Saturday, April 16, 2011

Disco:Very Celebrates Record Store Day [By Being a Nuisance] - Part 2

Store Clerk: Happy Record Store Day, this is [Name of record store] at [name of store clerk].
Disco:Very: Hi, yes. Happy Record Store Day to you, too, and what a glorious Record Store Day it is!
Store Clerk: Ha ha, yeah it is! We've got a lot of people here celebrating here at the moment, actually. [Laughs.]
Disco:Very: Wow, that's just great. I'm calling about a specific album I'd like to come in and purchase.
Store Clerk: Sorry, can you hold for just one second? [Muffled talking--store noises in background paint the portrait of a very busy store.] Sorry about that, thanks for holding.
Disco:Very: No problem. I'm calling to see if you have a specific limited-edition LP being released for Record Store Day.
Store Clerk: Sure, what's the title?
Disco:Very: [Speaking quickly so as not to lose the call.] It's a new CocoRosie album of duets but it's a recording of dance and movement, CocoRosie is doing dance duets with other dancers and movement artists so there's no actual singing, but it's a very quiet record, very spatial, you know, comprised of the sounds of movement and wind and spirit--you know the spirit of the band, their soul. And I don't know the name but the album cover shows the members of CocoRosie on dolphins and the dolphins are flying through the sky and they're surrounded by hand-drawn depictions of birds, like, curved-bill thrashers specifically, and the birds are painted all these rainbow colors and the colors have sparkles in them and the cover is hand-pressed so the birds are in relief and each bird is holding a peace sign--
Store Clerk: [Taking it all in] Hmmmm, OK...
Disco:Very: --and they all have word balloons above them saying thinks like "Radical!" and "LOL" and the album isn't on CD, it's on vinyl and the vinyl is a special 900-gram pressing. It's very thick.
Store Clerk: [Long pause.] So...is it...what--how many grams?
Disco:Very: Well, you know how most limited-edition vinyl albums are pressed on 180-gram vinyl, this one is extra special and is pressed on 900-gram vinyl, so it has five times the amount of vinyl as a regulalr limited-edition vinyl release. It weighs almost two pounds, so the album is pretty large and kind of heavy. I'm not sure it will even fit in your vinyl racks.
Store Clerk: [Pause; lots of Record Store Day noises in the background--perhaps he realizes this is a crank call and tries to remove himself from the call] Tell you what, we're a little busy so maybe if you called back in 20 minutes I could probably dig it up but--
Disco:Very: See, but I have to have it today because I think this is the one album which is going to save the brick and mortar record stores forever. Record store sales have been pummeled by the ease and convenience of online shopping and it's making you go under but I think this one album is going to bring actual physical record stores back from the brink of death. Just because I can find any album I want online at the click of a button, I don't think it means we need to kill off the dinosaur record stores. I think this new CocoRosie album is going to turn things around for you guys. I really do.
Store Clerk: OK, I'm going to hang up now. [Hangs up.]

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