April 16th 2011 is Record Store Day! Record Store Day came into being in 2007 when over 700 independent stores in the USA (hence store, not shop!) came together to celebrate their – well survival as much as anything. The UK followed suit (as have many other European countries) and 2011 will see the third celebration of the UK’s unique independent record sector, which is now down to around 300 shops. You can find out which stores are covered at the link below, and there is a poll to discover the best indie shop. There are a lot of one-off and special releases being planned, and EMI are getting behind the scheme, and suggested a Deep Purple retro release might be possible.
As an old-school collector I was all in favour, and offered to get some artwork together in double quick time (otherwise it would have been in a plain bag).
The single will be a Mk 1 and Mk1 double header, with Hush – recorded for Chris Grant’s Tasty Pop Sundae in early 1969, and Speed King, recorded for Stuart Henry’s Noise At Nine in October the same year. Both are from the upcoming BBC Sessions project.
Below are proposals for the front and back cover. Please note this is pre-release art and lacks copyright info, codes, EMI logo, etc.
The single will only be distributed to the participating indie shops. The pressing run is low at around 1400 copies. As DTB only run an online store (even though we are based in the UK and pay tax), we are not able to order stock upfront, but we will be given first refusal on any not ordered by the shops after. Fingers crossed. Luckily one of the participating shops is quite close to us so I might see if we can order through them.
Record shops and small UK online retailers need our help, the VAT fiddlers are rapidly crushing those that have hung on and although there is some vague hope that the Government might move to block this £150million pound a year (and that’s a low estimate) scam which we are all now paying for in cuts to services, we can’t count on anything.
In the meantime to find out more about Record Store day, you can visit their site at:
darker than blue 
April 17, 2011 at 6:05 pm |
Anybody had a look on e-bay ??? Depressing !!
I tried 4 “local” record shops.
2 never got the deliveries they were promised.
1 told me that they had it, but wouldn’t tell me when they would put on sale !!
1 said they had a delivery but didn’t know what they had .
Simon – if anybody asks you whether it’s a good idea for Purple to release any thing else on Record Store Day tell them to %^&*$£%% OK !!
Steve (frustrated of Devon)
May 9, 2011 at 8:38 am |
Yeah, in my rush of enthusiasm I tended to miss the pitfalls. If it happens again I’ll insist on stock being available to fans if they want me on board. To be fair to the shops, there were very strict guidelines they had to follow in order to take part in the scheme. They could place an order up front, but if a title was over-subscribed, then there was a chance their order would not be fulfilled. Hopefully another time they will have a better idea of how many copies to press, as this is still a fairly new concept.
April 17, 2011 at 12:03 am |
Pleased to say I managed to grab one of these today and I’m keeping it! It won’t end up on ebay like the 29 that are currently for sale on there at vastly inflated prices.
March 3, 2011 at 4:52 pm |
As much as i would love a copy of this, they will all end up being bought up by dealers and put on e-bay.
March 1, 2011 at 11:31 am |
Any idea what the price of this 7″ will be ?
March 2, 2011 at 9:38 am |
No, we don’t know. I imagine it will be a couple of quid. Must admit I have never been into our local store on the day in question, it was heaving last year! And all the special singles had sold out really quickly. Good to see though, they’ve been there since 1978.
March 1, 2011 at 2:26 am |
very nice looking sleeve
February 25, 2011 at 4:45 pm |
Will be it release also as a CD single, or only vinyl? Dawe
February 28, 2011 at 10:12 am |
This is strictly vinyl only as it’s more of a collectors sort of thing.
February 24, 2011 at 9:01 pm |
Yes, I’d like to get hold of a copy of this, but can’t for the life of me think where I’d now go to find a ‘proper’ record shop!!
February 23, 2011 at 5:54 am |
Ooh! gerrus one too if ye can please sir !
February 22, 2011 at 2:08 am |
I imagine the 2 tracks in question are unreleased but also hope Speed King is not edited. Plain bag for this would be a waste of time in my opinion……BTW – would this coupling be unique ?
February 19, 2011 at 6:56 am |
No proper record store in my town anymore. Sad. MIKE