Fingerprint’s Rand Foster on Best Practices For a Record Store Day In-Store

(Photo by Rand Foster) –
This Band Could Be Your Life: Thor performing an in-store at Fingerprints Music in Long Beach, Calif, in February 2018

Part and parcel of every annual Record Store Day, which celebrates its 11th anniversary this Saturday (April 13), are the many in-store performances that can massively enhance the day’s excitement of limited-run exclusive recordings and special offers. Pollstar caught up with Rand Foster who for the past 27 years has run the beloved Fingerprints Music in Long Beach CA and hosted his share of in-stores with a slew of artists including Foo Fighters, Weezer and Prophets of Rage among many others. This year Fingerprints is hosting five in-store performances with Chicano Batman, Thrice, Reignwolf, Milo Green and a special appearance by the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith and Josh Klinghoffer with Jane’s Addiction’s Eric Avery performing T-Rex songs. Here, we have Foster’s best practices for producing an RSD in-store.

Pollstar: What’s your experience with in-stores?
Rand Foster: We’ve been doing in-stores pretty much since we opened. When we moved to the arts district in downtown Long Beach eight years ago and we’re in a much bigger space at about 8,000 square feet, we knew we needed to have an attraction that was a little stronger than just this week’s new releases. We have almost 20-years of experience doing in-stores and really good relationships with artists who have come back multiple times and made us of a regular stop. It was a big part of what we did to get people to come down and see the new space and check us out.

When you book a band are you going through agents, managers or labels?
We usually go through labels or managers, it depends. A lot of times the managers will come to us if we have a relationship. We had Jenny Lewis in a couple weeks ago and have a long relationship with Silva [Artists Management], so they kind of factor us in to their plans, which is really nice. But like in the case of the [Red Hot Chili Peppers’] Josh and Chad, we went to the label, and the label went to them directly and said “Do you guys want to do this?” And that’s how it happened.

Why not agents?
Agents can be tough, because agents are working on a percentage thing, so this is like extra work that they’re not getting paid for. I don’t fault them for not wanting to get super involved. Sometimes we do work with them because they’re doing a package or something where it’s just part of it. But more often than not, it tends to be a relationship with either the artists themselves, management, or most cases, with the label. Our capacity’s small. It’s really a promotional thing. We’re like bring your camera, social media the shit out of this. Often times we get great press coverage. It’s just an event, and usually it’s small, and the idea is people around the world are like “Holy shit, did you see this?” You’re just hoping it goes viral.

We had Glen Hansard back in our old store. Right before Once was coming out. He went outside and played. And he was like “Hey, I’m going to go out and play to the crowd out front.” And I was like “Dude, this is going to be a nightmare, but okay.” So he goes out, and just starts busking to people waiting in line to get in. And at one point he’s standing in the street, and a car almost backs into him and it’s this crazy video, but the video had like a million-plus views.

How do you promote and market in-stores? Is there a best practice for artists or for the record store in terms of just getting the message out there?
Because of the way we work our list, people have to either physically come into the store to pre-order or call us and do it over the phone—and that will be changing not too far down the road where we’ll have a segment of our pre-orders online. Right now it really requires a one-on-one interaction in order for us to do this. For us to roll out five major events, we had to pace them. We were ready to announce Chicano Batman and Thrice posted that they were doing the signing. And we were like “Chicano Batman’s tomorrow, now.” The phones just went crazy. It’s like okay, we’re going to sell this one out first and then we’ll come back and do Chicano Batman. But the best practices are for bands to let their fans know because they have a much more direct conduit. We’re only talking to our fans, but when we get their fans, it’s a different story.

How big is your mailing list of fans?
Our emailing list is probably 11,000. And then our social media, we’re 14 to 17 thousand per platform. So I think our overall reach, not discounting for people that are on multiple lists. is probably 40,000.

Where do the bands perform?
We put the bands at the back wall. When we built out the store we put our fixtures on wheels so we have the ability to at basically the back half of the store to create an open space and build a stage. We light it from our rails. We have a mezzanine kind of going around on two sides so it lights up from there

Do you have a PA or backline?
We don’t back line generally but have the ability to because we’re part of the community. Long Beach has a great music scene, so we do have people we can call on and be like, “Hey, can we borrow your drums?” More likely it’s “Can we borrow your hi-hat or a a throne or something smaller than an actual kit, but we do have a PA. It’s a little smaller, a 16-channel Mac E-board. It’s a digital board. We run a JBL on it. We have a QSR sub. Our stage is configurable too. I think it 12 by 16. We’ve had Polyphonic Spree and brought a bunch of other weird pieces in and made this multilayered, multilevel performance. We approach everything with a can-do attitude, and I think that’s part of what bands like about working with us, we’re not super rigid. We’re like, “Let’s just do this, and we’ll get through it and make it fun. Tell us what you need, and we’ll figure it out.”

