Justin Johnson- Darkside Records (Poughkeepsie, NY)
I never doubted that this was going to be a great RSD Drop, but I also wouldn't have predicted this outcome. Saturday was actually a year to the day since we re-opened our doors to the public since the pandemic began and while we didn't roll out all of our usual RSD fanfare, the results of the day still prove that the day really is about the music, the artists and the stores being celebrated and discovered by our communities.
We have a fairly regular crew who tend to make up the beginning of the line each year. They're people who have met in line for years now, and continue to meet each week on our Monday night #UsedTues live video on Facebook. To step back for a second, it's pretty humbling to think that the only reason most of the people know each other, keep in touch and have become real friends, is because of our store and all the amazing effort you labels, distributors, reps, admins and everyone else put into making these days happen. They probably have never considered who you are or what you do, and maybe the same from you to them, but just know that from behind your spreadsheets and emails you're actually bringing real humans together and giving them even some small joy. That's pretty awesome of you. Store that away somewhere for when you may need it next.
Our first person in line was 3:57pm on Friday, a new best time for us! He's was one of our regulars who drove down from Albany (hour and a half away) and camped out overnight. By the time I left the store around 10:30 Friday night, the line had already swelled to 15 dedicated souls. When I arrived back at the store around 8am, the line was wrapped around all sides of the building and wrapped back around towards the beginning of the line. RSD ouroboros. From the time we opened our doors at 9am to the last person who was waiting in the initial line outside, we had reached almost 2pm.
One of the most noticeable parts of the day was just how many new faces we saw. Of course so many of our regulars came out too, but if I had to guess, I'd say 50% of the people in line were new to us. We've always done RSD menu style, with the releases tucked away with us and everyone comes up to the counter to place their "order". I've never had to tell as many people that's how it works as I did this year, and they all seemed delighted that it was so organized and smooth. We had more inventory than ever and so many people who came later were delighted that their must have release was still there waiting for them. If you're curious, you can check out our Menu here.
The flow of people in and out stayed steady all day long and it felt like the usual lulls in the afternoon were less noticeable. There were always 10-20 people milling about, digging through the bins and bringing their stacks up to the register.
We always like to raise some money for a local cause each RSD, and this time around we chose the Dutchess County SPCA. Dontations for free ice cream from our friends at Ben & Jerry's of Albany + raffle tickets for the Warner Records prize pack we received to give away garnered $600 the puppies and kittens! We also partnered with our favorite local coffee shop The Poughkeepsie Grind to to keep everyone caffeinated.
The earliest titles with the highest demand included Ariana Grande, Haim/Taylor Swift, Linkin Park, Lady Gaga, Shrek Score, Alkaline Trio, Warren Zevon, and The Wipers. There were many other titles that we had lower quantities on that also sold out quickly.
A few titles we were surprised to see slow movement on, such as The Cure pic disc, The Who, Rolling Stones 10", Iggy Pop, and Elton John, among a few others. I can say with confidence though, that despite having brought in more stock than ever before and having a slightly lower initial sell through rate than I am used to, I feel a great amount of confidence with our stock of remaining exclusives to keep performing in our bins.
The demand for vinyl as we all know has exploded as people found a new hobby during their time in isolation. It's evident not only on these big days, but on the days of the week that now look like what weekend days used to be. And the weekend days? It's all hands on deck since we've reopened and Sundays have tended to be our second busiest day of the week. We're here for it and ready to keep pushing on. The challenges we all face with just getting product aren't going away anytime soon, so we're buying most major catalog and some new releases with an eye on the end of the year and beyond. I know that new releases are sexy, but catalog vinyl is the tortoise in this race that's going to keep us moving towards the finish line. Thank you all for the bigger runs on RSD titles this year, and let's keep pushing them up because we're ready to keep going bigger and making more happy customers. Bring on July 17th!
Many thanks to all the labels, distributors and reps who worked to give us great product to produce these awesome results. These days aren't possible with all of your efforts and we're truly thankful for all of you. If you have any more specific questions, please feel to reach out directly.
Jim Bland- Plan 9 (Richmond, VA)
Plan 9 RSD 1st Drop 2021
After things opened up, we bailed on the lottery early on, let folks know they could line up when/as they wished.
Had about 75 in line at 8:30. Limited 20 in store at a time to shop RSD titles only. The flow went very well, customers
appreciative of the way we handled things,and were totally cooperative as usual. Late-comers kept falling in line but we were able
to open the store to full-on shopping by noon. Busy all day.
Surprised by some titles that didn't sell thru (or we over ordered)- Conor,Devo, Jeezy, Wipers.
Under ordered Adriana Grande, Lady Ga Ga, lost many potential sales on G Dead, Police, Prince, Linkin Park, and more.
As we all have been grumbling, in most cases the quantities available have long lost any real correlation to demand.
Overall sell-thru was an unprecedented 85%- so we should've ordered more?!
Sales were 67% 2020's total, 78% of 2019.
Mike Fratt- Homers (Omaha, NE)
Homers RSD 2021 Drops #1
We had the usual crowd with most arriving in the 8am hour
Weekend was very strong and Drops #1 was about 61% of
combined total for all 3 Drops in 2020. Day was bigger than any of 2020 Drops days
Heavy allocations probably carved off two to five thousand
in business for Sat/Sun. A title should not be allowed in RSD
if pressing is under 1500, if not 2500.
