Grime (lack of) Distribution

You buy one grime record, you've bought them all.

droid said:

Im not a big online buyer, as its just far too dangerous a way for a vinyl junkie like myself to buy records, so Im always on the look out for grime 12s, and asking for stuff in my local shops here in Dublin - but of course nobody ever has any.

Has grime completely sidestepped the normal vinyl distribution channels? Even back in the mid 90s it was possible to find small run jungle releases over here (even it was a very limited supply), but over the last 3 years all Ive ever seen grime-wise has been the major label Dizzee and Wiley stuff, Run the Roads, a couple of relentless 12s, and a few of SLK things (all in big chain stores like tower and HMV).

The reason I ask, is that I know loads of heads who are getting into this stuff and cant buy it, I listen to all the radio shows and keep (relatively) up to date with the new tunes and Im friendly with a lot of record shop owners, but none of them have been able to track down much for me (at a reasonable price anyway).

So what's the story? Is it a lack of demand, or are there simply no distribution channels for grime outside the UK?

How can a scene ever expand and set up new nodes if no-one outside London can buy the records without the use of a credit card?

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essential direct distribute some of it in the uk but far from all of it
http://www.essentialdirect.co.uk/
i guess the bonus if self distribution is cash straight away if a shop really wants it

People are very lazy these days.

CB Distribution:

155 New North Road

London

N1 6TA


Or for more info contact:

Tel:02072510744/ e-mail info@cb-distribution.com



Essential Distribution:

Essential Direct Ltd
91 Brick Lane
E1 6QL
London
United Kingdom

Tel: +44(0)207 375 2332
Fax: +44(0)207 375 2442

email: info@essentialdirect.co.uk

Grime records shops mail order's pissing me off!

Talking about distribution/selling overseas, I must say that I was a bit disappointed by several records shops' mail order :

1. Uptown Records : a friend went there & bought several plates for me ; back in Paris, after giving me the records, I check'em & notice that a couple are suffering from a little 'fold' defect (skipping at the beginning of play), so I contact Uptown's manager for a trade (of course I pay all shipping costs), he says OK (asking me for not putting fingerprints on the records, weird recommendation for defective records...), but I decide to make a proper order, looking for new stuff coming out on other records shops websites, manager says OK again, I send my list order, no answer (then I called it a day & kept the records). So, Uptown failed to took more money from me
2. Independance Records : I order several records &, according to their website, the three volumes of Aim High (I know that vol. 3's about to be released and think then that they'll wait its release for sending the parcel).
I received the parcel last week : no Aim High at all, no explanation for the lack of these items... I send a couple of e-mails for an explanation, no answer... Are vol. 1 & 2 out of print ? Why do they 'sell' them on theri website, then ?
3. UKRecordshop : Another order (plates & mixtapes), this times, I'm very pissed about the shipping : they put all the stuff in a simple cardboard without any protection, and my copy of Statik's Connected suffered, folding, etc. And there's quite a gap between the actual shipping cost (£ 10) and what I paid (£ 13.80)...

Records shops workers : if you wanna keep your non-UK customers, you REALLY must improve!!!

droid said:

Ouch.

This is why I prefer to buy in shops in general. Mail order can be a lot of grief.

Go into your local shops and pass on those details Logan put up... that holds out the best possibility to improve the availability situation - and it might even be cheaper!

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The trouble is we might be at least a dozen people in Paris (maybe twice in France) interested in these records ; you can find in one big shop only stuff like Kano/Roll Deep who have a distribution here. There's no shop here who would sell grime plates/mixtapes, it's not taking off (France is a damned ROCK country, even hip-hop's not as great asit was years ago...)

logan will be able to speak more clearly about this, but my impression is that grime MCs are too busy with radio, road politics and war, to build distribution infrastructures. they're waiting so much for that big deal that they dont want to start companies or colaborate with other scene members in businesses.

SMorlighem said:

Talking about distribution/selling overseas, I must say that I was a bit disappointed by several records shops' mail order :

1. Uptown Records : a friend went there & bought several plates for me ; back in Paris, after giving me the records, I check'em & notice that a couple are suffering from a little 'fold' defect (skipping at the beginning of play), so I contact Uptown's manager for a trade (of course I pay all shipping costs), he says OK (asking me for not putting fingerprints on the records, weird recommendation for defective records...), but I decide to make a proper order, looking for new stuff coming out on other records shops websites, manager says OK again, I send my list order, no answer (then I called it a day & kept the records). So, Uptown failed to took more money from me
2. Independance Records : I order several records &, according to their website, the three volumes of Aim High (I know that vol. 3's about to be released and think then that they'll wait its release for sending the parcel).
I received the parcel last week : no Aim High at all, no explanation for the lack of these items... I send a couple of e-mails for an explanation, no answer... Are vol. 1 & 2 out of print ? Why do they 'sell' them on theri website, then ?
3. UKRecordshop : Another order (plates & mixtapes), this times, I'm very pissed about the shipping : they put all the stuff in a simple cardboard without any protection, and my copy of Statik's Connected suffered, folding, etc. And there's quite a gap between the actual shipping cost (£ 10) and what I paid (£ 13.80)...

Records shops workers : if you wanna keep your non-UK customers, you REALLY must improve!!!

