unknown pleasures

I don't know if this has been asked but is the Liars RSD release the same as the one they sold on their site a couple of months ago? It looks identical. Thanks in advance.

I think the Glenn Danzig fan fiction belongs in a different section of the forum...

Maybe the sign said "Free Beer Tomorrow."

Look, you clearly know what the album is: Al Hirt Puppet on a String 4-Track EP You even have a catalog number and record label. What exactly do you need us to tell you? How many were pressed? What mood Al was in when he recorded it? Whether on not the Yankees were in the pennant hunt the day it was released? If you want to sell it, put it up on eBay as an auction - put a reserve if you're nervous - start it at a buck and see what happens. If it's worth anything, it will be found and bid up. If not, it's probably worth as much as you paid for it (which I'm guessin' ain't much!). Good luck.

Seriously! You could fleece a gullible Dolly fan for at least $100!

Yeah, say what you want about NC but I highly doubt they would have done this.

Technically, Singapore is in the future.

All the complaints about Record Store Day and the giant cash grab and eBay flippers and limited stock and long lines aside, I think RSD eve is still the closest I get to the feeling I used to have as a little kid on Christmas eve. Isn't that horribly sad??

I don't know, for eBay those prices aren't absurd, just a little on the high side. Heck, I go to plenty of physical record shops that charge at least as much in their used bins. Isn't black the absence of all color? Or is that white?

If I were to flip this - of which there's a 0% chance, since I know I'd never be able to find one in the first place - I would feel obligated to donate at least a little of the profit to a charity.

I take that to read that Record Store Day is April 19, and oh, by-the-way, we also have these limited edition exclusive releases coming out on April 8 and April 15 leading up to RSD. As for the big Nirvana mention at the top, that could be for the Pennyroyal Tea single...

I wonder how many copies they hold back for retail? Has anyone figured it out based on past NC exclusives? Does it vary from title to title (and pressing count to pressing count)?

The idea that Newbury Comics is independent is a little misleading. It's like calling Boston Beer Company a "craft brewery." Sure, technically they are, but the difference between the little guys and them is almost as large as between them and the big boys. That isn't to say Newbury Comics (or Boston Beer Company, for that matter) doesn't do a lot to help the industry and that their success doesn't trickle down to smaller players, but when I walk into one of the high-rent Newbury Comics mall locations full of clothing, shoes and Hunger Games merchandise I'm sure not thinking I'm helping a struggling mom and pop record store.

I think you're overlooking an important fact right in your own post: your relative was a huge Elvis Costello fan. There has always been a market - for nearly as long as records have been around - catering to huge fans. There's got to be someone buying all those Beatles picture discs, die-cut Madonna interview singles, shady Smiths bootlegs, endless color variants from Europe, etc. I'll even admit there's a few bands who I have difficulty passing up re-releases by. The difference here is that these aren't aimed at huge fans. Maybe some huge fans will buy it, but if every huge Nirvana fan - the ones who own Love Buzz and such - picked this up, it would have sold out in 10 seconds. This is aimed at the casual vinyl listener who thinks albums pressed on color are A) pretty and worth a 300% markup. I reckon a good amount of these will never even be opened from their shrink-wrap. Remember, according to Newbury Comics themselves, these aren't even records! They're individually numbered "pieces", like those Franklin Mint chess sets or limited Marvel superhero busts. Hurry, supplies are limited! Collect 'em all!

Releases like this are totally the beginning of the end for the "vinyl renaissance." It may not be right around the corner, but when you start seeing things like this - releases that are limited for the sake of being limited, hand numbered, over-priced and basically released to market as pre-packaged collector's items - you know things are hitting a saturation point. It happens all the time - look at baseball cards, comic books, beanie babies, whatever. You have a group of core diehards that create a market out of nothing due to their sheer love of a product and then the floodgates open and everything goes downhill from there. Don't get me wrong, there will always be a market for records and those that love and collect them. But remember we're not talking about first pressing of Velvet Underground albums or rare mono releases of the Beatles. These are readily available cash grabs and in one or five or ten years, who's really going to care enough to spend a premium on the 2014 edition of Nirvana's first album on some random color that was released by some random retail store? It's just going to be one of the dozens of colored vinyl releases of Bleach and no one will give it anymore attention than any of the others. It really makes me sad when I see teenagers drooling over these types of releases (usually while proudly exclaiming how they just got their first turntable from Brookstone or Third Man or wherever...) when I know they can get a quality used black vinyl version at one of the truly indie record shops around here for $10 (or heck, even on eBay!). IN FACT, at these prices, they can get a quality used colored vinyl version of this from the 90s which at least has a little more cachet than this, right?!