runforcover

Free / pay what you want is not becoming the norm in the music industry, it's becoming the norm for independent artists and DIY labels, which are often run by artists themselves and have negligible expenses attached to a release. The going digital rate for an album is $9.99. We sell our tapes for $3 less than that, with shipping it ends up being the same price. I really don't see how you can argue that. I believe most of your favorite musicians offer their music for free, but you are not most people. You are smaller segment of an already niche audience. I imagine most of the bands you release on your label record for free. I imagine a lot of the music you listen to was recorded for free. That is not the standard for most music unfortunately.

Our current office used to be a custom USB company who make Star Wars, Hello Kitty, Southpark etc, USB drives. They downsized and are now our neighbors.

Not really honestly, just making our new releases, and more popular releases available on a format people have been asking for. Not much more than that.

We're doing an exclusive cool cassette thing with them that will be announced shortly. It is the opposite of expensive (it's free).

Only sort of Orchid Tapes related, but the Spencer Radcliffe LP is up for pre-order and you can listen to the new son 'Mia' here. Probably one of my favorite songs we've ever released. http://www.stereogum.com/1819906/artist-to-watch-spencer-radcliffe-mia-stereogum-premiere/franchises/band-to-watch/ http://www.runforcoverrecords.limitedrun.com/products/556402-spencer-radcliffe-looking-in

Added: Spencer Radcliffe - Looking In (Pre-Order) Mac Demarco - Another One Mac Demarco - Rock N Roll Mac Demarco - Salad Days Wild Nothing - Noctourne

Nah, Warren's dealing with some shit right now, Orchid Tapes isn't going anywhere.

LISTEN TO 'MIA' HERE: http://www.stereogum.com/1819906/artist-to-watch-spencer-radcliffe-mia-stereogum-premiere/franchises/band-to-watch/ Super excited that we've signed Spencer Radcliffe. Spencer last released an amazing split with R.L. Kelly on Orchid Tapes, and we're excited to release his full length "Looking In" October 2nd. "Mia," the first single is simply one of the best songs you will hear this year. Check out 'Mia,' a quick blurb from the Stereogum write-up below and pre-orders below. "...m ostly, Radcliffe operates in a drift, more comfortable with floating around in his own head. He feels in this world but not of it, lost and looking for an answer without really knowing the question. Tape delay and overdubs stand in for hesitation and second-guessing; sometimes, a single chord can travel the entire spectrum of human emotion. On one of the tracks from his new album, he muses: “I guess somehow I lost track of the direction back to the world from my mind.” Radcliffe often sounds like he’s taking the path least traveled, but it doesn’t feel like a misstep, just a different way of doing things." US Pre-order: http://bit.ly/1N7MAsE UK/EU Pre-order: http://bit.ly/1DqBrmx

Not going to happen. Has nothing to do with rights or anything besides the band simply not wanting to do it because its not an actual album.

I am assuming those colors look a little weird because of how they're photographed. We'll post real pictures tomorrow, I haven't seen them yet.

Depending on what colors are used, and whether they are opaque/clear affects how a-side/b-side vinyl comes out, but it's never just a clean color on on side and another color on the other, there is always over lap and mixing together from what I've seen.

I think it's 10.50 but still

Nah, I'd rather it be closer to $10 shipped in the US, and $7 brings it right in that range.

That point is silly because before they were a "cheap, fun item for bands to quickly get made" cassettes were the standard music format for twenty years, and in the 90's were costing upwards of $11 SRP in stores. Things change. We are charging $5-$7 for full lengths. Those are the same prices as every other label is selling for EPs, and 9/10 of those labels we're talking about do not have those expenses. Please stop looking for things to argue about and trying to make us the bad guy as if we're trying to do anything but give people another way to affordably buy music.

Dropped all of our current tape releases to $7.

This is like 99% of people in the world's opinion. It's obviously a pretty niche thing no matter how you slice it.

Well...my point is there isn't a price shift occurring, things just cost more than you want them to. Every label I just mentioned, who are all unarguably "DIY," charge more than 7.50 shipped for a cassette. Many of these being 4-5 song EPs. I am not really sure what you're saying to be honest. The cassettes "seem like an afterthought" so they cost what you think they should cost despite all normal determining factors of price? What makes them seem like an afterthought? It is a format of music that we put our releases on, along with other formats of music, so people can listen to our releases in the way that they prefer. All of these formats (CD, vinyl, digital, cassette) contribute to us attempting to recoup our costs on a release, pay our bands, pay our staff, and not go out of business. There's not really much more to it than that.

Why wouldn't we factor it in to all formats? The only tapes we're talking about are current releases where the tapes were released at the same time (at least roughly) as the vinyl. Our old releases in the store are $5. Near Mint, Orchid Tapes, Native Sound, Antique Records etc all sell cassettes for more than $7.50 shipped. In the 5 minutes I just took to research this the only labels I came across who were under that were Broken World and Flesh and Bone. I am sure there are others, and I am sure there are labels charging a lot more. Also, we didn't start doing cassettes out of nowhere, we started in 2009 with a live Title Fight radio set, and have done them sporadically since. People requested we do them more, so we are.

It's weird how after so many members (46 I believe according to wikipedia) they managed to sound exactly like Shai Hulud until this moment. Even the last record with the same vocalist is distinctly Shai Hulud.

They still are a cheaper, quicker turn-around item, but what we're selling is not usually priced at $1-$5. Maybe I am wrong, and there are people out there losing money on every cassette they sell in the name of DIY, but those people are probably not getting cassettes professionally duplicated / printed in the first place. Tape labels that people on this messageboard follow or even own charge $6-$7.50 for 4-6 song EPs on cassettes. $11 or whatever our full length cassettes end up being after shipping is essentially a dollar two at most more than what it costs to download it from iTunes. AND it comes with a download. Also keep in mind we have tons of other expenses to recoup, like the cost of advances, recording costs, radio campaigns, publicists (sometimes multiple per record) pressing 5,000+ LPs, in store marketing, etc. You could say "well the tapes cost you $3 a copy, why can't you sell them for $6 and profit $3." Because after all of our costs, the tapes don't cost $3 anymore. Either way I am going to see if we can get them priced down a bit.

I will have the pressing numbers added to each RFC cassette release page. I don't think any of them are more than 500 total. Sort of off base to compare the two in my opinion. Hot Vodka maked dubbed / painted / drawn tapes with spray painted j-cards with runs as limited as /25. Ours are full color, professionally duplicated and printed tapes with full color print. Neither is better, they're just completely different. With that said, I will still see if we can drop the price at all.

Depends on what you mean by 'limited', but yes. Further Out and Jar are definitely happening.

You ordered the Deluxe right?

Hey there cassette people. We are carrying a bunch of cassettes of our own releases now, as well as other stuff and it's going to be expanding rapidly. I will post new stuff in this thread as we get it. Newer stuff we have is the Camera Shy - S/T, the new Citizen, Turnover and mewithoutYou full lengths, and a few Double Double Whammy releases like Porches and Crying. http://runforcoverrecords.limitedrun.com/categories/cassette-shop

Nah! First press.