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Independence sucks... they charge you 3x the actual shipping cost to the US, which i find VERY fucking sleazy. (yes, UKrecordshop does that too, but Independence def. tacks on even more money!) yes, UK record shop needs to step up and buy some decent mailers, the ones they use are about as thick as a postcard and it's a miracle if your records aren't trashed.

so, despite their generally good selection, i usually avoid both stores for the above reason.

HOWEVER, i cannot say enough good things about Chemical Records. They charge actual shipping only, don't charge me VAT, use good sturdy mailers, and ship quickly...

www.boomboxdistribution.net - these guys are distributing ukhh worldwide and may consider grime...

petergunn said:

HOWEVER, i cannot say enough good things about Chemical Records. They charge actual shipping only, don't charge me VAT, use good sturdy mailers, and ship quickly...

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agreed - i've had very good service from chemical. boomkat and warp have been very good too, more for dubstep but certainly also for basic grime (well, warpmart anyway). this is probably an obvious point though

Artists aren't technically meant to be dealing with distributors and such directly.

It's just there is a lack of professional people willing to put the time and thankless effor into doing the legwork for these people.

Logan Sama said:

Artists aren't technically meant to be dealing with distributors and such directly.

It's just there is a lack of professional people willing to put the time and thankless effor into doing the legwork for these people.

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No, it's that artists in the grime scene don't even have the drive of about a million bands that started their own labels and successfully marketed themselves. I put out a compilation of unreleased tracks from about 8-9 different producers which got international distribution and reviews, and I had a day job the whole time. It's really not that hard, and I'm very disorganized.

To be honest, I hate it when people offer up excuses like this for grime's failure to break, considering that grime artists frequently shoot themselves in the foot by lacking even a tiny bit of professionalism. I've experienced this firsthand trying to do interviews. Nobody will go the extra mile to represent you if you won't try to do for yourself.

cooper said:

To be honest, I hate it when people offer up excuses like this for grime's failure to break, considering that grime artists frequently shoot themselves in the foot by lacking even a tiny bit of professionalism. I've experienced this firsthand trying to do interviews. Nobody will go the extra mile to represent you if you won't try to do for yourself.

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Its a tough job indeed. I tried to do a bit of local Grime distribution up north last year, but hit all sorts of problems. I generally have no idea about this kind of thing, but buckets of enthusiam for it. Actually thinking of getting hold of some stuff to distribute around Japan over the next month of two. So far Grime doesn't seem to have made much of an impact here, so I'm not expecting to make cash out of it, just raise some awareness and have fun.

It wouldn't take much to create a kind of amateur distribution network around the UK/World would it? Especially not with the wonderful internet here to help us. You would just need people based in each town, with a good knowledge of both music and music outlets to do some networking and groundwork, together with a link to the artists and that would be about it. The main problem to me seems to be getting that link together...

There is definitely a market for grime here (Japan) but no one at all stocks it. You get blank stares not at 'do you have record X?' but at 'do you stock any grime?' I've been involved in a number of Japanese-language board & personal discussions of where to buy records here and the consensus is *online*. I think if you get records into the right shops they will sell for sure (how many copies isn't so clear though ...).

Eric said:

There is definitely a market for grime here (Japan) but no one at all stocks it. You get blank stares not at 'do you have record X?' but at 'do you stock any grime?' I've been involved in a number of Japanese-language board & personal discussions of where to buy records here and the consensus is *online*. I think if you get records into the right shops they will sell for sure (how many copies isn't so clear though ...).

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Cheers, thats an interesting read.

I'm out in Fukuoka, which is partly an advantage and part disadvantage. Being far from Tokyo the place is a bit slow moving, but at the same time its easy to get to know a huge proportion of people in the club and music scene. Will try and speak to some people, maybe get the shops some mixtapes and see how it goes.

To be fair, I have only been buying vinyl for about 6mo or so. Also I mainly buy ukg, but I do take notice weather theres a proper grime selection being presented along side the garidge. It seems that my luck has been quite well considering some of what I have read here...

I have prolly spent upwards of $1k(US) with UDM. I randomly heard radio djs name drop the store for several years. So I just thought fuck it, got to start somewhere right? Well let me say the following of that 5 or so transactions.

1) Selection is as good or better than anyone else that I know of. Give or take a few tracks that uptwn might have.
2) Site has good clean layout, easy of use, etc.
3) Yes they do average a buck or two more than uptwn. But look, were talkin very well selected music here. We already decided we are prepared to pay premium supply/demand.
4) Every unit has arrived in excellent condition. Very adequate packing/protection.
5) Heres the thing for me. I live in the southern part of the states. And these guys have not had me waiting for more than like two weeks for an order! Thats pretty good considering thats the average time it takes for me to get orders from mail-order stores IN the states...
5) Oh yeah, and of coarse I have only email to address questions etc. The longest response time i can remenber was like 24hrs. Last time I litterally made my purchase during the evening(my time). And by the time I awoke the following day, the order had been shipped!
6) And an apparent bonus, they do deduct the VAT fees from my order. The insurance covering the shipment is included as well.

I realize it could just be that I have been the 'more fortunate'. But nevertheless, I would def reccomend this shop for local mail order or global, at least stateside ordering