Bull Moose

If I remember correctly, the info I saw this morning said "individually numbered," not hand numbered. I read it twice because I couldn't imagine them hand numbering 90,000 box sets. Based on the number of pre-orders the store where I work took today, 30,000 could be a reasonable quantity.

Welcome to Maine. Did you just move here or will you be just visiting? Perhaps you are percussion tech for Blue Oyster Cult, who will be in town that night. Either store will be just as good in terms of finding what you want. Mainers are pretty chill, so don't worry about fighting people for what you want. I'd get there about an hour early if you can't live without a low-quantity release by a very popular artistic if you want to hang with other collectors. It's really fun to be outside the store before we open. Keep your afternoon free. We are working on some pretty awesome events.

I hate to sound like a politician but I can't confirm or deny anything about those two releases. You will know on 3/20 whether or not they will be available in the US. I don't know the dates when we will hear about other territories, btw. You might notice other anomalies if you look closely. We did recently remove some titles at the request of the label. Wires got crossed somewhere so a bunch of stores, including the one where I work, thought it was OK to list things that the label wished hadn't been listed. I don't know what happened. All I know is that the label needed us to handle their stuff differently. RSD is a big collaboration between many parties, so naturally we respect each others' wishes without requiring a lot of explanation.

Obviously, that would be preferable, but I do think there is a place in the marketplace for clean well-pressed editions of classic albums. They sell well. Many of those are "first release" or "windowed" titles, because it does kind of make sense that Fleetwood Mac, Aerosmith, Notorious B.I.G., Nirvana, etc. records should be widely available. Know what I mean? It's a little different when you turn to 90s and 00s punk & metal, because the quantities on the used market are much lower. People who buy releases on labels like Victory seem to be pretty happy to have straight reissues on colored vinyl. I assume it's because they missed out on them first time around. Labels like Sundazed and Varese Sarabande also do a nice job of reissuing things that really deserve a new life. It's always great when labels or artists choose to issue previously unheard music and that really was what I was hoping for back in 2007. We are lucky that there are so many prolific current artists like Xiu Xiu, as someone else mentioned in this thread. Then you've got labels like Omnivore who excel in finding unreleased stuff. Some people are really excited about their Jaco release. RSD's crazy grown makes it a lot more likely that amazing things will continue to be released. Thanks.

SRP for Pinback is $20.97.

Thanks for the nice words. I'm not sure if I understand your question, so I will give two answers. I hope I answer the right one. Let me know if I don't and I will try again.If your think that the prices in general are rising, I hadn't noticed much of that. I can think of one label that pushed its prices up last year. I haven't seen their prices this year so I don't know if they brought them back down. We will order less of their stuff this year if it is too expensive so they will correct their pricing next year. I definitely have seen experimentation over the years. Those 7" box sets a few Black Fridays ago were expensive to produce and didn't sell as we hoped. They were created in response to collectors' requests for higher quality releases, but clearly that was not exactly what people wanted, or at least they didn't think a really cool box was worth an extra $10-15. It was worth a try. Maybe they would have caught on. Looking back on that, I think that certain kinds of fans wanted better mastering and pressing on the records they like. Of course that adds to the cost, but those fans are willing to pay for the sound they want. We probably could go on and on about this. If your question was actually about distributors that sell to stores that don't buy direct marking things up too much, I am not an expert. However, some of the stores in two of the three record store coalitions that run RSD rely on those distributors. The people who run those coalitions would take action if their members were being abused. I also suspect that non-coalition stores for whom selling new music is an important part of their business probably know which distributors will treat them best around RSD, because they treat them best all year round. Let me know if I'm off base and I'll give it another shot. Chris

US RSD fans might want to check out this list of releases that have been officially announced. The lists of rumors blogs borrow from each other seem to be less accurate than they have been in previous years. I thought this might help people figure out what's what. Some US bands and labels have announced titles to the public but haven't released the sales information to stores yet, I left those off the list but I will add them when we get the official word. If you prefer to see the same list with cover art and links to more information go here. We are still filling in track lists, pressing quantities, etc. so important details are missing, we might add them later. Several important distributors have yet to release their lists, including Think Indie, as noted above. Many more titles are in the pipeline, so don't fret if something a label or artist announced isn't on my list. It's probably for real. Enjoy, Chris

I don't know, never having done it. I guess it is.

I think the big problem is when the UPC is reused, because that makes it impossible to computerize everything. A UPC is supposed to uniquely identify a record, but I think some labels don't understand this and reuse old artwork when they repress.

It will be available to US stores. I don't know about any other territories. There will be only 900 so it might be smart for you to contact your local store and ask them to make sure to order one for you.

Whatever this is, it's got nothing to do with Record Store Day. I hope that helps.

