So the sun came out, and I’m back on the sofa, having braved the Geek Lair for an hour there to get at least some of the new things on the Unpopular Records site done. By which I mean I added the Clientele and Playwrights singles and the June photozine, which I realised a week or so ago that I had already done. Duh. The July one should be available sooner. Maybe. I think….

The singles arrived yesterday morning when it was already too warm to be lugging boxes up to the top of the house, but that didn’t curb my excitement. I was really nervous opening up the cartons, wondering if the printed sleeves would look as I had envisaged. I mean, you can never be totally sure when working from a computer screen, can you? Not unless you are one of those fancy graphics places where they have screen calibrations and what not. Still, I was thankful for my Pantone swatches, and thankfully all came out pretty much as I had imagined and hoped it would. Hurrah! Only problem was that the factory had out the inserts in the wrong records, so I’m going to have to go through them all and transfer them by hand. Grrr. I mean, I have to take the records out of the sleeve to stamp the labels and number the Playwrights ones (no space on the sleeve for the numbering – I sacrificed that for the aesthetic) but still and all… It is nevertheless much less of a time consuming process that the Lovejoy sleeves, which are effectively all hand assembled here. But hey ho, you got to try things to learn, right? Right.

Also, I left a space on the back of the Clientele sleeve to hand stamp Emily’s drawing, but have discovered that the card is too shiny to take the ink properly, so I have to leave each sleeve out to dry for at least A DAY! And even then it smudges if you aren’t careful. So it’ll be into to plastic bags with those puppies, and if you got sense you’ll leave it in there. Another thing learnt…

Despite those grumbles though, I am most happy, and it’s great to have them out there. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to devote the morning to getting the rest of the site up to date and all uploaded before it all gets too hot again and I am forced to the front yard to read Batman comics in the sun.

So, what with the records arriving yesterday, it was a busy old day… topped off by a lovely 100km bike ride up (and down) the Exe valley to Dulverton and back. It’s a fantastic route, and I should ride it more often. I noticed that the Carnarvon Arms Hotel by the old Dulverton railway station is being converted into ‘concierge serviced apartments’. I guess most, if not all, will be destined to become holiday homes for London stock brokers and the like. Sigh.

And as if that weren’t enough for the day, C drove me up to Bristol and back to see the Playwrights play at the Louisiana. Scarily, I recalled that the last time I was in the Louisiana would have been maybe 12 years ago or so, when Dan, Christian and Hoops (I think) took me to a Northern Soul night after some indiepop night out. How time flies.

The Playwrights, of course, were superb; a wild and dynamic treat of stunning Pop Noise, as expected. It amazes me why this group are not huge, but then it amazed me why The Wolfhounds, Hellfire Sermons and The Claim (all of whom the Playwrights remind me of in a variety of different ways) were never huge. I guess I just don’t have the same tastes as the teaming masses… which is good of course in its way, but a bit of a bugger for the Playwrights’ hopes of global domination. Oh well, such is life.

Comments

[stephen]

Alistair the unpopular link is missing a 'P' .

Just off to order the new singles now , the Shade Tree and Metric Mile cd's have got some of my favourite songs of the year on them , i knew if you started a label it would be this good.