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The Vinyl Deals Thread (non-Amazon)


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Just got my UO order. Was packaged very well. All LPs in vinyl mailer boxes then inside a bigger box. They didn't ship my MBV though. It said they didn't have them and they wouldn't charge me until they ship. Probably won't be getting those records (I ordered two).

 

They don't have them 'cause our old pal reggiomedia1 bought a shitload:  http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-RARE-My-Bloody-Valentine-M-B-V-Limited-Vinyl-LP-CD-mbv-/261787324749?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cf3bd914d

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I went into a store to see if they had MBV last weekend.  They had two copies but both looked like they had been dragged from the back of a truck--the shrink-wrap was torn and the sleeve was all scratched and scraped up.

 

Yeah, they have been sitting there over a year and the average UO customer goes "Oooooh! Look they have records!" and proceeds to flip through as if they are trading cards.

 

What drove me nuts was seeing their display of 6+ Crosleys with actual LPs glued to the platter and scratch marks like an ex-girlfriend would have left after she found you cheating.

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Small tip for those purchasing vinyl through Hastings: if you put an item in your cart and then just leave the site and don't finish making the purchase, they'll start e-mailing you to "complete your purchase."  After a few e-mails reminding you of this, an e-mail should come with a 5% off coupon code as an extra incentive to complete your purchase.  It's not much but I've found it handy to cut down on the tax.  

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I'm a bit hesitant to post this, but maybe someone will have better luck/be interested (I'll explain below).

 

Mammoth Cave Recording is going out of business and pretty much everything is marked down pretty low: http://mammothcaverecording.com/store/music. here's the email I got:

 

 

 

Mammoth Cave Recording Co. 2009-2015  All LPs $5 / 7"s $2-$3
After a solid run, we are shutting down Mammoth Cave Recording Co. All of our records are teeply discounted except for BA Johnston's records ("Shit Sucks" isn't even out yet!). Everything must go, and we are gonna be shutting the site down shortly. It's been fun. This is hard.

Many reasons for pulling the plug. We are bankrupt - financially and spiritually. We had some highlights, and are proud of the Canadian music we've been a part of sharing, but the well is dry.

We screwed up a lot. We lost a lot of money. We made a mill All in the misguided attempt to find something that worked. To get people as excited about the amazing Canadian bands that were more or less being undocumented.

But the world of creating and selling physical music artifacts was just getting harder every year. So the truth is that we tried, but we cannot stand in the face of the massive cultural shifts taking place that are completely out of our control.

The reality of being a truly independent Canadian label in 2015:

1) Pressing records: records take 120% longer to press than when we started. The "vinyl comeback" and "record store day" disproportionately favour Beatles reissues. SAMO Media were a life saver for us (if you are pressing records in Canada, it's SAMO or nothing), but vinyl production industry can be almost impossible for labels of our size.
 
2) Weak dollar:  the weak Canadian dollar adds even more strain we have to import our records into Canada, and it costs Mammoth Cave 26% more to press a run of records due to the exchange rate, and we were already selling records at close to cost due to extra importing and shipping fees.

3) Canada Post: It now costs more to ship a record than it does to buy a record. And since we started charging the actual amount to ship an LP, we saw customers flat rejecting the REAL price. Postage rates gone up 44% in Canada since 2010.  Also, Canada Post fails to deliver records sometimes, so we get to send things twice for twice the cost, but that's a whole other mess.

4) Music consumption patterns have changed: Since we started, music fans went from "collecting" to "downloading" to "streaming." We are a record company, not a digital music servicing company. We love records, we don't love playlists. And the nonsense about the "return of vinyl" has come at the cost of the people who have been keeping it alive all these years.

5) Granting: This whole letter could (and maybe should?) be about the uncompetitive nature of the Canadian music industry. The impenetrability of the Canadian grant system that should be primed to help Canadian music is in fact inhibiting competition. When some labels that sell just as many records as we do are able to subsidize all the issues above with millions of dollars in grant money, something is not right.

The result of this?
We are not alone. Many labels our size are barely holding on. We heard more than once already "we looked to Mammoth Cave as the label doing it right." We weren't.

This email may be preaching to the choir, but take chances on bands not delivered to you via mainstream channels. We had enough support to keep us going for 7 years and 44 releases, but ultimately it is completely unsustainable.

Lots of thanks for the love and support over the last 7 years, especially Arif Ansari, Jeff King and Tony Zucco. We couldn't have done this without true music fans like Dave Shiroky, Jordyn Marcellus and Chris Zuk whose constant enthusiasm kept us alive from day one. Thanks to all the bands who took this trip to the bottom with us. All the people we would love to single out and can't, don't think you were not appreciated. We could not have made this mess alone.

If you are still waiting for an order, it is coming. We won't disappear with your money. We will make everything that is wrong, right in the way that we always have.

In the meantime, fill the holes in your Mammoth Cave collection, and celebrate the amazing music we've been apart of over the years.

Lots of love,
Paul + Evan

 

 

So I guess that sucks a bit. I totally agree with points 2 & 3, the low dollar is fucking us in Canada (no matter how many people claim it is good for "us") and Canada Post has been fucking us on postage for a long time now. Ordering records in Canada sucks. Looking at the store, not "everything" is on sale, but most of it is.

 

Now here's why I was considering not posting: I tried ordering from them before, nothing shipped, they wouldn't reply to emails or paypal messages, and it took a last minute paypal dispute for paypal to give my money back, no response from Mammoth. I don't know what happened, but a few months after that they started sending out pretty regular update emails so maybe something has changed. 

 

Given the prices, it might be worth the gamble again. I rally want that Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet LP and I'm not going to find it for $6 anywhere else.

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My MBV record came in from UO today. To my surprise it was packed nicely in an ACTUAL LP mailer and was in pristine condition. Damn thing even came with a CD too. Best $10 purchase in a while.

 

I had the same xp with my shipment yesterday.  It came in a mailer which was inside a larger box and fortunately was immaculate.

 

Bummer to hear that some aren't getting this same treatment.

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Well, you got your wish when it comes to not being able to flip these for much profit because you'll be able to sell these for maybe $9 plus shipping each? After eBay and Discogs and PayPal fees you'll have saved like $5-10 off the LP you bought for yourself.

 

I mean, you're right on the money!

 

I've never even set foot into an UO (I haven't been to a mall in... goddamn... a decade), and I didn't think it would be as bad as everyone said it was. I was obviously wrong.

 

I'm returning everything. I just wish that everyone else would return this garbage & slowly put this company out of business.

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You guys do remember that the MBV records were infamously self distributed, high priced, and, most importantly, near-universally damaged in transit, right? Seam splits, dented corners, tears in the shrink, smaller tears in the jacket. The works. There was even a parody Twitter account called @DamagedMBVVinyl (or something to that effect). Anyway, I wouldn't usually care or defend UO, but in this case, it seems more than likely that these are discounted because they were too damaged to sell in stores which is why they were only discounted online.

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