Oblivions

I had an LP sent to me inside a paper manilla envelope with no padding or extra cardboard. Basically, what you see in the above photo but with 1 layer of paper over it.

Of course, it arrived in perfect condition somehow.

Top 5

Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool

Angel Olsen - My Woman

Car Seat Headrest - Teens of Denial

Mitski - Puberty 2

Hurry - Guided Meditation

Honorable Mentions

Nada Surf - You Know Who You Are

Acid Fast - Last Night on Earth

Yoni & Geti - Testarossa

Kevin Morby - Singing Saw

Weezer - White Album

Happy Diving - Electric Soul Unity

Pfarmers - Our Puram

Wilco - Schmilco

Chris Staples - Golden Age

Dr. Dog - Abandoned Mansion/Psychadelic Swamp

nm

I signed up for the full year + 7" add-on at the Kickstarter level, so I'm going down with this ship if it falls apart. I'm just hoping that the effort put into each goes beyond a quick straight-forward pass. I thought what John Vanderslice did with Bowie's Diamond Dogs a few years ago was really interesting. He changed the track names and diverged from the source material at times to produce a cover album that was part-tribute and part-new work inspired by DD. My faith is in you, group of creative people known for both lofty plans and procrastination.

Thanks again to everyone.

I'm going to have to book a proper vacation to Austin so I can make use of all the great suggestions. I'll pop back in after my trip and let you know what I ended up doing, so you know that your time and responses were not all for naught. 

nm

If you're not into crazy punk or hardcore but want to spend $$$ on this sale I recommend the Acid Fast and Parasol LPs. Awesome grungier pop punk stuff!

I believe they are sending everyone a Shopify-generated shipping notification email as they print out shipping labels. I got an email on Tuesday, although it still says "Pre-shipment info submitted, USPS waiting to be receive package".

31 minutes ago, hickey said:

I got the package for this today. It came in a 12" mailer, and the record must've fallen out somewhere along the way. Opened it up and there was just a Ghost Ramp pin in there. Haha.

I had this happen to me the first time I ordered a ZeroDust stylus cleaner from Amazon. I opened the box and all that was inside was the empty wrapper and tray card for the item. Obviously, the packages lost their contents while in transit but there is something funny about the idea of being shipped an empty box. Haha.

2 minutes ago, sethdavid said:

I've only been to the Amoeba in SF which Waterloo is similar to - Waterloo is a bit smaller though.

Waterloo has more of a mainstream vibe to it while End of An Ear has a more local record store vibe.

How long are you here for? If you want any food recommendations let me know

I'm there for 3 days but I only get 1 free afternoon and evening to roam and explore. I would love a dinner recommendation for a Saturday night. Thanks for the info and offer.

5 minutes ago, hickey said:

Can you be a little more specific? The river cuts through a decent part of town.

 

End of an Ear and Waterloo have the best selections. Waterloo is at Lamar and 6th. End of an Ear just opened a new spot just off Ben White, but I haven't been to the new location  yet. I hear it's awesome though. Waterloo is a bit overpriced, but solid selection.

That's my bad. I only had the tiny Google maps embed on the hotel website to go off of.  I'll be staying near the corner of Cesar Chavez and Congress, right before 1st street. Thanks to you guys for the recommendations. 

Has anyone browsed the shops in Austin, as well as Hollywood/LA? Comparable? IMO, shops in Los Angeles are a bit over-priced and picked through since it's a huge city. I'd imagine it'd be somewhat similar since Austin seems hip/current. Is Waterloo similar to Amoeba?

I'm taking a work trip to Austin in January and have one free afternoon/evening to pack in all my record shopping. I'm staying right on the Colorado river it looks like, so any recommendations for shops near there would be much appreciated! Thanks, friendly VC'ers.

Yeah. Oldies stopped having those clearance sales. Because of that, I haven't bought a record from them in maybe 2 years.

Ah. I get what you're saying. That is definitely disappointing. Sorry for extending the conversation about it; just curious about this stuff. IMO, he should have a) acknowledged that it IS a disappointing situation and provided an offer in his response or b ) clearly said that there are no refunds or price adjustments, instead of putting all the pressure on you to "demand" a resolution and solve it. Bummed on your behalf, man. 

On December 4, 2016 at 7:31 PM, The Ghost of Randy Savage said:

This was an item sold to me personally by the owner of the label, and is on their same label's website. It's a little different.

It doesn't really matter in the long run, but the way everything went down was really misleading.

I don't know the ins and outs of this particular situation but if the owner was trying to be shady, wouldn't the 'newly found' copies be priced higher?

I missed out on last year's. Fan of Modern Baseball, Japanese Breakfast, Diet Cig and Joyce Manor so I'm on board for the 2017 sub.

nm

Mumps was a huge bummer for me but I ordered this inmediately. Hoping for a comeback.

