Invest in Vinyl Collective/Suburban Home's Future

[traffic]

good call.

yeah i mean even if the prize was to pick 500 records or even 1,000 it might be better..i don't even know that i would want 3,000 records either...just thinking about it from virgil's side why not give the winner 1,000 records of their choosing and then sell the rest at DRAMATICALLY reduced prices and make a little money of them?

these are the kinds of obvious points that make me wonder what is going on at at vc hq.

[traffic]

question about the vccc. if you are planning to give credit to any member who doesn't hit 750 in the year, what's to stop someone from becoming a member, spending ten bucks and waiting for 650+ to come in credit? just saying, as it is, the way you have it posted it sounds like that's an option. or i'm reading it wrong.

you're reading it wrong. the person in your hypothetical would get a credit of $65.

[benchwarmer]

If I won 3,000 records in one swoop, I think my wife would literally kill me. This would make VC an accomplice, correct? This is one raffle I will definitely not be entering, because I'd be scared to death of winning it.

I was thinking the same thing. I'd probably have an anxiety attack if I won that many records.

[hickey]

If I won 3,000 records in one swoop, I think my wife would literally kill me. This would make VC an accomplice, correct? This is one raffle I will definitely not be entering, because I'd be scared to death of winning it.

I was thinking the same thing. I'd probably have an anxiety attack if I won that many records.

My wife would literally shoot me in the face.

[mynameisdan]

question about the vccc. if you are planning to give credit to any member who doesn't hit 750 in the year, what's to stop someone from becoming a member, spending ten bucks and waiting for 650+ to come in credit? just saying, as it is, the way you have it posted it sounds like that's an option. or i'm reading it wrong.

you're reading it wrong. the person in your hypothetical would get a credit of $65.

ah yes i get it.

[redscare]

EDIT: as a point of POSITIVE constructive criticism to virgil. why not give your entire suburban home catalog to touring bands on your roster? then when they sell their release they can also set up a box with all the other releases. they can sell them for 10, and you take 8, the band gets 2 (or however your pricing goes). band has incentive cause it can make them pizza money for the stop. it spreads the word about your label/releases. plus you might make a few extra bucks on records that may otherwise be sitting in your warehouse waiting for a buyer. plus you support the independent vinyl or whatever by providing a distro that gets set up at shows. plus, if you signed them, i imagine you trust them with your records more than random internet people.

I think this is a really good idea and much more realistic than having just random people sell the records.

Bands aren't always too keen about selling someone else's shit. They're trying to get by themselves, and another band's merch can cut into their sales. I can totally understand that.

[affront]

Wow, turns out I have an account here.

I run a sporadic distro in the UK and I get a lot of my stuff wholesale from No Idea, i've sold bits of VC stuff in the UK (Look mexico/fake problems split, ninja gun/whiskey&co, in the red volume 2) but the problem i've found specifically with VC released stuff is that because of the "pre-order culture" of this label, a lot of people who buy stuff from me buy VC stuff direct (or at least, I assume they do) because they're either unsure whether a record will sell out, or they want a specific variant that I may not be able to get through my wholesalers, or because its VC only.

I don't know if that applies to people in the states but i'd say there is an inherit problem with generating pre-order hype / variant hype.

I would be interested in buying from you wholesale but given the time it takes to get records here, its not really worth the "risk" of buying 5 copies if 4 of the people who would buy it, ordered it directly from you.

Hope that makes sense.

Maybe if you want to push more distros once you get out of this debt, make it better for them, ship stuff to distros 2 weeks before everyone else gets there, or make disto-only variants, rather than VC only variants.

i've heard some of these points before, but isn't it a lot cheaper for you to sell records through your distro than when someone buys from us and adds international shipping?

right now, we have very little distro in the UK and all of our acts have been touring there. would love to work directly with you

Yeah, we have exactly the same problem at All In Vinyl (also a UK distro)- although the records being released are popular, so many people order direct off you that we find it a lot harder to sell the stuff when we get it - especially the "colour nerds" who want the limited colour that we never get copies of.

