Been following a lot of talks of people after the discogs announcement, but also long before. Also noticed increase of intentionally "difficult ways" of ordering stuff. Meaning things like David Gilden tape box being announced at noise podcast, not much elsewhere, and sold strictly to people who reserve it via email but must send cash money in letter to buy it. There was more interests that copies of the tape box, so clearly people still willing...
F&V label mentioned it's cash only these days.
From Special Interests magazine, you find at least one ad that has mailing address and cash request to be able to get... something? Not even sure what exactly.
Old style industrial methods of "send back the coupon and payment and you will get..." -type of things seem to be rare.
I was member in Aural Hypnox thing, where you paid some cash money and once in a while did receive envelope filled with stuff that was not for sale. Tape. silk screen prints, all sorts of strange things.
I do have mixed feeling of "difficult way". As the currently popular methods are difficult to swallow.
I don't remember have I ever bought the currently popular pre-order items. I am just not in the mood. If it is pre-order only, never available again, I probably live without out. If they will be available later, I'll take then. If I bought some pre-order, it is something I already forgot.
In other hand, I have sent cash via mail, sent emails to people directly, ordered things that are not "listed anywhere", not place in store. Even just this week, I was browsing one PDF list of distro stocks and sending email that I could take this and that, and let me know where to pay... Items that probably would be somewhere in webstore in automatic system, but as person sent me pdf via email and asked anything there I need... well, didn't browse further than section of artists starting with A, and I already have Marja Ahti, Above The Ruins and Arv & Miljö LP's that was enough for one purchase.. Stuff I know is out there, but it really needed the supposed "difficult way" as opposed to the easy way of navigating into known platform and insert items into cart.
So yes, buying items in all sorts of ways, but I also acknowledge that for a lot of people it may seems like gimmicky. And I also see how it may simply put things in perspective. Do you buy something because you really want to, or do you grab something from list just because it is there, and you get it for same effort and same shipping costs?
Why cash in letter? Why send email? Why not just... bigcartel or such, to save everybodys time? Why labels or artists would insist something expensive, and not try to get items to mailorders where customers can get them fast and easy? Not long ago, I was watching the CD series of the Ideal (swe), ltd 70 copies CD's exclusively sold by themselves, in method of funding label. Handful of items that were interesting... but then again, just didn't do it. If Sewer Election CD would have been sold by Finn distro I buy stuff anyways, I would have grabbed it for sure. Now, I'll get by. It is not even difficult at all, but funny how just logging on some other webstore where you do not usually order, may be enough "difficult", that you'll skip the item.
So question, as in topic: Last time you bought item in "difficult way". Out of necessity, or was it somehow more interesting? Is there point in forcing listeners to somehow engage, demand something beyond current eCommerce routines, simply as part of the experience?
I think this kind of "small circles" or mysterious small labels/initiatives/whatever can be a real underground thing or can be considered as a marketing strategy, with the whole greyscale in between. I understand that some artists just want to do more private releases (I remember Puce Mary selling some tapes through her Email contact only), on the other hand, this feeds the flipper market, especially in the case of known artists, I think everybody sees the prices, for example, the Genocide Organ 7''/10'' reach on Discogs.
For sure not accepting Paypal these days implicit a precise will to detach from the "mainstream" of distribution through the bigger platforms, and I can understand it, in an "underground" scene which follows steadily the footprints of a shopping mall and which tends to forget quite quickly all those who aren't on the crest of the wave (which means, all those there's not that much "buzz" around). This mirrors the world of frantic information we live in, in the end. So I completely understand that some people just do not want to deal with it anymore. I would bet that those who "come back to the root" of the money in an envelope are those who have been already used to it and probably addressing a target equally old. I can't imagine a nowadays 20-30 year old sending money in a letter or probably even writing an Email to order stuff.
I have a different view, as someone old enough to remember when ordering involved writing a letter, listing what you want and then listing alternatives in case something had sold out, adding a cheque and then waiting weeks, well, I have no desire to engage in that sort of hassle again. So I wonder if this new wave if cash in an envelope is targeted to a younger crowd less jaded?
