Road Records celebrate Record Store Day tomorrow April 19th with an array of in-store performances and a four-day sale…I’m marking Record Store Day by celebrating Road.

Befitting a capital city, Dublin is home to many small music shops. Some are well-stocked, bright and airy, catering to specialist demands while some, like Sound Cellar, are dark and gloomy but well-stocked nonetheless. Tucked off South Great Georges’ Street, its mythical status furthered by necessary initiation/directions to find it, Road Records is an established pinnacle of independent music. No other retailer in Ireland can challenge its reputation as an invaluable resource for bands and fans alike and many a mega-friended MySpace bears the store’s avatar with pride.

In days of old, fashions and follies of what sold dictated a condensed music circuit across the country. Experimental acts were confined to achieving popularity in the immediate vicinity, possibilities of broadening beyond local venues much slimmer than today. Scenes have burgeoned in Ireland of recent years as, no longer restricted to pirate radio or crackly cassettes, the Internet connects music across miles. Zip files, CDs and online profiles mean even the smallest Wexford band can now compete on a national level and self-release without the need for discovery on record labels. Thanks to the relaxation of mega-corps’ hold, more bands thrive than ever before. Albums are attainable targets to those talented enough to recognise the necessary ingredients of drive, demand and dedication to perfect their product. Bands now have more scope and leeway to attain creative heights by working in tandem with a new model of music business. The vibrance of the current industry is not down to hype or jelly beans but rather a broadening of sub-culture and influence, sticky greed of a hand in the global honeypot of music apparent to all in the information age where choice abounds.

Our music market is dominated by chains of stores with uniforms, point-of-sale displays and racks of dross. *shrugs* Inevitable. HMV and Tower do their bit for local music by way of intermittent stocks of records and live in-store performances…in fact, some of these huge chains do more for unsigned musicians than the record stores of their hometown. In researching this piece, I’ve been appalled by the brick wall of shoddy retailers around the country, some small chains themselves, who make little or no effort to cater for varied demand. Go to the corner of the old-schoolroom, Zhivago and Heartbeat City, and bring this shoddy estimate of Irish music with you!
Websites are also in a dire state. I shudder to think of hard work reaching ears of cousins in Tokyo or Toronto, who then browse for Irish music online. What the fuck is up with the majority of sites designed with all the flair of a 1998 Geocities account? Plug’d and Spindizzy, sort yourselves out and get on the Net. MySpace is not enough!
On the plus side, I’ve discovered there are some fabulous small shops in towns around the country who make overt efforts to source, stock and sustain alternative music. Plugd Records in Cork hold a staggering vinyl collection, Bell Book and Candle in Galway (tsk! don’t have a website!) hosts its own summer events of live music and readings. No doubt there are others…feel free to nominate your local favourites or even bitch about the standards in your local stores. An obscure thread even exists online entirely devoted to lamenting Galway’s array: “…eclectic selection but a miserable bastard of an owner - dude you own a record shop, cheer up!”