1 hour ago, Unique Antics said:

If season one was just setting up for season 2 and Ford's new narrative, I don't know if I can wait til 2018!!!

 

  Hide contents

Ford can't be dead -- he must have made a host of himself to fake his death. 

 

I slept on their debut at first but the new record won me over so much that I retroactively started to enjoy the debut. Great band.

1 hour ago, topshelfsquad said:

Interesting conversation going on in here—and not a topic that's lost on me, or in any way news to me. It has always bothered/disappointed me the records that get tons of attention that we release vs. the records that get no support whatsoever for seemingly no discernible reasons (take a look at, idk, the Sorority Noise pre-order thread from earlier this year vs. say, the LITE "Cubic" thread for a stark example of this). And that's actually completely 1000000000% bonkers to me. Like, pretty crazy. Obviously to take nothing away from Sorority Noise, LITE's one of the most talented and interesting and non-derivative acts making music today and it's absolute crickets from this community because.... reasons(?). The crowd here, ~generally speaking~, on this particular forum, I've never really felt like my tastes really fully align with completely. BUT I've always been super appreciative of the support y'all have given us throughout the years. I know we're hemorrhaging that support, though. I understand we're not releasing records you [think] you care about. I read it every few days on forums and Facebook groups and Twitter and in this very thread. But we've also been doing this for over ten years now. I couldn't legally drink when Seth and I started this label and now we're in our 30's. It's not an "out of touch" thing—it's a tastes changing thing. I have almost no interest in the music I predominantly listened to a decade ago and that is reflected in the music we currently release through the label now as well. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I was putting out records just because I knew they'd do well, but that I was in no way myself personally interested in. That might pay the bills and other labels certainly do that but I'm way not down. So, here we are.

It's pretty clear the floor got kicked out from everyone doing anything vaguely ~emo~ in the last year or so. Like, save for a handful of bands that got the "indie" stamp of approval, shit is dead in the water and everyone bailed and left labels like jade tree / count your lucky stars / no sleep, etc. caught with their pants down. And when that shit's your bread and butter, that's not the canary in the coal mine, that's the whole mine shaft collapsing on you. Obviously, that's a large part of what we are known for and have done to this point so when you're shifting gears to something else (even doing so gradually over the course of many years), you're gonna alienate and lose some people. I get that. I just sincerely think a lot of people aren't even listening to what we release anymore, which is y'know, that's chill! lol. Not a hype label with the kids anymore ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Maybe don't even have an identity really anymore. Which, y'know, that's fine also!! I don't want to be pigeonholed to one thing. I like that we can put out a Dangers record, a toe record, a Jay Som record and a Bad Heaven record in the same year and we don't need to start an imprint label to release different things through—and that it's not weird at all! Anyway, I'm totally just rambling now.

tl;dr: I think everything we release is fucking sick.

• If you subscribed to this subscribtion or our bandcamp digital subscription: FUCKING THANK YOU. Thank you for your trust in our judgement and curation.
• If you've streamed, or downloaded or purchased any of our records, THANK YOU. Shit is harder than ever to sustain. You can't know how much it's appreciated.
• If you haven't listened to what we're up to lately, and have even a modest interest in doing so: We have our ENTIRE catalog (save for pre-orders) in both our store (http://topshelfrecords.com/categories/digital) and our bandcamp (http://topshelfrecords.bandcamp.com) available for pay-what-you-want download with all proceeds going equally to The Trevor Project / Planned Parenthood / The NAACP Legal Defense Fund. It'll remain pwyw through 2016. Maybe give something a shot that you've never heard of, idk!!

Sorry I am a shitty dumb bitter prick!!!!!!

I've always loved the stuff that deviated from the "classic Topshelf sound" that some have been vocal and wistful toward.  Wild Ones, Mock Orange and Happy Diving are my 3 favorite bands in your stable and I'm always keeping an eye on your press releases because I know there will be interesting bands working with you. I haven't checked out LITE yet but I'll give them a listen later tonight. Keep doing it the way you know how. *thumbs up*

Edit!

Edit!

You should have waited and started with this weekend's season finale.

1 hour ago, nancy_raygun said:

I'm still lost on Ford's motivation in doing all of this.  Does he just like playing god?

I think he gave a monologue to Bernard in his recreated family cabin about how his dad told him that he would have no purpose and lead a meaningless life in the outside world, so he created his own world.  Something to that effect. He is also curious to see what the hosts are capable of and how far they can go (or whether they will surprise him and prove him to be not God). He let Bernard go through that whole history download thing, even though he had been through it before and knew what would happen, because he was hoping that it wouldn't play out exactly as expected.