell of a lot easier. It just bothered me that Record Store Day, to most of these people here, was all about getting the collectibles and not what the day is really about--celebrating your favorite store where you're going to buy your favorite music.
I gave it my best, but after twenty minutes of this manufactured excitement, I'd had enough and walked out emptyhanded.
The really sad thing is that they just opened up a satellite store of Rasputin Records right down the street--the small chain that originally created Record Store Day in the first place--and it was nearly empty, partly due to the fact that this store is primarily a used shop and wouldn't be carrying most of the Special Titles. I personally have an issue with the chain, due to their "fuck it" attitude to stock and especially due to their habit of playing distasteful music over the speakers (I'm not talking personal tastes here, but bad as in 'may contain profanity, misogyny and violence')...but I digress. It was sad to see an empty record store on this day solely because they didn't have the collectibles.
In an ironic twist of fate, I did happen to get one cd today, and it happened to be an import I'd ordered through Amazon a few weeks ago. For the record, it's Bostin' Steve Austin (Splendiferous Edition) by We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It!!, an influential and personal favorite of mine from 1986, and one that had never been on cd before. [Which just goes to show once again that a lot of my physical music purchases nowadays are reissues, box sets and older titles that I can't find on mp3.] I'd bought the cassette of that album (self-titled here in the US) I believe either at For the Record down in Amherst, or at Strawberries in Leominster, after reading about them in Smash Hits and thinking that their punky looks and silliness were right up my alley. This album and Sigue Sigue Sputnik's Flaunt It, which I bought the same year, were two big albums for me. They're both horribly dated and completely hilarious, but they were deeply influential in my deciding to do my own thing instead of fitting in as a teenager, and are some of my favorite record store purchases.
So all told, I wasn't terribly let down that I didn't buy a damn thing today and I'm not about to boycott anything--in fact, we're probably going to head over there again next week so A. can pick up something at a store that happened to be closed today, and I'll be bringing some of my cds over that I can sell. And the neighborhood will be a hell of a lot quieter and (hopefully) a bit less stinky.
I think if anything, there are two types of music collectors: there are those who are obsessed with music in general, want to try out all kinds of things, and just love the idea of music...and there are collectors, who buy the titles that they know are rare and/or could be worth something in the future. Me, I'm the former, I've never been the latter, and it may have just bothered me to see so many of the latter and hardly any of the former today at Amoeba.
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