Other issues.
The clype. It must be the thunderstorms. Shame this, as I had a nice blog bit to do about Paul Weller.
After a conversation with a local business owner in the Grassmarket yesterday, it became apparent that some people in Edinburgh may be mistaken in certain issues about our VoxBox record shop. Just in-case these rumours have spread, I wanted to clarify a few points here as you know how word gets around.
(Edited to remove prolonged ranting and swearing)
We are amateurs and part-timers who do not know how to run a record shop.
The proof is in the pudding. We are over two years into running this thing with all of our major expenses out of the way. We keep a tidy shop. Stock is well presented and the records are kept on custom made browsers with clean record dividers. Bills are paid on time. The shop opens and closes on time (Or within 10mins, one exception being when Andy Murray was playing the Wimbledon final). I am also happy to say that we have not presided over the decline and closure of 4 record shops in the past.
We don’t sell any new records.
This simply isn’t true; we do and have done for 2 years. We make no bones about slowly branching into new vinyl. In fact, if you check, it is the first thing our website mentions. In general, we keep around 200 different factory wrapped new titles.
Well, you don’t mention this on Facebook and Twitter.
Correct. We also do not announce every time we sell a particular record either. All our new records are price checked against Amazon and local competitors. We won’t stock a new record unless we can price match Amazon + P&P.
We didn’t even know who RM Hubbert was. Sorry Hubbie. However, in our favour, we actively seek out Scottish artists who have albums out on vinyl. We are a record shop after all, not a CD shop that sells records as an afterthought. RM Hubbert’s SAY Award winning album has now been pressed on vinyl and of course we will get some copies in. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BO-oRHzCAAE-ajp.jpg:large
All we do is talk about PAWS. Erm, of course I do as I think they’re a pretty special band although admittedly, not everyone’s cup of tea. I’m going to see them support The Cribs in August and have written a gushing piece for The Cribs’ Fanzine. Love those guys. It’s a shame Matt left the group though.
Record Store Day is not meant for shops like you. You are a second hand shop that sells some new stuff whereas; we are a new shop that sells some second hand stuff.
We sell records from a shop. Record stalls sell records. Record shop sells records. Records sold by a shop should make the shop a what? Am I missing something here? Patisserie? VoxBox cakes?
Photo used by kind permission of VoxBox Music Ltd
I just don’t get it. And no, we are not responsible for any of the parody accounts. I’ve not seen the official RSD rulebook. Around 1/10th of our vinyl stock is brand new records. That ratio is on a par with that of many other RSD shops in the Grassmarket area.
We sold a record on Record Store Day that was not made available to all of the other RSD record shops. This must be the very fine Beer vs. Records release. This was clearly not intended as an official Record Store Day release. We still have a copy if anyone is interested but I think they have otherwise sold out.
The final point was regarding record stalls at the Grassmarket festival which I hope to have addressed in the previous piece although I should mention that VoxBox does not take a stall and no stall holder objected to a “record shop” opening in The Grassmarket.
After a 20 minute tirade, these words followed our hero out of the shop into the glorious Grassmarket sunshine:
“I’m expecting you not to turn up”
“If I see anyone selling records in the Grassmarket during the festival, I’m going to tell them to fun off.”
Great, everyone likes to have fun. I think he said fun, mind you, now I’m not so sure.