Watch: Ian Smith from Music From Big Blue doesn’t believe Record Store Day lives up to its intentions

Music From Big Blue lies among a cluster of brightly painted units down Finnieston’s Hidden Lane - a vinyl shop opened at the tail end of lockdown and headquarters to the socialist record label Last Night From Glasgow.

The non-profit was launched by local music fan Ian Smith who theorised that an artist-led approach to releasing music was more beneficial to the people making it, and more ethical than the generic capitalist model.

LNFG takes musicians on and funds their album production with cash collected from patronage. They organise studio time, promote the work through an organically built list of contacts, and by the end of the process, the artist owns the rights to their own work.

Through this model of operation, the label breaks even and those involved receive an income. The aim is not to dominate the industry, or even climb the ladder, it’s simply to help artists live in a world saturated by billion dollar streaming services that have devalued their work.

The record shop MFBB bloomed naturally from the business model, as they sold their own bands’ vinyls, regular customers also showed interest in outside releases, thus it made sense to expand the stock range.

“I believe in the concept of Record Store Day, but it’s possibly become too commercialised”, said Ian.

“In reality, it might act as a detriment to the independent stores.”

Ordinarily, if a shop was to purchase a certain record from a major label, it comes with a ‘sale of return’ guarantee, meaning if no one buys it the retailer can sell it back minimising their loss.

The purpose of Record Store Day is to drive people into the independent stockists, and thus companies offer them exclusive releases to act as incentive. The issue is they come with no sale of return, so if they aren’t sold the store is financially worse off.

Record of the Week

For out latest Record of the Week, Ian nominated alt American rock band Wilco’s fourth album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - released in 2002, retrospectively considered one of the defining musical productions of its time.

“I can’t pick one of our records”, Ian said.

“We’ve got around 100 artists, 99 of them won’t speak to me if I don’t pick their album so I’ll be predictable and pick what I think - the best album ever made which is Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco from Chicago.

“It’s a masterpiece.”

The compilation came out during the aftermath of 9/11 and the mood of the moment was credited with accelerating its success. Ian first heard it the week it was released.

“Bit of a difficult album to get into, real departure, big sonic landscapes, took a long time for it to click, but as soon as it clicked.

“Every time I go back to it I discover something I didn’t know about it.

“I mean it really is, it’s just - it’s the best record ever made.”