Quote from: Kayandah on May 13, 2023, 11:50:34 AM
I have a different view, as someone old enough to remember when ordering involved writing a letter, listing what you want and then listing alternatives in case something had sold out, adding a cheque and then waiting weeks, well, I have no desire to engage in that sort of hassle again. So I wonder if this new wave if cash in an envelope is targeted to a younger crowd less jaded?
Like yourself, I remember "the good old days" and am greatly glad they're not these days any more. From what I understand, younger people have got this fetish about analog stuff. Friends of mine that run distros/micro-labels (not many friends like that these days) tell me that people will without a doubt splash out on gimmicky coloured vinyl etc but hardly touch cds, even. It's in stark contrast to the mainstream streamer types and I think that's meant to be the point.
The younger gen types I've encountered seem to have this bizarre nostalgia for decades they weren't even born in. Perhaps they're bamboozled by this "authenticity" bollocks that some people seem to want. Can't remember where I read it right now, so please don't ask, but I read some article about record shops and vinyl records where people were admitting they just brought them without listening to them. I can't really second guess intentions I don't understand, so I can only speculate. It just astonishes me sometimes.
Anyway, to answer Mikko's question - I was buying stuff from distros, Discogs, etc, as well as swapping tapes and so on up 'till I think the mid-late '10's. But even then, payment was all online (I remember the common term from the Troniks forum was "Paypal'd!". The second was "any US distros?"). I think I can understand F&V's intentions when dealing with cash, and I would imagine other similar types dealing with cash for similar reasons. But I wouldn't risk it. I've got enough Bizarre Uproar and F&V releases to last me good enough anyway.
Quote from: Andrew McIntosh on May 13, 2023, 01:06:14 PM
Can't remember where I read it right now, so please don't ask, but I read some article about record shops and vinyl records where people were admitting they just brought them without listening to them.
for example:
https://www.nme.com/news/music/study-finds-50-per-cent-of-vinyl-buyers-in-us-dont-have-a-record-player-3437301
Most recently I bought Worth - Hamper from Aussaat by sending an email. Because I wanted it straight away, and because I'm usually too slow to grab one of the five to ten copies stocked by my go-to distros. Just suits me better, going straight to the source via email.
Quote from: FreakAnimalFinland on May 13, 2023, 01:45:39 PM
Quote from: Andrew McIntosh on May 13, 2023, 01:06:14 PM
Can't remember where I read it right now, so please don't ask, but I read some article about record shops and vinyl records where people were admitting they just brought them without listening to them.
for example:
https://www.nme.com/news/music/study-finds-50-per-cent-of-vinyl-buyers-in-us-dont-have-a-record-player-3437301
That's why they call it Record Store Day - the focus isn't on playing the records, but storing them.
I'm not a big fan of sending cash to get records nowadays. I don't see the point if you have a paypal account.
For F&V, he only accepts cash because he got banned from paypal, so this is a good reason to do it at least
Quote from: Kayandah on May 13, 2023, 11:50:34 AM
I have a different view, as someone old enough to remember when ordering involved writing a letter, listing what you want and then listing alternatives in case something had sold out, adding a cheque and then waiting weeks, well, I have no desire to engage in that sort of hassle again. So I wonder if this new wave if cash in an envelope is targeted to a younger crowd less jaded?
Neither do I, although I find it fascinating. But I am a first-era-internet kid and I like the advantages the Internet brought. But the decency limit has trespassed already since a few years already, and it is almost ridicule that a supposed extreme underground music (I limit myself to metal and industrial-related genres) doesn't even have a turntable to play his records or refuses to order stuff because there is no bigcartel or store and has to download a Word Doc List and write an Email to the guy.
The difficult way with many wanted releases nowdays is the bigcartel way where the fastest wins. Now i understand i was wrong when i asked a distro for newsletter. One may think with email is still the fastest wins, no, it's the laziest loose.
