Big Secret Project V

…I was going to post (again) about the grand first bite of that huge record accumulation at Restore, 7 Gordon St., Dunedin Central at 10.am today….

…but was so excited about “selling” records again that I neglected to take pic’s of my very overladen car or the carefully shrouded, 20 crate lump all ready to table at the store…

…so here’s a picture I painted to look at whilst you wait for the doors to open…

…it’s one of a series of ten I did during lockdown last year…

…(cue elevator music)….

……see you at 10.a.m.

Inovation Inovation Inovation

…there are no more lps to put in the recent arrivals bin….

…everything is now filed in the “General Alphabetical” or its respective “Genre” bins……so I’ve invented this……Ladies & Gentlemen I give you the “Recent Removals” bin…stock buried in the stacks…passed over (& over) for the last 18 months or so… destined to be thrown to the Trade Me wolves…but maybe worth one more flick thru…

…de-digit your sphincters….

…only 6 more Too Tone days until the end of reality as I know it.

How I Spent Record Store Day

…experimenting with alternative packaging…now that I can’t buy small quantities of plain bags to stamp my logo on….smallest printed batch you can get done on yucky plastic is a million billion…so it’s the old-school news print roll for me…neatly in half so as not to crease the corporate image…

…also trying out hiding behind the bins…(thank you for noticing Ian, nice shot)…

….both concepts are being well received.

Internet Disservice Announcement

…one of the founding principals of Too Tone Records was that we were going to be a record store/shop that didn’t sell on line or take phone orders…

…y’know, foster musical community, get back to the basics of flicking thru stacks, meeting people with similar or intriguing musical tastes, sharing info’ and experiences….stumbling on that rare gem you didn’t know you needed…

…the basis of this principle lies in the fact that both of my previous record store/shop employers required staff to hold back rare & interesting items to be perused, removed & sold on by the “company” website… we could get away with selling it to regulars with one outfit (so long as we got good money) but it was a firable offence with the other…

…it always struck  me that the parent companies were strip mining the local resource…thus reducing what was available to listen to &/or be inspiration for the next generation of music lovers…

..why would you bother regularly visiting a shop that sold all their interesting stuff on-line???…

…and there’d be less interesting stuff available locally to turn up again in a few years time…

…apart from selling dead stock on Trademe (if it’s been in the shop for two years I ain’t gonna sell it here!) I’m  sticking to that basic principle…

…no matter what any body says about how they’d run my business….

…that  is why I don’t engage in social media or broad cast my e-mail address…

…you just end up with a bunch of grasping  knob-ends collectors who think you will help them complete their lives if they wave enough money in your face…

…which is what I told my good friend Ian who guiltily admitted to having started one (there is more than one!) of the Too Tone records unauthorised Facebook pages….

…Ian is beginning to receive an increasing bunch of communications from knob ends people outside Dunedin….waving fists full of cash and clutching the front of their trousers (yep – all guys)…

…he dutifully draws them to my attention and always gets the same reply…

..nope, I don’t do requests or lists…or soften to pleading…

…get in a car or a plane or a combination of the two and get your spoilt, lazy, internet-oriented arses down here…I have no objection to you walking thru my door to buy stuff….in fact it’s always fun to see folk from outta town and talk crap about record shopping from around the world…it’s good for the rest of Dunedin’s economy as a whole as well, if you visit….

…make some fucking effort….I’m not in this to make bucket loads of cash, I’m in it to share my experience of music… I’m polite enough if I’m being fed regular…..

…and for those of you who are too lazy to support your local record shop on any other day than Record Store Day (clammering over a bunch of exclusive releases like they are mana from heaven) & shop on line the rest of the year….

 

 

… (there you go Ian, just link them to this, save a shit load of typing on both our parts!).

Boring Boring Boring

…boring housekeeping stuff…

 

…film at 11.

 

…(and to re-enforse my faith in the justice system they even sent me out a “your application to be excused from jury duty” letter…after they’d made a fuss about my “acknowledgement of receiving your request that I attend” letter was put in the post in an untimely manner and I had to reassure them on the phone that I’d be there!)….

 

…(mmm, justice system).

Signs Of An Improving Economy

…to protect his identity the customer who came in with this beautiful example of a plastic money box shall be here in referred to as “B”….

….customer “B”….

 

…encouraging news on the financial front, folks…

…the economy has lifted enough so that, not only can customer “B” afford to buy a house, but he can also squander the remainder of his life savings on records…..

 

…or is that… now that customer “B” has bought a house he is reduced to cat burgling children’s money boxes to support his record buying habit?…

…(and yes , this is really how customer “B” paid for his latest vinyl fix…and as far as I’m aware, no children were robbed in  the making of his purchase).