5 December 2024
As mentioned on last week’s Fish on Friday and several times in recent months, the Chocolate Frog Record Company will close its doors next March, immediately after the UK tour. I will no longer be manufacturing albums, and the last production run took place in October when the final pressings of the Vigil in a Wilderness of Mirrors and Internal Exile deluxe sets were delivered to Germany for the tour.
As of a week ago, I had 1,300 Vigil and 1,600 Exile deluxe editions split between Holland, Germany, and Scotland. The fishmusic.eu store is now closed, and store.fishmusic.scot is the only place to buy albums.
During the 32-date tour, most of the albums were available on the merchandise stalls. By mutual consent between M&E and myself, we decided that after the tour, the store would cease to operate. They have fulfilled all outstanding orders, and I am bringing the remaining stock back from Holland to sell exclusively through the store.fishmusic.scot website.
Here’s an idea of the remaining stock:
- Deluxe Editions: 538 13th Star, 217 13th Star triple box sets.
- Vinyl: Fewer than 800 each of the Vigil and Exile double vinyl albums, and 174 Feast of Consequences triple vinyl box sets.
- Remasters: 335 Field of Crows, 675 Fellini Days, 568 Sunsets on Empire, 403 Raingods with Zippos, 524 Suits. Both Feast of Consequences and Songs from the Mirror are sold out.
- Live Albums: 57 A Moveable Feast, 268 Farewell to Childhood, 850 Vigil’s End.
There are more than enough copies of the Last Straw and Weltschmerz deluxe editions, but any surplus will be destroyed when the company closes. There will be no more repressings of any titles.
To put this into context:
In February and March, I’ll be playing to around 20,000 people across 15 shows. Between merchandise stalls at venues, the planned “pop-up” stalls, and the existing store.fishmusic.scot mail-order service (run by my daughter Tara until March), I’m confident everything will sell out before I call it a day.
This is a heads-up for anyone who still wants to buy physical albums—either on CD or vinyl—as there are no current plans to move the catalog to another label. I can confirm that the existing remasters and deluxe editions will never be duplicated by another company. This truly marks the end of an era and the final releases from the Chocolate Frog Record Company.
All albums are available now at store.fishmusic.scot, along with the T-shirts and hoodies we’ll also be selling during the UK tour. As I mentioned on last week’s Fish on Friday, most UK venues impose high concession fees, so prices on the website will be around 20% cheaper than at the venues. I hope to set up “pop-up” stores near every venue to avoid these fees, but I can’t guarantee it.
If you want to purchase the new T-shirts and hoodies, I recommend ordering from Tara at the store.fishmusic.scot mail-order shop before the UK tour. She’ll be restocked this weekend with all missing sizes, as the initial stock sold out a few weeks ago. You can check out all the available designs on the website.
It feels strange writing this after running the record company for so many wonderful years. I’ll be sad to bring it to a close, but I take comfort knowing that thousands of albums are sitting on shelves and playing on systems around the world, bringing joy to people for years to come.
Take care, and thank you to everyone who has supported the store over the years. Without you, I wouldn’t be here now.
Fish x
The frogs will chant in the darkness.