RSD 2014

Everybody and their grandmother has already posted about their Record Store Day scores. Or so it seems. Well, with only two and a half weeks of delay, I'm finally chiming in here.
But first of all, let's talk about Record Store Day here for a minute. Introducing such a day was a really good idea and it still is a cause that is worthy of support if you can help out your local record store and bring in some extra cash. It's also cool if long out of print records are re-issued and you can save some money by buying reasonably priced re-issues rather than paying an arm and a leg for originals. Originals are way cooler of course, but sometimes I'm not interested in having an early edition, special colour or things like that and I just want to have the records for the music. There are also some records that are just waaaaay too expensive, so if RSD provides an opportunity to pick up some cheap re-issues, I'm all for that. That's the upside of RSD. On the downside, RSD could also be called Record Flipping Day nowadays since a myriad of people crawl out of the woodwork, who probably buy records once a year and that is - you might have guessed correctly - on RSD, just so they can run home and put them on eBay to flip them. If you're not interested in the records and buy them just so you can make money off of them, fuck off. End of rant.

One of the more bizarre developments surrounding RSD is that you can actually pre-order certain records from labels directly. Defies the whole purpose of RSD somehow, but that's the way it is in 2014. I shouldn't really complain about that thought, because without being able to pre-order, I probably would have never got my hands on these two records. I'm talking about the re-issues of the two The Fix 7"s released by Touch and Go. Well, actually only 300 were up for pre-order, the other 700 were sold on RSD in stores. I don't want to twist the truth here just for a dramatic effect. These records are classics, and rightly so, and I really dig them, but there's no way I'd have ever spent the kind of money that these two records usually go for. So I'm really happy that Touch and Go decided to re-issue them and I'm even happier that they didn't botch these re-issues like they did with the Negative Approach 7". If you've ever seen the new cover, you know what I'm talking about. What I don't like about this re-issue at all is the fact that they come with autographs. Really? Like, really? Autographs on hardcore 7"s? Why? Who cares about shit like that?

I didn't actually go out on RSD to hunt for records. Partly because I didn't really care about most of the records that were released, except for the two The Fix 7"s, which I had already pre-ordered. Partly because there are no record stores I could have gone to where I live.
However, I went to Prague the day after RSD and spent a couple of days there. On our last day, we had some time to kill and I checked if there were any good record stores close by. So we went to Rekomando, a record store with a rather large hardcore and punk section. They still had copies of the Battery and Up Front LPs, among others, and I finally caved in and bought both of them. I had wanted the Battery LP for a long time, and would have been pleased with a black copy, too, but since this orange version was sitting right in front of me, I decided to pick it up. I kind of regret it now since Rev has released a maroon version in the meantime, which looks so much better than the orange vinyl. Maybe I'll 'upgrade' it soon.