What A Week That Was!
Hello everyone,
My plan is to do a weeklyblog as much as I can. Some weeks I will miss it because some weeks are busier than others, and this is a week that was incredibly busy, but I do need to say things, so here I am blogging away with my eyes slowly closing haha!
Site Stuff
So, first things first, a huge THANK YOU to you all, for making the launch of our new site an incredible success. We had over 300 orders for vinyl, and uncounted numbers of order for digital downloads, and we welcomed the vast majority of VIPers from bandcamp, and most importantly, the site worked haha. That last bit was very nice because while we tried out best to account for every possible issue, you can never be sure there isnt a huge problem or mistake until it goes live. You dont know what you dont know, as the old truism goes, and while we could do the tests we thought of, we couldnt do the tests we couldnt think of. And for the most part, the site launch went very smoothly. So big ups to John Dent who designed and built the entire thing, and to the KF COuncil for all the hard work, and to the trusted testers Alkivar and Brent Sin and John Morris and others who made orders initially to make sure things dint all explode into a ball of fire and socks.
Having said that, the site launched with a very solid, but fairly basic structure, and is now having lots of gaps filled in. Many of the things have already been added this week. Small things such as a little crown to let people know they are VIPers. We might change that logo, but it will do for now. And back end work to make the site run more smoothly behind the scenes, and practical edits such as changes to the cart.
And there are numerous other things we are also in the process of adding. A search function will arrive this week, and a sort function for the labels. We will have an "add to cart" below each item so you can do it from the front page, and you know, lots of little tweaks like that to improve the use of the site. Feel free to add suggestions to the comments below. We have a long list of small but nice updates to do, and a small list of big tedious ones that mainly effect the back of the store for us, and all of those are gonna happen in the next few weeks.
Music Stuff
Lets talk music for a while. Firstly, when the site went live, we already had K01, K03, KFA104, KFD30, KF124 and KF125 in stock, so we are already sending those orders out. We did more than expected on all of those titles, and so I ran out of all of those here in the USA. This means I have only been able to do 2/3rds of my orders so far, but am getting more sent to me and I will have them all done and shipped by the end of the week. Likewise, Lee Idealz has been working all weekend to cover the bulk of the orders so those will be going out in the next few days.
And then we find out that the delivery of the Acen / Wislov / Ramos & Supreme / JDS is due to land early this week hahaha! So its fair to say that this week is going to be a little bit manic both in the UK and here in the USA. Please bear with us.
Once the Acen bundle lands, we will be adding the digital files for those releases, then zeroing out the stock on the KF bandcamp store, and that will be that. We will no longer update Bandcamp I suspect. I would suggest that you download any digital files that you currently have on that site now. While there is no intention to close it immediately, we may well close it at some point, so better safe than sorry :)
As far as stock on this site goes, we already have KFW07 - Innercore and KFW08 - Dj Beeno ready to go live in a weeks time. These will go up along with a few represses (KF99R - Hyper On Experience - The Lords Of The Null Lines Complete Bootleg Remixes and any others we have due) and we will see if we have aby leftover stock from the current batch of releases too. We never know exactly how many of any release we will get, and to be safe we under stock on the store. SO if we have ordered 300 copies of something, we only put up 250 as it is possible we will only get 270 from the press, and we also have to get artists their copies etc, and so we often find a few extras after the dust settles.
Not only that, I hope to be adding stock from Try Unity, Liftin Spirit, Cantina Cuts and Jedi Recordings as well.
Whenever we add a new release, or make an item that was out of stock back in stock, it bounces to the front page, so you will know when that happens at a glance!
Merchandise & Future Releases
We are planning a fairly big range of merchandise, including slipmats from KF, Hectic and JAL, record bags, t-shirts and more. I am still sorting out the details, but that stuff is due in 3-4 weeks time. Its something we need to order in advance, but also, we have to build some extra bits to the site to handle shirt sizes and postage costs, plus we also need to get the packagine for postage and etc. Its a bit of a mission, but it is gonna happen.
As for future releases, we have recieved the test presses on KJAL01, KJAL02 and KJAL03, as well as KFW09 and KFW10, so those are all ready to be ordered. Likewise we are expecting the first Seccond Drop EP and a brand new 4 The Core vinyl EP to be with us in the coming weeks.
I have also sent KHECT02 - The Eliminators - Soothe My Soul / Tune (which is an underated classic in my humble opinion. I was never that into it back in the day, but its a real strong release nevertheless) and KHECT03 - Ramos & Supreme - Sunshine / Gotta Believe (which is virtually unknown and will probably only sell 4 copies....ha!). We also sent Legends Vs Legends 3 to be cut (Hyper On Experience Vs Sublove - WHAT?) and a new Industries Of The Blend as well.
Oh, we also cut one of the most amazing things we have ever cut ever. And thats all I am gonna say about that...
So its all go here...
Digital Releases
We are toying with the idea of making some of the earlier "new" KF releases such as KF64 and KF65 (Remixes 9 & 10) available to buy as digital releases for VIP members. We promised at the time that those would not be released as digital, so its not something I will do if I hear anyone say "NO!!!!! How very DARE you!" but I am interested in your thoughts on that.
We are also slowly adding to the extensive back catalogue of digital EPs. There are still gaps in the discography, and we are filling them in bit by bit as they get mastered and prepared for the site. We are not doing doubles. So for example, KFLP02 is The Future Sound Of Hardcore LP, and KFCD02 is also The Future Sound Of Hardcore. With things like that, we are just doing the vinyl version. Likewise, we have albums such as The Ancient Sound of Hardcore - which were basically repress compilation LPs. But they did feature a few exclusive tracks. So I am grouping all of those exclusive tracks to make one EP, and that will be added to the digital discography. Its a bit of a job though, so bear with me.
And I think thats all I have to say right now! Big ups to all of you, thank you for the support and I will see you next week!
Nice one,
Chris