#howlingowl

Photographer/Bartender 

Talthorn is so ready for tonight! Remember to smile everyone! 

Friday Nov. 13th 6PM WrA server time

Dawn’s Blossom, 

Jade Forest

Calria stares at her sketchbook for several long moments. Her brows were knit as she regarded some of the loose work. Long strokes of graphite marked their territory across the parchment, several of them digging so hard into the paper they’d left dents. She’d drawn with determination and such focus she swore it would have resulted with at least one piece she’d like. But they were all the same. The Sindorei leans back in the seat in her apartment and lets out a aggravated sigh. She’d promptly kicked off her boots and opened up the windows the moment she’d returned from the Owl’s poetry night. As inspiring as it was, it’d been crowded and hot. Calria eases back in her chair, heels planted on the edge of her desk. Half-haphazardly the woman thumbs through the pages of her book. She pauses at the most recent portrait and moves the sketchbook against her knees with a soft thud. The Sindorei stares at the page with her singular gold eye, expression impartial. Her gaze sweeps over the drawing for several moments before she grips the edge of the sketchbook and tosses it up on the table. With a soft grunt of frustration, Calria rights her chair and stands, moving across the room to prepare for bed. The portrait trapped within the confines of the page regarded the Sindorei with soft smile and an absent gaze.

h i i made a moodboard for tonight howling owl event and i Liked It 

It’s here again.  That day record stores up and down the country - whether they believe it or not - will tell you is the most exciting event of the year.  I know people who work in record shops (I used to be one myself) and who run record shops and they greet the day with little more than a sigh. 

Much has been written about RSD this year, in part due to a rather cheeky little stunt by Bristol noise makers Spectres and pals Lorelle Meets The Obsolete from labels Howling Owl and Sonic Cathedral (Have a look here and here)  Their point is, to simplify somewhat, that every day should be record store day.  RSD’s response has been little more than childish and the company (is that the right word? organisation?) have completely ducked the issue and refused to engage in a debate.  I can’t help doubt the moral integrity of someone who releases this into the world -

RSD have suggested that the event allows for labels to re-release long deleted titles, as if they somehow weren’t able to do that anyway.  I’ve noticed Mission Of Burma’s excellent and hard to find (at least in the UK) “Signals, Calls & Marches” 12″ is available this year; the thing is only 500 copies are being released (the minimum quantity labels are allowed to submit).  This air of exclusivity and “limited-edition-ness” (yup, that’s a phrase now) only serves as an excuse to charge higher prices and inspires greedy ne'er-do-wells to flog their purchases on eBay for three times as much.  It’s the very definition of capitalist supply-and-demand!

My friend who works in Head records in Bristol told me there were people cueing up at 2.30am!  That isn’t healthy!  Are they giving away a free house with every record sold?!  That kind of behaviour suggests to me that RSD is not about supporting record stores or even music fans, it’s about whipping collectors and obsessives and eBay profiteers into such a mad frenzy with the fear they might miss out in order to charge as much as they legitimately can for some plastic and cardboard. 

RSD acts like it’s some kind of charity, like it’s some humanitarian organisation set up to nobly serve the record buying public and the small indie stores.  It seems to me that if they really wanted to help the stores they would work alongside labels to broker discounts for independent businesses to allow them to stock expensive vinyl, or at the very least put some of their profits back into the stores that helped generate them.