Record Store Day...it seemed such a good idea at the time. But as several dealers have recently pointed out it's turned into a bit of a nightmare.
It all amounts to the gratuitous exploitation of the limited edition records that were originally supplied to the stores by independent labels to help boost their sales, and have us queuing around the block to get hold of anything decent left in the racks.
The Record Store Day has steadily grown in prominence over the last few years until some of the owners began to realise they were being exploited by not only major labels pushing their own product, and we can call it product, but vinyl touts were making a steady mint from the resale of their limited edition releases on their fondest outlet, Ebay.
Recently Paul Weller is one of the first artists to stand down on supplying any further limited pressings for Record Store Day shops after a number of his 500 limited edition singles were resold within days.
Yes, the simple pleasures of working through the racks of the few record shops left knowing that you were also supporting the stores and the small labels has turned into stampede of who can get their heads in the trough first.
Funny thing, some years ago Ringo Starr was being accused of being very mean when he put a stop to autographing a variety of merchandise sent to him in the post for exactly the same reason. He too found the lovingly pleaded autographed items were showing up on Ebay within days.
Then it seemed a little odd and in itself a bit of a desperate measure to make a few quid.
We might have guessed it would be just the beginning.
We also might have guessed that Jimmy Page has now finished his mammoth reconditioning of the first 3 Zeppelin albums and it's all due for early June release.
And to show his generosity he's allowed "La La", an instrumental track, to be heard in advance. It's from a separate disc of alternate mix's. This one sounds like several jam's bundled into one mix. And not the most wonderful sound quality either... but that's probably intentional given it's being streamed. Jimmy is everywhere at the moment letting us all know about the coming collectable boxset.
Check out Ebay in a few weeks.
Soundcloud Update : that's about typical.. it's been pulled down.