What if I’m a loud band like say Mastodon or Baroness and we’re coming in to rock, should I bring my Marshall stacks? Or should we go acoustic? What’s best practices in general?
It depends on the band. My approach is to come at this from a fan standpoint first and then I try to be as sensitive as possible to the band needs. If you’re going to play in an environment that is much more intimate, and you’re going to do the same show that you do in a big room, it kind of overpowers a room and it gets lost. You miss the opportunity for the intimacy. So we encourage bands to strip it down to a radio session style. Do something that’s a little less grandiose because it draws people in a little closer. And we have that, just by the virtue of the space. We have to stay under 300 because of the fire laws for California. We did Weezer where they did two shows in one night. We sold 1,000 copies of their record. Management came back and was like, “Hey, just wanted to let you know, that 1,000 pieces made the difference between us being a top ten debut and a top five debut.”

(Photo Brett Bixby) –
Fingerprints Music Rand Foster.

So another best practices is to bring records?
Well, it’s not really on the band, that’s on us. We’re the record store, so we sell the product. Our events are free but we open a guest list first to people who buy the record. So when it’s somebody like Weezer the people who buy a record get first crack at the lists. On those bigger ones, we sell everything out and we sell the maximum number of records because we sell our capacity. On the younger bands, somebody that’s developing that’s coming through that maybe isn’t as established, then it’s more kind of traditional in store. Where they come in and people are maybe hearing the band for the first time, and that’s where our marketing comes into play. We bring in audiences just like “Hey, let’s check ’em out, because they told us they’re good.” And then it’s kind of on the band to blow people away so that they want to go home with the record.

What will you do in terms of products for your in-stores this year?
For Reignwolf, because he’s not that established in the market, we just ask people to RSVP. I’m guessing we’ll have somewhere between 150 to 200 people. Many will be seeing him for the first time, because most of our marketing is tailored to our audience. And he’s not getting a radio market yet and his plays in town have been underplays. He did the Moroccan, which is a 200 cap. So he’s got a little ground to make up with here. Unlike Seattle, where I think he’s got a really strong stronghold. So for him it’s just let us know you’re coming and we’ll get you in and you’ll be good. Thrice is just doing a signing, so that one’s easy. We’re just having people RSVP for the signing so we know who’s coming. The other side of us having a guest list which allows us to do a pre-sale which gets people committed so they actually come. If you just have people RSVP on Facebook or whatever that doesn’t mean anything. It means they saw your thing, clicked a button and moved on.

So you have to buy the record to get in?
You buy the record to get on the guest list. With Reignwolf, that’s not the case, it’s an open guest list.

But if it’s a big artist say Weezer or The Foo Fighters or somebody…
Or Chicano Batman or Milo Greene,or Chad and Josh, that’s going to be a capacity show for us as well, because it’s a once in a lifetime thing.

So The Chili Peppers/Jane’s Addiction thing is based on a T-Rex tribute record that never happened and two of those songs are being released on a seven inch single?
It’s Chad and Josh from Chili Peppers and they did the seven inch. And then, because Josh played guitar and bass on the seven-inch, they’re bringing Eric in as a third member to round out the sound. And they’re going to play 20 to 30 minutes. It’s going to be crazy.

So this is in their best interest?
I don’t think they care about selling the seven inch they did it out of love and joy and they love T-Rex. Record Store Day works the best when people approach it from a let’s do this for fun, and that’s totally what this project feels like. So when I went to the label and was like, “Hey, do you want to ask them if they want to do this?” I was like, “Let’s make it that we’re going to come in and play our whole seven inch.” You know, which is ridiculous, because that’s like nine minutes. And the guys came back, and they’re like “Yeah, we’ll do 20-30 minutes, and we’ll jam a little bit, and it’ll be fun.” So they’re coming at it much less to move some units, and much more we’re just going to go have a good time. And that’s a big part of what we strive to do

So do most bring their equipment?
Some do and some don’t. The Foo Fighters brought it. It was a full Foo Fighters show. They brought their own stage. But most people work with what we have, and we’re scaled to the room. When we had Prophets of Rage, I was like “Holy shit, we’re going to lose windows!” It was so loud. We’re all glass across the front. We didn’t.

How long should artists play for?
We usually encourage 30 to 45 minutes. And part of that is we don’t want to lose sight of the point of this, which is two-fold: One, we want to sell records, so we want people to leave wanting more. Because that’s going to sell a record, right? And the other part of it that’s really important is to be sensitive to is that there are promoters in town that have a show. And if we do this right, this should help them sell tickets. Coachella is probably the only really difficult thing, because they have such an iron clad radius clause with that, but almost everything else, and Goldenvoice in general, is fairly supportive, because they’re coming in for half an hour. You leave, you want more. You’re going to go buy a ticket, and go to the show.