Cash-in-letter i find it risky, but it was riskier in the past. Noone at this day will think a letter hides cash inside ! Still what's the point if there is an alternative ? Instead to feed Paypal / banks, we feed postal services.
Yes, i see a point in 'subscription' / underground operations. But i would expect such operations to ban anyone flipping their stuff.
When Tommy Carlsson was doing those Mania reissues, there was an ad for a special offer to get the Treriksröset "Untitled" CDR but it was cash only. I figured why not so went ahead. Few weeks later I get the cdr in the mail with a note from Tommy saying something like "I can count the number of people who have actually sent money in the mail for this cdr on one hand." That really surprised me.
Also bought recently from FV. I was looking for one release in particular and ended up finding a couple more from my wantlist that I had thought were long gone - and yet here they were.
Throwing in a couple of extra goodies or even a hand written note goes a long way for me. Much more personable than a bigcartel receipt.
But yeah, I too was growing up during the rise of the internet when you would see all of these mailorder catalogs start to hop on the world wide web and move everything there. So maybe the old ways of ordering, for me, is for nostalgia or being able to do something that I just barely missed out on.
Some three years ago I signed into Instagram because it was the hard(and then only way to get some very rare items)way to me to get some physical releases. If I look back now I have no difficulties, If I don't doubt what actual problems logistic servicer afford to us nowadays.
Quote from: FreakAnimalFinland on May 13, 2023, 01:45:39 PMfor example:
https://www.nme.com/news/music/study-finds-50-per-cent-of-vinyl-buyers-in-us-dont-have-a-record-player-3437301
Ah, that's the one, thanks.
Peak consumption. Buying a record means buying an object. I mentioned on this forum before, the band Hi God People released an album in the form of a home made biscuit. You could listen to any actual music with the download code. It's an innovative and rather clever way to do it, but I'm not surprised there wasn't a take-up of people releasing all sorts of other objects with download codes, because it seems that it's the image of the vinyl album and its packaging itself that's the desired consumer item.
In many cases, buying object has a purpose for those who buy it and those who create it. We can see the same with books. Now that almost all books are published as ebooks and also published as audiobooks, there is reaction for this. Generic detective books and entertainment remains as flashy paperbacks, but somewhat "higher literature", has had new wave of appreciation of quality object. Paper, print quality, cover, its graphics, dimensions of the book, typeface, tactile qualities overall. You can listen audio book, or you can read ebook online, yet for the book fans, there is more. It would be foolish to say "it is the same text, so why?". There are entire companies who treat book as artform itself. Its form, design, experimental qualities of bookbinding.
Very similar to what can be done in context of noise. If you just want to read ebook - meaning, just listen to noise, there is often possibility. If that is not enough, there is that other alternative that may require you a bit.
I think contemporary mainstream vinyl bullshit and pretty much also tape mania is quite opposite. Some warped shitty sounding piece of color vinyl in shelves, unopened, unplayed, isn't really art object, but commercial trash. In case of noise, we probably have a bit of both. Some physical trash, but also items which physicality contributes to sound art itself.
This leads to topic of "difficult way" here:
For artists or label, it may be NECESSARY to make release in specific way, or it is not filling its purpose. Like myself. Just uploading thing on youtube or bandcamp, it just doesn't give me the feeling what finished object does. It is not completed task, final piece of art.
The release may exist solely because of what the packaging is. Without packaging and process of making thing, it wouldn't even exist as a release. Not because sound sucks ass, but because for creator, the sound alone is not what it is about.
Some others may want to dub every tape themselves, to make sure sound is loud and crisp. Check every tape a bit that it sounds good. It sets it apart from bulk manufacturing. Make packaging yourself, that it wouldn't be just another bulk digipak cd. In such scenario, work happens most of all because it is what that expression is. Not biz of reaching maximized amount of customers at terms those customers demand, but in terms of what inspired maker as person. It wouldn't be the same when you remove all the physicality and all the personal manual labor of love. Like customer couldn't walk to carpenter and demand him provide IKEA furniture. It's not what he does.
