HW:Yule Ritual

[Mark Von Bargen]

Hi,

What is the score with Voiceprint and Yule Ritual - a few points.

Without wishing to upset the mail order folks (hi Andy, Stuart and all) it
is confusing that you can get Yule Ritual via mail order but you can't walk
into a record store and actually see and touch a copy.

I can go into HMV in Liverpool and they have racks full of many Hawkwind
CD's including many of the dodgy Dave Anderson type releases in their many
forms. They also have SOME of the other Voiceprint releases but they ship
out of the store pretty quickly. Talking to the staff in the store they get
really pee'd off with the way that certain NAME artists have their release
promoted for weeks; for example, the new Michael Jackson CD will get heavy
promotion for months but new releases by artists such as Hawkwind, Kings X
and Demon will be impossible to find.

Spoke to the local independant stores who knew nothing about Yule Ritual
and were pretty pee'd off with Voiceprint about it. They described
Voiceprint as a collection of labels and a 'sort of distribution company'
although they also distribute via Pinnacle. Typical stories of late and
sporadic delivery are familiar and these are the record stores who lean
towards the sort of artists that feature on Voiceprint. The moral of that
is to say that the record label is Hawk records.

The final point is: to get the releases to those people who may be more
casual type fans then it needs to have some sort of promotion which
includes being visible in record stores. Not everybody is online or knows
about the fine mail order comapnies yet. I get involved in regular heated
discussions with record store staff
Usual comment from me: Why haven't you got the new Hawkwind album yet?
Ultimate repsonse from them: Our head office (or the record company) have
not sent it to us yet; sorry can't help.

Its sad that a full UK tour starts in a few days and it is impossible to
find the brand new, official release in any record store around Merseyside.
Somebody needs to sort out the promotional and distribution side of things
otherwise the potential fan base is going to shrink to people like us who
are online at these lists and the other people that we tell. Word of mouth
is no way to promote successfully.
Mark