Describing Road Records as an oasis of serenity amid the tacky bustle of the city would be a touch flowery: there’s no cafe, gallery or even a carpet but there’s charm: racks of it. Gentleness and warmth waft across the wooden boards, allowing browsers to muse without hawkish scrutinity, hands skip over recycled plastic under big windows and posters. Live music photographs once adorned the walls, a by-product of encompassing yen now available to purchase and replaced instead with bright posters advertising the latest, coolest gigs in town. It’s just a shop, just a yellow portal.
Deeply frustrated with M.O.R mainstream stockists’ failure to facilitate unusual requests, Dave and Julie set up on Fade Street in 1997. A mutual respect for vast musical spectrums beyond chart confines provided a simplistic ethos: Good? Sell! Canadian folk, Carlow freaky folk, Japanese post-rock or Derry’s brightest hope, one genre rules them all: decency. They stock CDs, often just five at a time, released by groups around the country. Working to dispel at least some demand for a generic career in order to release succesfully, it’s marvellous but really shouldn’t be such a big deal. The guys are merely supporting the talent on the doorstep as well as in the heavens.
At Road, as much work goes into presenting the goods to customers as the actual sourcing itself. Their newsletter dropped into my inbox last night, a rare, readable circular. Funds don’t allow for enough real-time visits but biscuits go well with tea and bite-sized breakdowns of latest stocks, always clearly written and with an open mind. There’s no pressure to buy but I find myself wanting to be there, sifting through these tunes. It’s fun and a pleasure to keep an eye on what’s new in, who’s been reviewed. Interest, quality and honesty of writing reveals why these people own records rather than write about them and yet write about them anyway. Every product on the shelves (real and virtual) boasts a personalised label and should curious customers come looking, they find a discreet wealth of knowledge waiting at the counter. Not born-again to the Church of Revelatory Retail or driven by marketing fads, Road Records operates on nontheless golden principles: know your game. Know what you’re selling, who the bands are, where they’ve been and why they’re good. Know your customers and what they want. Memorise faces and preferences, offer suggestions. Be a goddamn Record Store!
Risk is a beautiful word when associated with music. DJs venture hazardous tracks to edgy crowds, journalists sensationalise, bands meander off-course…record stores take chances. Specific markets are the key, if an outlet can provide a unique product in a passionate environment there will always be a profit to made. However relying on utterly selfish opinions is a major risk in business. All individual stores target audiences with appealing provisions, whether vinyl, rare or random releases. Road’s decision to actively promote upcoming Irish music is what has made it such a radical venture. Scaremongering is rife with miserable statements regarding sales figures and low-margin Internet chains monopolising susceptible markets. Giants are always on hand to cut their own throat to lower prices…and the throats of smaller retailers too. We’ve known this for a while. How to combat the heavy-hand? Remind and re-invigorate customers with the real buzz of record retail: personality, preference and pride. No one holes-in to Amazon with ginger nuts or drops customer support a line because they were just passing.
Record Store Day was initiated with an aim to celebrate the enduring presence of independent retailers despite the huge pressures of conglomerations.
Dave explains Roads’ reasons for becoming the only Irish store to participate in the event:
“We decided to get involved after reading some of the info and quotes on the Record Store Day website and felt it was something that we should really participate in. The shop is very much an old-style indie store and the whole campaign is about making people aware that stores like us still exist and we are not just smelly second-hand shops selling old music that nobody wants to hear anymore.
We like the whole idea behind the campaign because they are trying to concentrate more on the positive side of things instead of just sitting back and complaining about the ever changing music industry. I feel its really about getting people back into small stores where the staff are always more knowledgeable and also where you are more likely to get a much more personal service. Of course it’s also about getting people away from their computers and learning how to communicate with other human beings again.”

Dave and Julie combined business acumen in recognising the lack of retail resources for national independent music and the burgeoning economy of eclectic, excited consumers who are prepared to pay for legitimate copies of latest discoveries. The decision to stock artists’ self-releases saw Road inundated with quality Irish products, essentially cementing a lucrative niche in the record store industry. Unassuming as the store may be, its role in shaping the new ’scene’ is immense, a steady framework of support across the evolving market hammering a reputation as reliable resource for home-grown talent. Forget Zulu and your Rough Trade, though it’s fun to swank, arsey notions of hipness don’t get past the Fade Street door. It’s not that Irish music isn’t good enough right now: it’s as good as we’ve got it right now.

Music lovers across the globe show a united front on 19 April in support for local independent record stores. Based in America, a variety of musicians and owners have chipped in with support for the cause. At SXSW in March, Metallica announced a role in launching the occasion with their first-instore performance and meet&greet in almost a decade. Check out the main website and YouTube for more info!

To celebrate Record Store Day here at home, Road Records have decided to have a special four-day sale from Saturday 19 April to Wednesday 23. Saturday sees visits from some of Irelands best-loved artists: David Kitt, Pugwash, Mumbling Deaf Ro, Mark Geary, John Hegarty, Crayonsmith and Rebecca Collins will help Dave and Julie celebrate Record Store Day with lots of acoustic instore specials! With the exception of the staff themselves there’ll be 20% off absolutely everything in the shop, including CDs and vinyl, both new and second hand. Unfortunately the sale will not extend to online sales, however Road Recs now offer free postage on all online orders in Ireland.

The Line-Up:

12.00 - Crayonsmith
12.30 - Mumblin Deaf Ro
1.00 - Pugwash
1.30 - Rececca Collins
2.00 - Spook Of The Thirteenth Lock
3.00 - Mark Geary
3.30 - Lauren Guillery
4.30 - John Hegarty
5.00 - David Kitt

http://www.roadrecs.com/scene/news.php

I’m off to get a badge…see you there tomorrow!

This entry was posted on Friday, April 18th, 2008 at 12:19 pm and is filed under Culture, Underground, Unsigned Bands, Photography, Music, gigs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.