This may lead into situation, that people who want to own and hear it, just need to do little legwork. Like, contact artists or label. Not wait item arrives to their preferred dealer cheap and easy.
Some items I have bought recently the "difficult way", may also include tapes sold at shows - while I have not been able to be there. Contact a friend who is there, let him know that he should try to pick extra copy, then wait eventually to get the item from friend. One can always complain why not make big edition and spread it all over the scene - yet artist may have work in a way he works to keep it interesting for himself. Not interested to become factory of tapes and engage into international logistic nightmare, hah.. I know, many times I decide not to order something. Or not even decide, just didn't even think about twice. But in some cases, buying "difficult way" all the time as some noise certainly benefits of it.
For me there was something more enjoyable about sending some carefully hidden money in a envelope off, for a item i had found in some badly photocopied list.
Even more exciting when it actually turned up with another load of badly copied lists of undiscovered treasures.
It often felt like slowly going down a rabbit hole, i remember thinking id struck gold when i received my first list from "Lucifer rising".
In this day and age, it still has its charms, now in the age of the cashless society it feels more like you are committing some low level crime.
Also glad my local independant record shop does a "10 items for half price if you pay in cash" offer, every now and again
Most Labels are more into "Seconds-to-sold-out" Bigcartel Shops than real Mailorders. But with registered Letters, Credit Card, Paypal, Bank Transfer and all these different Money Cards (for example Amazon) should be no problem to pay, if you get what you want.
Quote from: FreakAnimalFinland on May 13, 2023, 01:45:39 PM
for example:
https://www.nme.com/news/music/study-finds-50-per-cent-of-vinyl-buyers-in-us-dont-have-a-record-player-3437301
Interesting read. Most people don't listen to their shit. Difference between playing and listening.
Browse this forum and you'll find music being used as muzak when pumping iron, backdrop or a cinematic feel on a lil car trip, or a variant of PE brunch when cooking/cleaning. Nothing wrong with that. To each and their own.
Quote from: HateSermon on May 13, 2023, 06:56:22 PM
there was an ad for a special offer to get the Treriksröset "Untitled" CDR but it was cash only.
What was this? Was this a stand alone CDR release? Or do you mean this: https://www.discogs.com/release/14480209-Treriksr%C3%B6set-Untitled
Glass mastered CD i believe? But maybe he did a CDR issue of it as well?
Yeah that's the right one, I bought that from him. Great album. Not CDr.
This is the material that was formerly issued as tape. Two versions. The ltd ed box version was filled with gay erotica, cock ring, leather polish, etc etc. Very stylish release. CD and regular tape just all black.
Yes, i've seen one picture of that box set. I think it had a leather cap. I believe that box was only sent to a selected few. It came with a Mister SM tribute booklet. Personally called it the Mister SM tape, and i saw a couple of others referring to it as such when released. But it's apparently Untitled on discogs with TCs consent. Later when CD came any trace of Mister SM had vanished.
To add to the confusion, tape is currently listed as two different releases on discogs (C62 & C66).
Last time I bought an item the "difficult way" was probably in the late '90s or early '00s when stamps were often used as currency. I bought a lot of demo tapes from private individuals back then as well as "real" releases directly from labels or distros (I still do that). As much as I miss the old days of underground distros, especially the printed mailorder catalogues and personalised letters, I don't really miss the part of sending money/stamps to someone from across the globe you'd never met or shared a single word with. The waiting and hoping you hadn't wasted your hard earned cash on a rip off was a bit of a pain. Such people are still around, sure, but Paypal makes it easier to deal with and the internet communities (like here) makes it easier to call them out on their shit.