And you’re not charging any money and you’re selling records, it’s a different beast entirely.
It is. And that’s where the acoustic and the stripped-down thing really comes in because then it’s a completely different product than what they’re selling so they can even get behind supporting it in some cases. Where they’re like, “Hey, go see the acoustic set, and then come see the plugged in set.” And for somebody like Mastodon, something like that, that’s a huge thing. You know, it’s like, oh I want to see both of these.

What about merch?
We let bands do merch.

What about selling tickets?
Tickets is weird because for most of that there’s an agency involved. You know, whether it’s -Ticketmaster or some smaller regional competitor of theirs. So we don’t do tickets too often. But our thing on merch is look, we’re in the record business. If you want to bring some merch, you can’t bring a full merch setup, but pick a shirt or two, bring them in. You staff it, you keep it. We’re not in the T-shirt business, so. Some bands do really well. We do sell T-shirts, but I just feel like that’s their money. I don’t need to get into it. They’re doing us a huge favor. Again, that’s the one thing we strive for and I the thing really hard to never lose sight of is that this is an incredible gift that these artists come in and do this with us, and we try to make sure that everything we can do is pro-artist.

Do you have backstage amenities or riders?
We do our own rider where basically everybody who plays we tell them in advance we’re going to havesomething to snack on and beer and water. We have a basic list that gives everybody something to snack on. Because we have a coffee house in the store, we have the ability to bring in food. When Brian Wilson was here, we bougt him a steak dinner, because he was hungry. So we try to accommodate. It just goes back to a hungry artist is not a happy artist so we try to be sensitive to that, but we don’t do the “I need three bottles of Glacier, 24 beers” It’s probably closer to like a festival style, hospitality. But we do offer hospitality. And if it’s a bigger act, and they’re like “Hey, we want this.” Then yeah, we go get it. And again, it’s incredible that they’re doing it. Really, that comes back to the main thing for me. I think stores that I hear that have challenges with artists it’s because they’re not approaching it from the standpoint of this is an incredible gift, and you need to treat it like that.

So when they get off the stage where do they go?
We have a backstage area, we actually drop a curtain, so there isn’t an actual, literal backstage area. But then we also have an upstairs. I have an office upstairs, and then we have a break room. My office is set up with couches and coffee tables. It’s not a desk kind of a situation. And it’s private, so people can kind of hang out, and talk about how it went and change their shirt. Then they cool off a little bit, then they bring them down stairs, and they meet fans, sign records, and do that kind of thing.

What about in terms of doing a signing or meet and greets? What’s the best practice post-show?
It depends on the artist. We did Melanie Martinez, we did 1975. In those cases, that’s a younger audience. They don’t care about the autograph as much as the photo. So in those cases we bring photographers in, and we’ll just upload all the photos. And it’s like, “Download them for free. They’re on our website.” And it’s kind of quick say hi, shake their hand, talk for a second, next person. Most of them tend to be signings, because we tend to skew a little bit older, because our booking tends to reflect our taste and they appreciate being able to immediately be in the presence of their fans.

How important is Record Store Day for your bottom line?
It’s huge. I can’t stress enough how big it is. I talk to a lot of stores around the country, because we’re fairly close with them, it’s a close knit network of family. It makes all the difference. Christmas is huge, holidays are huge. First of the year is generally a little soft. Things start to happen. Record Store Day happens and it’s a huge injection of business and cash flow and ability to pay the bills. It kind of rolls into summer, where hopefully there’s festivals and other things that are driving business, and then you’re back in the fourth quarter. So in many ways it’s the bridge between the holidays and things starting to pick up with kids being out of school. Many, many stores when we started this talked about it saying that it’s saving their business.

Courtesy Fingerprints Music. –
Fingerprints Music in Long Beach, Calif.

Are you part of the Record Store Day organization?
There isn’t really an organization of Record Store Day. Record Store Day is kind of, when you look at the staff of Record Store Day, it’s Michael [Kurtz] and Carrie [Colliton]. I’m part of CIMS, which is the Coalition of Independent Music Stores. And I do some advisory stuff with Michael and Carey, just because I’m such a huge fan of what they’ve been doing and what they’ve been able to turn this into. But it’s 364 days out of the year and it’s a two person production over there. Every once in a while I get to jump in and help out, but it’s mostly them.

Record Store Day has a really special vibe, it really feels like Christmas at record stores even before anybody plays a note.
It’s a love fest. I mean it truly. We have customers that come out every year that bake cookies. And they’re like “Here! Here’s a thing of cookies for you, and here’s a thing of cookies for the band.” It’s amazing. People feel invested in our store. The thing about Record Store Day is it’s a celebration of the culture of record stores. And that’s a two-way thing. That doesn’t happen in a vacuum. If you don’t have a customer base who’s supportive of what you do, than it’s probably equally rough to have something to celebrate. Most of the stores that I hear that are successful it’s because there’s this relationship between you and your customers that happens throughout the year and then coalesces into this big party that one day of the year.