Avalanche in-stores – Martin John Henry – Black Friday

There seems to be no middle ground for in-stores. They are either very well attended ie Gordon Ballboy, Kid Canaveral, Withered Hand / Rachel Sermanni and of course the standing in the doorway rammed attendance there was for Frightened Rabbit or there is at best a few family and close friends or at worst nobody at all. We are talking good bands many of whom have sold healthy numbers of CDs but it seems until they hit a critical level in the public conscience people can’t be bothered to see them for free. We plan on having more bigger names playing in the shop and I would like to support smaller bands too but that support needs to come from the public also.

A problem for the shop is that bands now all have a launch for just about everything they release and whether they simply drop off their release to the shop or indeed ask to play an in-store to help promote it it makes no difference as all the sales will be concentrated at the launch. In “the old days” bands would ask to play in a shop to launch their release and the last hugely successful example of this was the Idlewild in-store on the day of their album launch.

Just as I was mulling all this over who should get in touch but Gargleblast Records looking for an in-store for Martin John Henry best known to me at least for having been the singer with De Rosa. With no planned launch in Edinburgh this was a perfect opportunity to have the album launch in the shop. Martin will be playing with his full band on Friday 7th October @ 4pm and customers will have the chance to buy the new album “The Other Half of Everything” ahead of the official release date of the following Monday.

As a reward to those who make it to the smaller as well as the bigger in-stores we will be creating what is essentially a loyalty card so those that attend these smaller in-stores will be guaranteed entry and a good view for the big in-stores we have planned. We have just had confirmation that Black Friday (November 25th) an extension of Record Store Day in the States will be taking place in the UK also this year and we will as with RSD be planning some high profile in-stores to coincide. Much more news to follow.