Avalanche Edinburgh Clearly I should know who idol_wild is but I don't. Ah, good old Kev from Avalanche. He once gave me a lecture about how "bands operate as businesses and want to keep every penny for themselves, ignoring record shops because of greed". It is bands/labels that tell me they are operating as a business (and therefore wanting to recoup their outlay on a release as quickly as possible) as the reason for selling as many copies as they can before giving them to shops. That is fine but it is then the shop's business decision whether they want to have the crumbs left after all the fans have bought the release already. He piped down a little after I politely told him I had been stealing my flatmate's food for a week because I couldn't afford to buy food, after playing shows in Europe and then Glastonbury completely wiped me out of any cash. He actually thinks bands make profits. Sorry still not getting it. Those who know me know "piping down" is never really going to happen I then also discovered that one of the albums mentioned in his post that he agreed to sell in the shop, was subject to a 40% cut, which went into his pocket. The label required a 40% cut to cover it's costs, leaving the band with 20% of any profits the album happened to make. I'd like to add that Avalanche, from what I understand, took 40% of each sale full stop. The band only got a cut of any actual profit made. Which was minimal. So in the end, I suspect Avalanche took 4 from each sale of that album, and the band themselves probably got less than a pound. Is that balance correct? We used to take 20% and then 25% of the sale price but given that we have to pay the VAT on the sale we weren't making any money and as we dedicated even more time to selling local bands the cost of the time spent with a customer recommending things meant we were probably losing money. It was people like Matthew from Song by Toad that suggested we should stop charging "mate's rates" and charge the same as other shops. With many artists generally telling me they have spent little on recording costs if we sell a CD for 7.99 and give them 5 after the manufacturing cost of about 1.25 there is plenty of scope for them to make money. Even more if they get 6 for a 9.99 sale. We certainly make less than the artists we deal with directly. Deals between an artist and a label are up to them obviously. Avalanche in Edinburgh is another classic example of an independent record shop going downhill, and it reeks of desperation - almost directly blaming bands for its downfall. Avalanche and One Up are in the same situation, but at least One Up isn't publically resorting to a blame culture. Every time I have been in Avalanche and have had to talk to Kev, he's tried to give me the same lecture. It's almost has if he has it rehearsed. We aren't blaming bands at all but they can't have the best of both worlds. If they want us to support their album then we will but not just when they choose to give it to us. Bands now regularly have an album launch before the album is officially released and then ask if they can play an in-store to promote the album by which time those who come along will have bought the album already. Again once online sales have dried up we are asked if we can promote it to the many visitors we get to the shop. Many of the bigger bands that relied on shops for their support in the early days now say they see no reason to support retail anymore. It is reassuring that bands like Kid Canaveral and Ballboy take a different view to Radiohead and Muse. If I just had 4 for every Withered Hand, Meursault, Saint Jude's Infirmary etc album I'd sold .....................