[servo]

after the last couple pages i just need to say that the traffic street guy is just a terrible human being

[gabe]

i've heard some of these points before, but isn't it a lot cheaper for you to sell records through your distro than when someone buys from us and adds international shipping?

right now, we have very little distro in the UK and all of our acts have been touring there. would love to work directly with you

Yeah, we have exactly the same problem at All In Vinyl (also a UK distro)- although the records being released are popular, so many people order direct off you that we find it a lot harder to sell the stuff when we get it - especially the "colour nerds" who want the limited colour that we never get copies of.

This could be solved if labels stopped released pressing info for the colors they do. That way they could still press on wacky colors, and if kids wanted to collect them all, they would simply look for colors they hadn't seen before. Putting a solid number on the "limited" press probably turns away tons of kids from purchasing a less "rare" version, and they end up simply snatching the MP3s online, and trolling ebay (or the VC forums) looking for that "limited" copy (which at that point neither benefits the band or the label).

[hickey]

after the last couple pages i just need to say that the traffic street guy is just a terrible human being

Are you being sarcastic or sincere? I honestly can't tell.

I love Sam's releases, but he's acting like a total douche.

[benchwarmer]

I also agree with all the talk of all the preorders. there are way too many. makes me crazy and lose track.

[mclz]

i am very happy i am not partaking in this thread

[servo]

but you just...

[flood]

instead of the 3k prize... it would be so much more effective to do like 10 prizes of 100 records each.... better odds of winning, better chance of not ending up with a retarded amount of crap you don't want

[suburbanargyle]

Also, there are laws or rules or whatever for raffles like this is described as. Hopefully if they did this they would make sure it was all on the up and up to avoid potential troubles.

[cj]

i have an idea for distros to sell more stuff at shows they're at.

bring an ipod, load it with music from the albums you're selling and let people sample the records. if some kid just wants to listen to your ipod the whole night at the show just tell him to fuck off.

and you diy distro guys think you know everything?!

[enjoyadrian]

instead of the 3k prize... it would be so much more effective to do like 10 prizes of 100 records each.... better odds of winning, better chance of not ending up with a retarded amount of crap you don't want

I really like this idea.

[brad]

Yeah, I brought up some cocern about the lottery...

Hell, why not make tickets 5 bucks and the winner gets 15 records of their choice.

Pick as many winners as possible. The whatever box worked because it was the right price and the right amount of stuff.

Model it after that and each winner picks the 15 records in the order they win the raffle.

Also, correct me if I am wrong but how does vc make money on the 75 dollar deal?

Is it just to get money up front? What happens next year if vc needs to kick back money that isn't there anymore?

It would probably work better if you can't redeem money not used

[traffic]

i will come to NH and beat you up, neil.

andrew, i think maybe the "tone" of my posts is not quite coming through as i want it to. i'm not trying to be an asshole. i'm trying to be helpful. i think the raffle thing needs to be tweaked.

[hickey]

i will come to NH and beat you up, neil.

andrew, i think maybe the "tone" of my posts is not quite coming through as i want it to. i'm not trying to be an asshole. i'm trying to be helpful. i think the raffle thing needs to be tweaked.

Fair enough, Sam. Fair enough.

[servo]

fuckin asshole cant even spell my name right...

[hickey]

fuckin asshole cant even spell my name right...

You live in NH?

[pjaicomo]

I would definitely prefer the 3,000 records. It is just so damn wacky!

[mattstrike]

Raffle and VCFL sounds great!

Looking forward to participating!

You realize that's the $1,000 package, right?

I'm just curious because I see 2 or 3 people stoked about that package and I'm trying to figure out if they are confusing it with one of the other packages. It's a nice idea for a label that we could trust to stick around, but I just don't see why anyone would plop down $1,000 up front on something like this, especially nowadays.

Whoops - good call. I don't know how I messed that up, other than the fact that I was severely exhausted last night.

Like someone else mentioned (and I agree with them), if folks were to dish out $1K like this, I would expect VC/SH to open the books for those folks and have their lawyer/CPA draft a contract. It basically seems like the VCFL deal is really asking folks to invest in the company, and since VC/SH is not public, that means becoming business partners.

Is that what you want right now Virgil? I can't say if it would be a positive or a negative. Maybe what VC/SH needs is some fresh eyes to help figure out a better biz plan. I can imagine that when yr in the thick of it, it's hard to step back and see the wider picture.

[servo]

yeah i just moved here