Sell-through sits at 60% right now.
over ordered, Stillwater, Neon Christ, Gruntruck, IDKHTFM
Flaming Lips, Devo, Cure(fans are tired of pic discs)
under allocated (we ordered more but got less)-
all hip hop titles, linkin park, police, g dead,
lady gaga, haim,
under ordered
ariana grande, prince, dirty heads, jim croce
Matt Vaughan- Easy Street ( Seattle, WA)
SEE: EASY STREET VIDEO WRAP UP HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrHpILgPwgM
We finished up the chunk of our year-long remodel the night before RSD. It was great to finally clean the shop up and see what we accomplished. For many of our customers they hadn’t been in since pre-Covid, so I think they were pleased to see we made some improvements. We are now 2 levels vinyl. We have a full selection of rock tees, an Easy Street merch area, and a hi-fi wall of turntables. We painted floor to ceiling, inside and out. We fixed our windows near ceiling so they can open, better airflow, tore down some walls to expose the brick and mortar. CDs are more presentable…we even added 2 bins last month. Huh, wha?
…..and oh yeah, we opened our cocktail vinyl bar in the vinyl mezzanine. This might be what we are most excited about. It was a tricky and painstaking process….having a bar with booze in a retail environment, where kids are running around, but we must’ve paid off the right person. Health dept and liquor board signed off on us just days before RSD. Kinda blew folks minds to be able to have a Bloody Mary (“Proud Mary”) while shopping for records. Blew mine.
We are still at Phase 3 here in Seattle. That is scheduled to be lifted on June 30. We removed all plexi from our counters the night before RSD.
As for RSD sales, we did about ½ of what we would normally do pre-Covid, but it’s better than the ¼ we were doing last year’s RSD’s.
We had some serious stock and shipping issues. It finally happened to us. About 60 of our WEA/Universal titles were lost. Tom Petty, Black Sabbath, Doors….we never got any of those, nor will we. We did get a shipment in around noon. It had about half of the rest. Made for a stressful 24 hours for sure, but thankfully Erik Freeman at AEC was following up and getting us updates. It was a challenge. Had it not been a Covid year, I’m not sure our customers would’ve bought our excuses. For those with high anxiety, we directed them to a handful of local stores. Thankfully, we are the first ones open, so it did give the night owls the opportunity to hustle to another store in time.
Titles like Replacements, Donny Hathaway, Stillwater, Police, Monk…we had only got a fraction of what was initially confirmed, so numbers here definitely less than expected.
Thankfully, we got our Gruntruck, 100 are still out on a truck somewhere. We hosted a signing with the band. For many here, Gruntruck wasn’t on your radar, but to Seattle fans, this one meant a lot to us. As the acclaimed author Charles Cross said on the hype sticker “this is the band Seattle wouldn’t let you have” or as legendary producer Jack Endino said, “Gruntruck Push should’ve been 10x platinum”. If anyone that likes that late 80’s/early 90’s Seattle sound (u know what I’m talkin bout), this might’ve been the purest example of it, although heavier than most. They are legends here in Seattle, especially West Seattle. I wrote an article about the band leading up to the release. If you are at all curious about the early inception of Easy Street and all that, it’s in there too, coincides.https://www.revolutioncomeandgone.com
Looking forward to July 17 ! We’ll also be celebrating our 33 1/3 Anniversary at some point this year.
7”
1 MUDHONEY / MEAT 40
2 HAIM 30
3 WICKED AS IT SEEMS ( RICHARDS,KEITH) 10
4 RUBY SESSIONS (RSD) GUN CLUB 10
5 SAINT OF LOST CAUSES EARLE,STEVE 5
LP
1 PUSH GRUNTRUCK 175
2 TRUTH PRINCE 50
3 BATTLE OF MEXICO RAGE AGAINST TH 45
4 LIVE AT KILMAINHAM FONTAINES D.C. 40
5 HERE COMES THAT WEIR LANEGAN,MARK 40
6 PEARL JOPLIN,JANIS 20
7 YOUTH OF AMERICA WIPERS 20
8 OPEN & CLOSE KUTI,FELA 20
9 LIVE VOL. 2: ATLANTA POLICE 20
10 METEORA LINKIN PARK 20
11 FIRE (40TH ANNIVERSA U2 15
12 BEAUTY PROCESS - TRI L7 15
13 FUNKY KINGSTON TOOTS & MAYTALS 15
14 LIVE AT MASSEY HALL TEARS FOR FEARS 15
15 REGIMENTAL SGT. ZIPP JOHN,ELTON 15
16 OLYMPIA THEATRE, PARIS GRATEFUL DEAD 15
17 SOFT BULLETIN COMPAN FLAMING LIPS 15
18 JUNCO PARTNER (ACOUS STRUMMER,JOE 12
19 DON'T WORRY ABOUT ME RAMONE,JOEY 12
20 ST VALENTINES DAY MOTORHEAD 12
21 MOTHER MARY / UFO 12
22 K BYE FOR NOW GRANDE,ARIANA 12
23 AT KNEBWORTH 19 PLANT,ROBERT 12
24 PLEASURE'S ALL YOURS REPLACEMENTS 12
25 TWO AGAINST NATURE STEELY DAN 12
26 ACID INCENSE AND BAL JEFFERSON AIRPL 10
27 SOUL SLABS VOL. 3 10
28 PINATA: 1984 VERSION GIBBS,FREDDIE & 10
29 GOONIES (SCORE) / O. GRUSIN,DAVE 10
30 FOOL (ANDREW WEATHER WARPAINT 10
31 CHEREE SUICIDE 10
32 HYPERSPACE (2020) BECK 10
33 STILLWATER DEMOS STILLWATER 10
34 SUBLIME MEETS SCIENT SUBLIME 10
35 EVERYTHING MUST GO STEELY DAN 10
36 HAVING A PARTY: SUN HAVING A PARTY: 10
37 NO GODS NO MASTERS GARBAGE 8
38 LOVE & POISON LONDON SUEDE 8
39 FACE DANCES WHO 8
40 WHO KILL TUNE-YARDS 8
