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| From | Dan Franke <deer_lick@yahoo.com> |
| Subject | Re: eMusic |
| Date | Fri, 11 May 2007 11:39:03 -0700 (PDT) |
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I'm going to take the unpopular stance of siding with
Hutton on this one - and not just because he talks
funny. (Bob - I met you breifly at IPO-Chicago years
ago). I think part of the exception is taken by the
way his post was phrased, but I do have to agree with
the sentiment. It's so easy for a band to release a CD
now days, therefore there's a lot of crap to wade
through and a lot harder for the gems to rise to the
surface. I read Audities to get the recommendations on
bands from the similar-minded folks here (and half the
time get pointed towards a clunker), I read Mojo &
Uncut (because I generally agree with them and most
American Music Press sucks), and I preview as much
music as I can for free. If I like a band (hell,
sometimes even if I don't like them), I go to their
show when they come around. If they have CD's for sale
at an affordable price, I buy one. I have a lot more
respect for a band who is out there working it than
someone holed up in their bedroom with pro-tools.
Some of this is economics - I took about a 50% paycut
to move to Austin after too many winters in
Wisconsin...So naturally my disposible income has
diminished. Unfortunately, my love of music didn't
diminish with it. About 5 years ago, just for kicks I
cataloged all of my purchases for a year in a
spreadsheet and broke it down to where I bought it. I
spend a good chunk over $2000 on CD's, mostly at
Atomic (new) & Farwell Music (used). It was a nice
reality check. I instantly scaled back. I would
estimate I'm around $1000 now, which is still probably
too much and doesn't include my live music budget. I
should probably do the same test again, but I also
feel that I support music enough that I don't feel
guilty about the occassional freebie.
I also fall into the old-school
"I-Want-My-Physical-CD" club and I'm a completist. If
Elvis Costello or Wilco/Tweedy or The Flaming Lips or
The Ramones or The Clash/Strummer/Jones/Simonon or
Cheap Trick or Replacements/Westerberg/Stinson or ...
are re-issuing or releasing something, I'm going to
buy it. Which also presents a problem with storage.
Eventually, I'm going to run out of space - Especially
since no one taught Texans how to build a basement or
an attic. I have 20 boxes of albums in a friend's
basement in Milwaukee & no place to put them. I have 4
8-foot book shelves crammed with CD's. Conversely, I
have a 250 gig harddrive that takes up about as much
space as a binder and as of April 23rd, 2007 had 3157
albums on it...Granted, a majority of those are from
the 5000+ CD's in the aforementioned bookshelves.
Sometimes I long for the days when I could afford one
album a month and I dwelled over my purchase and I
absorbed every note of it until it was time to buy
another - "London Calling" saved me about 4 months of
purchases, since it was the only thing I listened to
for an entire summer. Unfortunately, music (in
general) has become devalued and disposable. But, I'll
be lining up to buy the new Wilco (sometimes Waterloo
Records has a line), even though I've had it for a few
months now. It will also be at (or very near) the top
of my year-end list.
But enough of my ramblin'
Signing out from ATX,
Dan FrankE
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