[LEMONS] 2.07.2002
When I first started downloading and trading mp3s, the only way to do so was via ftp ratio sites, and friend's servers. It was great for getting random stuff, but a terrible method for getting anything in particular. At least immediately. But worse, it was too methodical and too inconvenient, I'm all about convenience. So when I found Napster, I found heaven. I remember a friend complaining to me about Napster in what must have been very late 1999, "there's nothing on it, nobody uses it [1] ." But I didn't give a damn. If I wanted to find a new album, I'd hunt and peck through ftp servers. But most of the time, I'd just queue ten or twelve songs on Napster. And as I used it more and more, and as more and more people began to do the same, it completely changed my relationship with music.
Music is money, big money. Not just to the record industry, but to me. Aside from rent, the bulk of my money goes (and has always gone, even well before I paid rent) to media. Books, magazines, and mostly, compact discs, cassette tapes and vinyl albums. All my life I've been saving for comic books and first editions and imports [2] and box sets and limited runs and EPs and discs meant as companion tracks--not to be listened to as the main musical score, but as an accompaniment--anything, anything, to relieve the everloving boredom of being an only child, and a nerdy, weird one at that, in the suburbs of the New South. Brother, I've laid out some cash.
Napster and its peer-to-peer brethren haven't changed this. If anything, they've exacerbated it. They've made it much easier to find new bands, without relying on the hit-or-miss reviews you read in magazines[3]. If I had a big-ass iron boot for every rawk and roll critic whose tastes I thought I agreed with, only to discover that I'd just gotten home with a copy of James "Laid" [4] ... Well, there'd be quite a few know-nothing trendskyites in Alphabet City limping around with sore asses. Or something.
All of which is to say that I make better purchases these days, even as I buy more music than ever before. And therein lies the problem, as well as the point to this rather pointless essay.
You see, the independent record store has always been my companion. When I was in junior high school, and my mom would take me with her up to Auburn [5] . It was here that I began handing over my money to independent record stores, and trucking in used music and albums with questionable copyrights. And I grew with the independent record store, and still can call many of them out by name: Fantasyland, Wax N Facts, Wuxtry, Bigshot, Eat More.
By the time I was in college I had developed a symbiotic relationship with the independent record store. In the fat times, I'd go wild, spending hours in the store, and all that my bank account would allow, and sometimes more if the album had just come out that day [6] . But in the lean times, I could always, always, count on making a few bucks at the record store. If I really needed some money--I mean really needed it--I knew it was there, and it was there for the asking [7] . All I needed to do was to walk down to the record store with a bagfull of CDs that I never listened to anyway.
And that's gone now, that's no more.
Today, my relationship with the independent record store is limited to the one-way transaction. When, today, I looked at my CD collection [8] , I couldn't find a single CD that I was willing to part with. Today, when times are lean, my collection no longer gives back. It merely receives.
Fucking Morpheus.
Thanks for listening.
1. [back up] Funny how things come full circle.
2. [back up]Do people even buy imports anymore? Why would you ever pay for a live bootleg that doesn't give one red cent back to the band in these days where those shows aren't held hostage anymore? It's not as if when you see a live show in a record store you can't have it inside of fifteen minutes with some crafty electronetting. And in these days of fan groups via email, trading physical media has become ridiculously easy as well. But if eBay is any example, people do.
3. [back up] Do Spin and Rolling Stone and NME even run reviews of albums anymore? If they do, do people still read them? Why listen to some what some effete wanker in Manhattan, slave to the advertising dollars of the record industry, has to say when you can download a few tracks yourself? If there's any justice in the world, peer-to-peer will put music critics out of business.
4. [back up] which I keep as a reminder not to believe reviews. okay, actually I keep it just because I can't sell it. See point (3).
5. [back up] 45 minutes or so north of Montgomery. I grew up in Montgomery, my mom got her PhD at Auburn University. She'd take me with her up there once every couple of months. Not enough for it to be routine, but often enough that I could sort of plan on going. I'd always go to the record store, along with tiger rags and food places, typical college joints. This was where I began learning about new music. It was where I found all the bands that would come to help define who I am, or rather who I want to be.
6. [back up] Ahhhhh, collection agencies of Athens, Georgia. How well I remember thee.
7. [back up] Often enough thanks to those fey words I'd read in some zine. The same words that would ensure the album resold for a few dollars.
8. [back up] That weighs down the entertainment center, fills drawers, spills out across speakers and onto the floor.
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