The trouble with Record Store Day...

Finger on the pulse as ever, I'm writing about Record Store Day three weeks after the event. At least that's given me time to calm down.

I've moaned written about RSD before, to wit:

• it's record shop, not record store;
• the aims of RSD when it started are very different to the needs of record shops now;
• Ebay profiteering; and
• "Where were you bastards then?"

So I don't need to revisit those bug bears, do I? (Though I might).

Instead, let's add some new gripes. Although largely underwhelmed by this year's offerings, I did want one record - the Morrissey 7-inch of Lover To Be, on red vinyl and with an excellent picture sleeve of the late Donnelly Rhodes. Slight snag - I would be on holiday, and far away from home, on RSD19.

Naturally, part of my vacation planning involved identifying participating record shops near to my holiday home. There were three, and I targeted the one in the biggest town, thinking that my greatest chance of success would be there. And that's where my problems began.

I arrived at the shop, or more precisely the queue for the shop, at 7.20am, in readiness for an 8am opening. Which meant lots of time to listen to other people in the queue talking or, as I shall henceforth refer to them, RSDW.

Immediately in front of me, two RSDW were deep in discussion. One was wearing blue-framed Ray-Bans. At 7.20am. In a street that was shaded on both sides. Beneath a sky that threatened (but didn't deliver) showers. The other was a 40-something aspirant hipster, wearing trousers that did him no favours and a hounds-tooth trilby that definitely was not being worn the right way. They were discussing a box of records that Trilby had bought from a classified ad: "200 records for 30 quid!" Ray-Bans made some too-cool-for-school noises at this, until Trilby threw in the additional "...but there's some Miles Davis in there and I've had a look on Discogs and some of them are worth 30 quid on their own!" "Sweet," said Ray-Bans, which was odd, as I had a sour taste in my mouth.

A couple of places behind me in the queue, a loud RSDW bemoaned the notion of queues, thus: "I don't do queues. I fucking hate queues." This, despite the fact that he very clearly was doing a queue. And what's more, who doesn't hate them? And I could go on, there were plenty of RSDW in the queue, but I don't want to sound too much like the intolerant curmudgeon that I am.

Bang on 8, the shop opened, and the queue began to inch forward. Like many shops on RSD, this one was operating a one in, one out policy. I got to the front door by 8.30, by which time I had glimpsed an Ebay profiteer with an arm full of records through the shop window... and one of those records was Lover To Be. I began to hope the shop had more than one copy and they surely would, right? At the front door, one of the co-owners was on hand to say hello. He asked what I was after and, when I told him, he said, "Oh, no-one else has said that so you should be alright." Except when I finally got my foot over the threshold I was staggered to see that there was only one small box of 7" RSD releases. Rack after rack of 12" but hardly any 7". And no Morrissey red vinyl to be seen. Beaten to the punch by an Ebay profiteer.

I left in a huff, and marched back to the car. After quickly consulting Google Maps on my phone, I set off for another of the local participating record shops, this one in a much smaller market town. Maybe it would be less popular, I tried to convince myself. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

After a cross-country dash that was entirely within the speed limit, I arrived in the queue for my second chance at five to nine ... and immediately wished I had gone there first. For whilst there was still a queue and a one in, one out policy, there was also a member of staff going up and down the queue with an arm full of clipboards, getting people to highlight the releases they were after. Periodically, he would head into the shop and then come back out to break the news to people who were after records that had sold out. In other words, there was organisation, and an attempt at fairness. And there didn't seem to be anything like as many RSDW.

I dutifully ticked the Morrissey box on a clipboard and awaited my fate, inching forward all the time. When the shop worker reappeared, he looked genuinely sad to tell me that "we've sold them all, sorry." All! All! Implying multiple copies. Gah! If only I'd been there an hour earlier. Hell damn fart. This was enough for me - I was supposed to be on holiday, after all. I didn't try the third shop, but went for a nice walk with my family, and tried not to fume.

Of course, by the end of the day Ebay was full of listings for Lover To Be, all around the £27-£28 mark, compared to the RSD list price of £9.99. I did fume a bit then.

Enough. Here's the song I was after, and the B-side: the tunes without the queues.