Unfortunately I'm just reading this now. Whatever you saw, it wasn't us. I'm curious exactly what you saw. I just looked through all the sold listings from the beginning through 12/27 and didn't see anything that could be confused with us. BTW, our eBay name is Bullmoose207 because somebody already had Bullmoose. I could understand your confusion if whoever is Bullmoose had sold a copy, but that doesn't seen to be the case. I'd love to know if someone is impersonating us, so please let us know the username or post a link to the sold listing. That would be a great help. Thanks, Chris

We just got an update on the U2 "Ordinary Love" single. As some suspected, the b-side is "Breathe" not "Breath" and it's not a new song. It's being called "Mandela Version" to differentiate it from the original version on No Line on the Horizon. List price is $11.98 for those who may be wondering.

Thanks for the welcome. I recognize your username from another forum. Chris

Depending on how curious you are, you might read Analog Planet's review. They explain why it was remixed--the mono tapes are missing--and compare the mono remix to the various stereo issues. The review ends with I'm not suggesting that you make the new mono mix your "go to" version. However, there is a point to this beyond getting getting all of us to buy the album yet again. Chris

We pulled our RSD stuff offline for a little bit --- we weren't setup for multiple copy orders for items in tight contention --- and this is our fault - we didn't foresee that if people had the same item in separate shopping carts upped their quantity, they would in effect take the item away from someone else. (say we have 3 in stock of something. three people put it in their cart. that's ok because we have 3... but then 1 person ups their quantity to 3... well if they complete their sale first, then the next two people - who already had it in their cart - wouldn't get theirs)... to rectify this, we'll be putting back up what we have left with a 1 per customer limit... it will happen quite soon. But please accept our apologies and acknowledgement of fault to the few folks who ordered multiples and were cancelled --- I believe those folks ordering were all true fans and not resellers or anything -- they were just trying to pick up extras for a friend --- so it stinks that we've left some of them out in the cold. Sorry again. We'll keep in contact with the impacted fans and try to help if we can.

Sweet - thanks for the info... we'll keep our fingers crossed!

How we are dealing with an online race condition. Problem: Two vinyl lovers order the same records at the virtually same time (a few seconds apart). We have two in stock. Person 1 orders 2 copies... Person 2 orders 1 copy. Right now --- if it's a virtual tie --- we are assigning each person 1 copy. So Person 1 misses out on their second copy, but person 2 gets their first copy. We have no idea if this is truly the best plan, but feel like this is the "fairest?". Honestly, we've never run into this before --- we run super quick orders (i.e. people have to order the same items incredibly close together to not have the quantity updated before they finish their order - like less than 1 minute on average), but we've had a few online collisions like this happen today. What do you guys think? Is that fair, or should we go with the line in the sand approach - first come first serve if even by a few seconds?

Hi ifworkpermits, The next step will be picked --- so right now it's on a pick-list (just like a shopping list) for one of the locations --- first they do is grab it off the floor and scan it -- when it's scanned it will say "Item Packaged"... but the moment it says "order received" that item is reserved for you Thanks! Bull Moose

Hi Tamubro, The Drive never arrived --- we allegedly have 55 on the way, but I bet they're not coming. Really sorry. The Toadies looks to be in good shape though Sorry again about The Drive... we'll keep our fingers crossed that the incoming orders to us get filled so we can ship it to you --- but I'm not optimistic about that one.. Thanks, Bull Moose

Thanks - that's great to hear -- and thanks for passing it on... I'll give her the kudos!

Hi Sowingseason92, Thanks for the kind words and really sorry our site has been cranky! I'll take a peek and PM you... Our website finally became our own on December 17th of last year -- meaning before that, we used an outside service -- but now, our website reflects our actual stores in real-time --- so we can do a lot more things to make sure our customers get the service they deserve. For instance, if you basket is frozen or incomplete, we'll actually be able to peek at it and help push it through if need be. You'll hear from us! Bull Moose

Hi xen0m0rph, Yes, sorry that we block almost all non-US IPs... I can see where that is a drag for an international vinyl fan like you, so, again, sorry! Regards, Bull Moose

Hi mpitts (and to everyone), Our site does have our live on-hand information --- so we *shouldn't* have to cancel anything. Sometimes shop-worn issues come up, but since this is two day old stuff, that should be highly unlikely. The only other things that happen are missing items (i.e. shoplifted items) and race conditions (someone at a retail store grabs it before we can pick it for online sales) - which should also be unlikely. We'll do our best. I'm posting here because we can see a lot of incoming traffic from here and want to make sure y'all are taken care of. Our fill rate is around 99% -- which sounds good unless you're part of that about 1% --- so we keep working to make our fill rate as close to 100% as possible. Regards, Bull Moose