kurtz

If I record myself playing Doctor Mario...does anyone want to buy a VHS of it?

You better just stick with vinyl then so you're not labeled as a hipster.

Ross has had some serious issues from the beginning that have only been compounded by the recent influx of information that this thread has provided. Here's a list of more-than-questionable business decisions/screw-ups that have occurred:
 
- First release - a picture disc that he tried to justify by saying it was the only way to make a 'gold' record
 + Awful shipping job on these - often resulting in damaged records
- Starting Line - poorly packaged, almost all seam splits.
- RXBandits - No band approval. No remorse. (You will find this to be a recurring theme)
- Early November - Blown up CD artwork. Huge barcode on back because of this. (I know this is technically Patrick's doing, but Ross is the label owner)
 + Hidden /50 variant that he told people not to reveal because the label didn't even know about it.
- Fall of Troy - typo on track listing.
- Cartel - He purposely made this a 'surprise' release as he didn't have the band approval and knew there would be issues. However, ETR sold out before the band could get word out.
- NK - Basement Tapes - Have you seen the 'packaging' for this? He reasoned it was because it was a 'demo' release and purposefully minimal packaging.
- Dream Theater - He claimed it was CD-sourced because no digital files exist anymore. Music on Vinyl used HQ digital files from the label for their release of this.
- Cute Is What We Aim For - Wrong center labels.
- Kevin Devine Live - Misspelling on spine. Pixellated interior images. Wrong center labels. Wrong track lengths.
- Doug 7" - Re-recorded covers of the 'original' songs by he and his friends. Makes it completely ambiguous in all postings. Thanks himself on the back of the record.
- Lightning bolt shirt - Supposed to be bolt from Skeeter's shirt. Looks nothing like it.
 
Extra-curricular activities - 
- Charges >$5 for shipping media mail - and claimed it was because pricing had gone up.
- Sells grab bag - often putting in records that would be cheaper if you bought normally on this site.
- Uses eBay to flip his own releases
- Gives extra variants to his business partner to flip for even more on his own eBay account
- Said business partner (and owner of Paper Books) comes in to lie and cover-up for Ross
- Said business partner (and best friend and 'musician' on Doug 7") tells board member "I will be sure to give you a rag to wipe off my cum after you are under my desk choking on my dick," among other things.
- More lies from ETR
 
It's known I've never been a fan of Ross, but coming in and apologizing just doesn't fly for me (even though he hasn't even done this). He constantly makes excuses, has poor business tactics, is known to lie over and over to cover himself, and has shown almost zero regard for the bands he works with. 

Maybe that was the other guy, the dude that took did the Blink stuff and took peoples money? He might be the one that had the cd art blown up and pixelated with a big ole cd barcode on it also.  Who knows? They're all doing the same thing, they kind of blend in together. I'm old, I don't belong here.

Actually why am I surprised at all. I'm posting on a board with a huge Silverchair banner ad on it and a Dumb and Dumber soundtrack banner ad on the bottom 

I take it  he comes across as a good decent person to you?
 I don't know him personally no. But  his business practices and the way he comes across on a message board make him seem undesirable.  I'm not ripping anyone ass, especially no one on this board, I don't know hardly any of the people on here.  This place is super bizarre.  like 40 pages of people calling this dude out, I make a post, and people jump on the defensive. And yes, people that listen to that type of music are mainstream trend hoppers that collect pieces of plastic that look cool.  What happened to this place when SRC took it over, did they bring all their fans with em? 

ETR won't be around long. Seems like these "licencing house" type labels pop up every other month, a few of em do good financially for a while and then go belly up after a couple years. "labels" like this guys have a very short shelf life. I'm sure a lot of the old heads on here have seen probably 20 of these kinds of labels come and go over the last 10 years.  Taking the easy path is always short lived. There is no real demographic that he is targeting, just repressing anything that was popular at one time, no loyalty from people. People that like really really horrible top 40 music buy his crap, but once he loses the crop of variant chasers, and musically deficient trend hoppers, he'll be done with, and in a mountain of debt. 

yo i'm kind of a stranger to this board but i like checking the orchid tapes thread so i thought i might as well look around the other topics & thought id do a bit of shameless self promotion
 

 
i'm a kid from ct who runs a tape label called sleepover records that puts out weird pop music that me and my friends make 
 
ffo: orchid tapes, diy ambient music, casio keyboards, some punk/emo bands too
 
bandcamp: https://sleepoverrecordsct.bandcamp.com/
 
storenvy: http://sleepoverrecords.storenvy.com/

Dark thread.

