The Smiths’ 2017 Record Store Day 7-inch release came with a not-so-secret message to the U.S. inscribed on the record’s A-side: “Trump Will Kill America.” While I can’t say enough great things about this awesome stunt, it is a rather depressing reminder that this becomes truer every goddamned day. The 7-inch itself is a mix of two previously unreleased demos for “The Boy With the Thorn In His Side” and the flipside features “Rubber Ring” recorded at Drone Studios in Chorlton where the band recorded a bunch of demos back in the 80s. Actor Albert Finney, seen in the “Angry Young Man” phase of his long career, is pictured on the cover.

The news was widely spread across social media by Record Store Day shoppers who discovered the etching on the run-out groove on the A-side and deservingly dragged Donnie on his favorite communication vehicle, Twitter. In case you missed all of that, I’ve included a few posts from Smiths’ fans showing off their records at the expense of our current “president.”
 

The etching on The Smiths’ 2017 Record Store Day 7-inch release.
 

 

 
HT: Slicing Up Eyeballs

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
‘Love Bites’: A charming documentary on Morrissey super-fans from 1995
Heaven Knows He Was Miserable Then: Morrissey’s first postcard to a pen-pal from 1980
Miserable in Manchester: Amusing letters and music reviews from a young Morrissey
Nothing lost in translation: The ‘acute malevolence’ of Morrissey

 
Both retailers and customers seem to have a love/hate relationship with “Record Store Day,” a yearly promotional “holiday” celebrating the independent record store. Labels producing merchandise for the event generally release limited-edition items that are only available for a short period of time at the participating shops. Customers often complain that they cannot obtain the items they want, as they are often scalped by eBay speculators to be resold at exorbitant prices. Retailers often complain that due to the nature of the distribution of releases, they are forced to over-order with the hopes of obtaining even a handful of the most desired pieces. This often results in order-frenzies that leave stacks of unsellable merchandise filling store racks once the hype of the day is over and the online resellers have determined that some of the pieces, no matter how limited, are just not marketable. Bands and record labels complain every year that pressing plant turn-around times are slow because of the backlog of Record Store Day releases clogging the presses. These complaints often call into question the necessity of certain “RSD” releases. I remember quite a few eyebrows being raised over the 2013 RSD release of Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler in all of its 180 gram and $35 price tag glory. Had neither the label nor the smattering of people who actually bought the release, ever heard of a thrift store—ANY THRIFT STORE—where you could easily find a vintage copy of the original for a dollar?

The worst RSD releases are the ones that just seem unnecessary. The slightly less-worse-but-still-ridiculous releases are good items in dumb formats—for example the release of Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde as… A SEVEN INCH BOX SET.

The worthwhile RSD releases are the ones that unearth unreleased vault material by beloved artists or shine the vinyl light of day on music that was previously available only on CD or cassette.

This Record Store Day, April 22nd, brings a release by The Cure which is, in some ways, totally welcome and completely the kind of thing labels should be doing for RSD. It is the first-time-ever-on-vinyl release of The Cure’s Acoustic Hits, which was originally included as a CD bonus in early pressings of The Cure’s Greatest Hits disc from 2001. While this is something to be excited about for vinyl-loving Cure fans, Universal is releasing it as a PICTURE DISC (along with a separate picture disc of Greatest Hits). The problem with a picture disc is that, while an interesting novelty item for collectors, they generally suffer from terrible fidelity. Picture discs are notorious for their awful sound quality. Here was an opportunity to give Cure fans a really terrific-sounding slab of wax of a grouping of songs previously unreleased on vinyl. Unfortunately, what we are getting is a dumb gimmick piece which might look cool in a frame on the wall, but will sound fairly bad on the ol’ hi-fi. Still, if you’re a Cure collector, this will undoubtedly be a must-have. Just make sure you hit the shop early, or you’ll be hunting it down online at twice-the-price.

More after the jump…

 
Flood Magazine reported this week that J Mascis will be releasing a cover of Mazzy Star’s classic 1994 single “Fade Into You” on Record Store Day. The article doesn’t specify this, but the release will happen on RSD’s Black Friday event on Nov. 28, not the regular RSD in April. The clip they posted of a live version of the song is every bit as wonderful as Mascis’ years-ago cover, with Dinosaur Jr, of the Cure’s “Just Like Heaven,” which itself got the RSD treatment earlier this year.

DM readers in the Southwest and West Coast of the USA still have a chance to catch Masics on his Tied to a Star tour through November. He’ll be in Europe in December, and the UK in January.
 

The birthday boy is also this year’s Record Store Day Ambassador. Fulfilling his diplomatic duties, Iggy visited Sweat Records in Miami.

“As Record Store Day Ambassador for 2012, I feel like a representative from some exotic jungle full of life and death and sex and anger, called upon to wear a leopard skin and translate joy to the world of the dead.

A person should have a personality. You won’t get one dicking around on a computer. It helps to go somewhere where there are other persons. Persons who are interested in something you are. That’s how a record store or any shop that’s got some life to it should work. It’s not about selling shit.

I got my name, my musical education and my personality all from working at a record store during my tender years. Small indie shops have always been a mix of theatre and laboratory. In the 50s and 60s, the teen kids used to gather after school at these places to listen free to the latest singles and see if they liked the beat. You could buy the disc you liked for 79 cents and if you were lucky meet a chick. Clerks in these places became managers, (like Brian Epstein), label heads, (Jac Holzman) and Faces on album covers (like me).”

I spent part of Record Store Day at Waterloo Records where I met and had a chat with Garbage. Shirley Manson looked absolutely stunning. I bought the Grinderman Remix album and a compilation of rare gospel music. With the exception of running into Garbage, it was a day like any other in that everyday for me is Record Store Day. I tremble at the thought of not having Waterloo to visit and hang out in. There’s nothing like the smell of vinyl in the morning. And you can’t shake Shirley Manson’s hand at Amazon.com.