OFF: Krankschaft April Update

[Jonathan Jarrett]

On Sat, 2 Apr 2011, SUBSCRIBE SATAN!!! wrote:
> Of course I like Jamun's enthusiasm for vinyl, and that's a common bond 
> for us- So anyway, I am not trying to "salt" a "wound" (I swear), but it 
> appears from hearing my friend tell me about record shops here in Texas 
> and my local dealer, etc, that "kids" are getting tired of downloads and 
> many are hungry for a solid piece of plastic like an LP, and vinyl is 
> selling like crazy here again. My local dealer Randy, who had and 
> probably still is one of the best shops in Texas, has basically gone 
> "all vinyl" and runs his show solo now on just vinyl. He does offer some 
> CDs, but very few. Anyway, I was just wondering how big Farflung is now, 
> because I recall they managed to get a limited vinyl pressed of that 
> last one.

 	I think there are two crucial factors here, which are numbers and 
knowing your market, and these factors may be dissipating now. If I 
understand things right, the `economy' of vinyl kicks in because getting a 
commercial press of CDs made is quite expensive below numbers in the 
mid-to-high hundreds. Of course, in really high numbers the unit costs 
gets so low that it's negligible once averaged, but the starting cost is 
quite a large lump. For vinyl, for some reason, this is less the case, and 
thus you find more people willing to press small runs of vinyl. So if you 
only expect to shift three hundred or so, say, vinyl might make sense, if 
you know that your fans will buy it. Obviously if none of your fans have 
turntables and all listen to stuff on MP3 you are not that band, and if 
you don't know what they like you may be unwise to gamble. But some bands 
manage this: ST37 seem to release on vinyl as often as on CD, Steven 
Wilson of Porcupine Tree does limited releases of his side-projects on 
vinyl and as Mike says, Farflung too. There are probably non-space/kraut-
rock bands to whom all this also applies but what would I know about them?

 	The reason I think this may be dissipating is that I have got the 
idea, I'm not sure from where so maybe it's wrong, that the CD costs have 
been coming down lately so the disadvantage of small CD runs may be 
getting less. In that case Mike's Texan speciality outlets may have to 
change their ways in a while. But I kind of hope not, because I like the 
idea that if you can only afford a small run you can at least make it an 
artefact to be proud of. Yours,
 				Jon

ObCD: Gong - _2032_ (which is relievingly good but man, doesn't Steve 
Hillage look like Bill Gates now?)
-- 
       Jonathan Jarrett, Oxford       jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk
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  "With Capitalism, man exploits man.  With Socialism, it is exactly opposite"
 	                 -Robert Anton Wilson