This year, for the first time in eight years, I didn't go to a record shop on Record Store Day. Around that time every year, there's a lot of chat about RSD - some positive, some negative - and I won't be drawn to one side or the other; I can see the arguments on both sides.
I had planned to go to Truck Store at an ungodly hour on the Saturday morning. I'd even bought breakfast supplies on my lunch break. But as the Friday went on, I found myself increasingly not looking forward to sitting outside my local record shop for four hours, cold and bored. I'd described it to a friend earlier that day as a "self-inflicted torture", and the more I thought about it, the more I realised that it wasn't/isn't a pleasant experience and that I really didn't want to do it. So I decided not to; I slept in and it was lovely.
There are a few reasons why I decided against going: Firstly, I always feel like the odd-one-out in that queue - everyone else has a huge list of records they're excited about buying, whereas I had three records I wanted. Furthermore, the records I'm after are rarely the ones that sell out straight away. Very few of the ones I've bought in the past have been difficult to find in the coming weeks (and sometime end up reduced later in the year). Everybody else in the queue would be excited about Bowie and Prince and The Smiths and I'd be that guy who got up early to buy The Dirty Three and Snapcase. The more I thought about it, the more I realised I'm not who this event is aimed at and that's ok.
JT from Banquet had been on the news a few days beforehand talking about the importance of RSD, saying how it's great that it gets people in who wouldn't normally visit a record shop, and that is really great. I spend a lot of time and money in record shops and I'm in favour of anything that means they stay open. But as a result of that, RSD isn't tailored around people like me. The list of releases this year (and last year, to an extent) had very little for me on. There are always a few "that could be interesting" releases, but RSD isn't a day to buy a record by a band you don't know well - it's too expensive for that. This year there were three releases I really wanted in my record collection and, in the case of this record, I was pretty sure I'd be the only person who'd be interested in buying it (and right I was - on the Monday it was still sat there in the racks).
I'm a huge fan of Snapcase and Lookinglasself was the first album of theirs I owned (although I was introduced to them through the much more accessible, and excellent, End Transmission). I found the cd 14 years ago in a second-hand record shop in Bristol that definitely no longer exists - it was underneath a roundabout junction and I only found it because they were blasting out metal from some speakers. I was in town for a university open day and was going to buy more in there, but it was the day before I got paid and I hit the bottom of my bank account (they had a Cave In record I picked up for my friend Hugh, but did mean I couldn't buy the Nine Inch Nails 12" singles they had - I'm a good friend). However, I did get that first Snapcase album.
Lookinglasself is a much harder listen than End Transmission, but so are their other two proper albums. It's a great album though - short but has no messing around and surprisingly long songs for a short hardcore album. It was a shock on first listen, but I was glad to push through with it. Of the first three, I consider Lookinglasself to be my favourite, but then End Transmission sits far above it. When I saw that it was being reissued on vinyl for RSD, I wanted a copy more for nostalgia than anything else. If I want to listen to Snapcase, I almost always go for End Transmission, and I suspect I always will do. But it's nice to have an album I'm very fond of on vinyl too. Plus, I feel if no one buys the heavy and obscure records on RSD then it will eventually tend entirely towards mainstream music.
I'm not anti-RSD. In fact, I thoroughly support the idea, but I support it it as a person who shops in independent record shops more than as a person who collects records (which of course I am, but there is a distinction there). I have many records I've bought on previous RSDs - some of them are my most prized-possessions (and others are ones I regretted almost straight away) - and most crucially, I will definitely queue up any year where there are records I feel it is worth losing sleep over. This year, however, was not one of those years.
It's hard to break traditions - me going to a record shop on RSD predates RSD even being a thing in the UK - but it's important to do so, otherwise they become even harder to break. I've broken the spell RSD had over me, which is great because now I can dip in as casually as I like.
Format: 12", insert
Tracks: 9
Cost: £29 new
Bought: Truck Store, Oxford
When: 24/04/17
Colour: Blue
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code
