NEWS
Record Store Day:
a good thing for music shops?
Rebecca Monks speaks to record store owners about vinyl’s revival and the mixed impact of RSD
‘Record Store Day isn’t always an easy day to manage, but I’m bored of the negative chat,’ says George Macdonald, owner of Underground Solu’shn on Edinburgh’s Cockburn Street. It’s easy to see how it can be a bit of a handful: across the UK, more than 200 independent music shops come together to celebrate their unique culture, with live instore performances from bands and special vinyl releases created just for the event. Customers queue for hours to get their hands on rare singles, EPs and albums, and according to Macdonald, it’s even helping to keep independent vendors al oat. ‘In terms of shops still existing, that would be a pretty positive thing,’ he says. ‘I know of a signii cant number of shops who are only still trading because of Record Store Day.’
For Macdonald, the benei ts are obvious: ‘hundreds and hundreds of customers’. But he doesn’t just mean on the day itself. ‘They come back because there are thousands of great records that will sell for years to come. Plus, there’s a very good atmosphere on the day.’ That said, his attitude is not completely positive. ‘People can be disappointed if they don’t end up getting what they want’. But what people want from RSD has changed dramatically over the last few years, something Kevin Buckle (owner of Avalanche Records on the capital’s St Mary’s Street) has noticed affects the way the event runs. ‘Record Store Day is a really good idea, if it was what it’s meant to be,’ he says. ‘Record Store Day wasn’t about vinyl at the start, it was about the record shops. In the i rst two or three years I was involved, the shops would complain to me, “why aren’t there limited CDs for Record Store Day?”, because they all wanted limited CDs.’
12 THE LIST 7 Apr–2 Jun 2016
To put this into context, a few years back, vinyl was less ubiquitous, so the material coming into independent stores was not necessarily something you could pick up at a big store. But things have changed. ‘Especially this last year, every week is like Record Store Day’, Buckle says. ‘Because there’s more stuff re-issued, there’s more vinyl.’ But it’s not just the material’s format that is an issue. ‘In truth, the bands and the labels don’t want to give you the good stuff because they can do that themselves,’ adds Buckle. ‘And then there are the 7 inches, which haven’t really taken off at all as part of the vinyl revival, but a lot of what is on Record Store Day is 7 inch, which is a format nobody cares about.’ Buckle covered some of these issues in a blog post, which was much shared on social media. He says: ‘given the fantastic rosters many record companies and labels have, what shops have been offered is a huge disappointment but not a great surprise given vinyl re-issues were once an unusual occurrence whereas they now appear every week.’
Buckle used that same blog post to announce that Avalanche would be shutting its doors. One interesting way to look at this debate is that the bigger vinyl gets, the more it could potentially hurt smaller shops, since bigger chains are wanting to take a slice of the pie for themselves. Sure, for some, RSD is a keystone in the retail calendar, but for others it highlights wider issues within the music retail industry. It leaves a big question to be asked: will the vinyl revival leave record stores healthier or hurt?
Record Store Day, various venues, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Sat 16 Apr.
COMING UP
• Buzzcut Festival (until Sun 10 Apr): razor-sharp performance art festival happening in Glasgow’s Pearce Institute. Across i ve days, over 60 experimental performances will take place from a diverse range of artists. See preview, page 94. • Glasgow International (Fri 8–Mon 25 Apr): this two-yearly festival of art is always a big draw for Glasgow. For 2016, the programme features over 200 Scottish and international artists in 36 solo and 40 groups shows. See feature, page 32.
• Dundead (Thu 28 Apr–Mon 2 May): Dundee’s horror i lm festival is going ahead over the Bank Holiday weekend at DCA (so if the scary i lms do keep you up all night, it’s OK). • Museum Lates: Celts (Fri 13 May): a night of Celtic fun at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, with Idlewild, duo Hannah Fisher & Sorren Maclean and a DJ set by Vic Galloway, plus entertainment from the Beltane Fire Society.
• Hidden Door (Fri 27 May–Sat 4 Jun): multi-arts Edinburgh festival with a host of musicians, bands, poets and i lmmakers. The event will take place on King’s Stables Road. • Imaginate (Sat 28 May–Sun 5 Jun): Edinburgh’s international children’s festival takes place over eight days and boasts a varied, lively programme, with 14 shows from nine countries and a Family Fringe weekend. See feature, page 31.
• Glasgow Science Festival (Thu 9–Sun 19 Jun): workshops, i lms and discussions celebrate all things science across the city.
• Edinburgh Festival: The International Festival and the Fringe share dates (Fri 5–Mon 29 Aug). Also on are the Edinburgh Art Festival (Thu 28 Jul–Sun 28 Aug), the Edinburgh International Book Festival (Sat 13– Mon 29 Aug), and lots more.