tape

Bullmoose has the splatter (and black) boxset available for preorder (doesn't look like it includes the 7".)

Is it fucked up to feel that if you cancel your order from the TSwift store you may miss out on something special?...yeah, yeah...the stars confetti and shit...but maybe something more? 
 
Damn her marketing evil genius moves...
 
 

But then you won’t get any confetti!

Just got an email with an update on 1st press. They confirmed they were able to intercept it at the port before it got to Awesome, so it’s going to them in Portland. Besides having limited mail order staff, sounds positive.

Excited for the influx of Instagram posts of Death Metal albums used with a T-Swift clock. 

Just in time for the "limited vinyl only for sale for one week" to be back in the store. I simply can't believe that it's for sale again...

god damn this woman is a marketing genius

Figured out why he's mad guys

Oh lord if you think "ignorant" is an insult no wonder this whole thing that has nothing to do with you is triggering. Holy shit 😂

Topshelf's distributor is Redeye in the US- that's who gets their new releases into record stores.  Awesome Merch did their mailorder and housed their inventory.
 
Distribution is kinda like a 101 thing to know about records (especially if you're on a message board about it lol.) But you've clearly been confidently ignorant this whole thread, so...

You know how I said I feel like people did not read Topshelf's entire statement... Well... I don't want to call you out but they're literally dealing with their own problems and they have funds set aside for an emergency because they have successfully been around that long. You might want to tone down your ignorance and take the time to read the links before commenting because you missed the mark with everything you've said.

"unless I'm completely clapped in an argument and can't actually support my evil opinion of course."

Dunno who you are and don't care. What you wrote is the same thing as someone standing behind a homeless person warning people not to give them money because they shouldn't have made such bad choices. Yeah you're probably right but you lack all traces of humanity.

fuck yes

This post could have saved you a lot of time if you just wrote "I'm insufferable"

They literally cannot make money for the foreseeable future. They have a staff and royalties to pay. The way they make money is currently locked up from them and it's of no fault of their own. Kevin says in the post they were going to drive out and move their shit, but were told they can't get their shit. One month of zero income for small businesses is enough to press the panic button and start laying people off.  This is a totally appropriate time to ask for help. 
Labels and bands have Kickstarted at way way less deserving times than TSR right now. It's really fucking weird to see someone questioning the morality of this.

They’ve been contacting Awesome Distro for months and getting the run around - they just found out about this 
 
also if it gets backed you will get the item you pledged for - they are “selling” everything in their archive 

Real estate. Unless you sell out of every record and every variant, you’re going to have lots of back inventory, which requires space. As mentioned in the Topshelf announce, they had their own place but realtors wanted to gouge them and increase rent 32%.
 
Mike Park does it out of his Moms house and does small presses because he can’t have 5K records floating around at a time. Other labels like Lauren Records do it out of their houses. It’s basically one of two methods. House or gamble on renting a place.
 
The other factor is staffing. You might have days where you get 5 orders, so you’d have to have multi-discipline staff that can then go spend the other 7 hours of their day doing something else label related. Otherwise you’re either paying too much orrr you end up bringing in people just for a new pre-order rush, which leads to people not knowing how to pack records, etc. Then you get complaints and no one buys from you anymore, etc. Hard balance.

I feel like a lot of people did not read Topshelf's entire statement. I know it's long but it's all worth reading.
"so how’re we gonna fund this? alright, you read this sob story. you know how money works. this is gonna cost money."

https://www.topshelfrecords.com/#help

It's broken down into 8 sections of why they need money. There's an option to receive physical media in return for your donation for those that don't want to give with nothing in return.
"we had been handling our own mail order and warehousing our own records since our start in 2006—doing it all ourselves—moving from dorm rooms, to parents’ garages, to extra space at a larger label’s warehouse, and eventually, to our own dedicated space we leased when we moved the label to San Diego in 2015. In 2018 though, the building we were in was sold. the new management stopped renewing existing leases and then re-set everyone’s rent at a 36% increase (apparently legal!). Unable to find a suitable location at a price we could afford, we made the difficult decision to outsource our mail order operation to a fulfillment partner: Awesome Distro. back then, it cost us $13k just to ship everything to Awesome's new Austin, TX-based warehouse where we were to be their first US client. at the time this was a pretty big expense for us that we struggled to pay while continuing operations as normal."

"so when we made the decision to move our mail order operation out of our own control over to a third party half the country away, that weighed heavily on us. it felt like removing a part of the self in a way i can’t explain. we knew it had to be done, but the savings and perceived efficiencies came with a heavy dose of malaise around this tangible loss of identity and sovereignty."
 
I don't think they got their inventory moved in time. They knew Awesome Merch was going downhill.

Kevin confirmed this in the Topshelf Discord for me yesterday 👍

Nope. And I was just thinking about that when ordering that Target exclusive. We haven't heard a single note off any song from this new record. It's ridiculous the hold that T-Swizzle has on us...well, at least myself. 

Yes this is the perfect time to do that. Make sure to send a second email tomorrow too when they don't answer today for some unknown reason.

Or just continue to wait?
 
I love supporting this label, so I'm keeping all my current PO's active through Topshelf. Hell, that money is already long gone out of my bank account.
I'm sure they will have a flood of cancellation emails, and that is just added stress to an already shitty situation.
Hoping the best for Kevin, Seth, and the crew, but this will take time and money to get sorted out.
All we can do right now is continue to be patient, help spread the word, and if able, donate to their Kickstarter.

Awesome Distro already sucked big time. 
 
This just makes me detest them even more.

lmao @ shipping for all four (current) variants plus the tape being less than the shipping on my previous order on monday morning for the vinyl and tape.