Years ago, I bought some stuff from guy behind Sick Llama on his blog listed merch with sent cash, some random stuff I haven't heard before. I don't really find any more value in doing that then buying any other way. It's even more personal but to me it doesn't make me want to that more often when I can just use paypal and make things more simple even if it was still merch I found on someone's blog page. What I do find more value in is buying items that I think I might like based on appearance I never heard before. I like to do that with CD's and find some real obscure gems that way in noise. I also have no record or cassette player. I have some 7" records and a small amount of cassettes but I just wanted them for the sake of collecting, I was able to find a rip on soulseek more often than not for them. Though I do have a couple cassettes that are mysteries to me, I don't know what is on them and don't have a tape player (that I trust to not eat the things that is). Maybe one day I'll find out. I otherwise mostly get a lot of my noise from Skeleton Dust or Dead Gods. Skeleton Dust probably thought I just ceased to exist since I haven't put in an order there in quite a long time but I been dumping that into my own project. Could really use a money tree so I can hoard more delicious harsh goodness.
Wasn't there years ago a Projekt Hat LP (or tape?) for which you had to fill out some kind of questionnaire if you wanted to order it? I thought it was mentioned in some other topic but didn't find it with a quick search.
I've sent money in an envelope, paypal'd and made foreign bank transfers, but nowadays it's strictly CDs now and then from a couple of domestic quality distros for me.
Maybe a bit off topic, but buying the "difficult way" at the moment is buying some records or anything else from outside EU. I have ordered years and years from UK, Australia, US, Japan and what else. Never any problems, always easy, all at normal costs. But now...customs alone are often much more than price of the goods itself. I really like to support the artists and labels in their respective countries, but this is not funny anymore.
Is this a concern anywhere else or is this just happening in my little world?
Quote from: cr on June 06, 2023, 06:31:33 PM
Maybe a bit off topic, but buying the "difficult way" at the moment is buying some records or anything else from outside EU. I have ordered years and years from UK, Australia, US, Japan and what else. Never any problems, always easy, all at normal costs. But now...customs alone are often much more than price of the goods itself. I really like to support the artists and labels in their respective countries, but this is not funny anymore.
Is this a concern anywhere else or is this just happening in my little world?
Yeah. A couple of months ago I got slammed with a customs charge for a few of CDs from America. Never happened before, and I wondered - why now? It's made me hesitant to order from outside EU again...
Finding some of the stuff restricted on discogs can be a little 'difficult', and take a bit of searching out, but it's nothing compared to the old days when every purchase was basically a 'lucky dip'. But in many ways that was part of the fun...!
In the Netherlands these new import tax rules have been a pain in the ass for a few years now. Used to buy a lot from overseas but now just when I see something that's impossible to find within the EU or when I see a really good deal. When buying from Discogs or eBay it's really out of control sometimes and you'll get charged vat + import taxes + shipping costs. Small 7" or single cd packages sometimes slip through but for most I end up paying these import taxes. It's not a big deal for me, but on top of the already inflated prices it really sucks for young people that want to start a record collection.
These should be the "new" EU laws, that apply to all countries in European Union. Meaning that in past some parcels may have slipped through customs when you marked low value. Now all shipments are held in customs, whatever value it is. All commercial goods need to be paid VAT. This was mainly to prevent the cheap shit coming from China and the large scale import scam where shipments would be valued lesser than they actually are worth of. Now they'll tend to charge not only tax, but depending on company and country, some sort of handling fee.
In Finland, you can still get cheap gift for free, but have to fill some forms online. Sometimes people like myself, do not know what someone is sending. It may be promo. It may be trade agreed months ago and forgotten. It may be gift I didn't expect. Just getting txt message from customs with code saying I need to fill the customs clarification. With no idea what stuff, by who? Just today I filled forms for something, I can only guess what it is.
I once received a CDR from an unknown individual in the US (later turned out to be someone who ordered from me through Discogs) as a gift. He had marked the value as $5 and shipping was something atrocious like $25. In Belgium for all shipments from outside of EU one needs to pay a "handling fee" of 14 EUR or so plus VAT for both the item and shipping (plus a small percentage customs fee for the item itself I think). In the end I paid over 20 EUR for something I had no idea what it was and turned out to be a CDR of someone's own project. Psychologically this is a difficult way.