From my personal perspective these seem to be fairly popular with newer "collectors", hell even franchise fanatics who don't listen to records will buy these just for the novelty factor (Clerks, Ghostbusters). I will admit I did buy a soundtrack within the last year, realized how dumb it was, and sold it. I'd like to say I won't do that again but sometimes I have a few too many drinks and can still log into PayPal. Anyways, the stuff Mondo does is probably the most obvious example. I find it hard to believe anyone would listen to the Friday The 13th OST on a consistent basis but it's filled with fake fucking blood so it's necessary(?). I have to admit, tapes are beginning to become my go-to indie physical medium. I've found dozen of bands over the last few months via that format like I used to with vinyl. I simply can't afford to do that shit anymore with the price hike and I don't see small new 'impulse-buy' releases pop up here anymore. In the last 2 months I've bought 1 (new) record. It's a drag. I'm confident RFC, TSR, CYS, etc. will deliver as usual this year, but I hope to see some great releases from No Idea!, Red Scare, hell even new stuff from Fat.
"fingers crossed".

Forgive me, I'm aware this isn't the place...why in the hell is everybody clammering for movie soundtracks on vinyl? I hated them on Tape and CD growing up.....it's like a corporate version of a MixTape that usually has two decent songs and a bunch of "meh" thrown inbetween. This seems to be a very recent trend and I've been trying to wrap my head around this entire time. Dumb and Dumber? Decently funny slapstick humor movie....soundtrack??? On vinyl??? Why does anybody care about the soundtrack being pressed to vinyl. Shit like that is why other smaller projects are getting consistently bumped? Mind melting. I hope Fat Possom's plant opens soon and is pumping out quality vinyl (aka, hope the kinks get worked out early on)....

no thanks, its probably made of the tears of the under paid and over worked

You really gotta expand your search past big stores. The Sylvan Esso LP is still available from both the label and the band's webstore.

http://ironlungrecords.bigcartel.com
The cassette version of the new Pig Heart Transplant album has an exclusive 20 minute bonus track not on the CD or LP.
So stoked for this album!

Dark thread.

Dark thread.

more useless reissues.
 
All four of those LPs can very easily be found for under $10.

Dark thread.

Now imagine everyone that orders from them sending them four emails.... If you're doing a high volume of stuff as a DIY operation, there comes a point where answering people's email questions about their orders hinders actually getting them their orders, y'know?

that's really not the point. people can do whatever they want with their money. the fact is, ETR has established a pattern of shitty behavior and business practices. if people still buy from him (and obviously people will), they can't claim ignorance anymore.
 
if he wants to be a part of the "scene" and the "vinyl community" he should show his customers some fucking respect. if your brand new record is more important to you than all this, than that's your decision. 

This is NOT punk

Just in case Ross thinks that this is just a "Haters gonna hate" thread I want him to know he's losing business. I have terrible taste in music and have bought a bunch of what he has released. I won't ever buy a single thing from him again. 

I had variants on the HRC and the Acceptance records. 

When the HRC records went up, shipping from Thunderbeard was cheaper, because our records always shipped for $3-4. He flipped out, accusing me of ruining a release that he had worked hard for 3 years on because I didn't price match him at $5 shipping, which is something we hadn't discussed. 

Ironically, I've been in talks with Ben about releasing YMAEWK - So Young So Insane ever since I released A Great Big Hole. I haven't been "working" on it for 3 years, but it took time to get the files from the engineer and coordinate a release date with Ben (finally happening after his EP is released this Spring). Ross went to Ben and told him he could source the release with a CD. Then he asked people on here and online for a used copy of the disc. 

He was going to source one of his releases with a used 7 year old CD, all while "ruining a release I had worked hard on for 3 years."

Oh, and I spoke with Nic from Cartel via e-mail a few times, and he had a different story than the sugarcoated ending that we all saw in the Chroma thread. 

Just in case anyone still doubted what the truth is in this case (and to showcase some further shadiness), this is actually user molder's eBay account: http://www.ebay.com/usr/phaust
 
Where he happens to also sell ETR releases. No problem. Except he has sold at least six copies of Something Corporate's LTTW on white (which was limited to one a person). 
 
The more you know...

I am off vc for a few days and come back to a shit storm.  Sorry, I have been mia but we had 3 releases go on sale last week and have been in the process of shipping out those orders. I checked vc a couple nights ago ago and didn’t see any of this.
 
To set the record straight. It is an account which a bunch of my friends and I have used since 1999 hence it having a pretty high positive feedback.  In the past some stuff for sale has been mine, some stuff has been my friends and some even my friends selling stuff for their parents(hence the meteorite up right now which I didn’t even know until someone pointed it out).  Regardless, in this particular case for the etr albums sold on that account recently, None of those were mine. They were one of my friend’s who is a semi active member of the board and already commented/ admit to it apparently the other day. The hrvrd cd/dvd up now is mine and I had a descendants xmas sweater up a couple months ago which didn’t sell.  It seems the same couple people clearly have issues with me, which is fine. Like I always say “Haters gonna hate”. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and to me knowledge those people never purchased records from me in the first place.  I hope that clears things up
 
On a more productive note: To update anyone who has placed orders through the webstore in the last two weeks. I have been in the process of packing everything up and have mailed out 300 out of 600 or so orders so far with another 50 being packed up tonight. Sorry to everyone for the delay and hope everyone had a happy new year