There was a commercial airing recently that I witnessed on TV, at a bar, with the sound off, and no closed-captioning. Without the sound I’m not 100% sure, but the gist of it was that a fellow, maybe in his late twenties or early thirties was going to have his girl friend move into his apartment, but when she stepped foot in there, his pad was packed wall-to-wall with his record collection. With the sound off, all I could interpret was her obvious displeasure in this, she crossed her arms and shook her head. No, something was clearly going to have to change. Well, this noble fellow obviously went out and got a turntable that loaded his record collection right into his computer and there was a brief part of the story showing him loading them one-by-one, the level meters were visible so you could tell what was going on, but the long-and-short of it was that the next time his girlfriend came by, the place was immaculate, no records to be found anywhere. Where were they? Stored on his ipod, naturally!
Well, I was initially like, what sort of message is this?! Screw these cultural bandits. The ipod does not replace the turntable and mp3s are not automatically the new preferred music format. I had questions. But what is there to question? Now, I did consider that maybe this fellow didn’t just get rid of his entire collection, but perhaps put it into storage. That makes sense to me and is a little less sinister. I can relate to the dilemma, certainly. Anyone who has had a record collection and has had to move several times can attest to the pain of it all, lugging boxes upon boxes of vinyl from domicile to domicile. But, I did have a revelation… as someone who hasn’t jumped on the ipod train yet, that perhaps that immaculate apartment depicted in the commercial was indeed a Jetson’s vision of the future, spotless minimalism. I mean, if you are like me and you still have a wall full of cds, a library of sorts, you can’t help looking at it in wonder, knowing that so many people are carting their entire collection of music around with them in their pocket. You just can’t help it ! Is the notion of just plain stuff the issue here? Having stuff vs. not having stuff.
I just recently purchased a USB turntable for my computer. This was a fine investment on my part, I must say. No regrets, none what-so-ever. I run it through my pro audio monitors and it sounds golden. I’m a lot happier too, as a sentient being who has found himself, perhaps again, as a music fan. As a music fan, I grew up with records and I looked at that gatefold of Michael Jackson with the tiger for eons. I stared at the intricate adolescent artwork on the Misfits record, “Earth A.D.” for hours and days, etc, etc.. and many other personal stories about self-discovery through music. So, naturally, it was frustrating when my main source of music retail in
Illinois, “
Record
City” stopped selling records and went entirely CD.
I felt that I had lost and was then forced to get a cd player, against my will.
It wasn’t until just recently that this thought occurred to me, that I was actually railroaded out of the record thing.
Well, now I’m back and I feel happy as pie.
We’ll see.
I’m not advocating luddism and what not although I believe that everyone should incorporate a bit of that into their personality and/or personal politics.
Basically, people should incorporate thinking about technology into their schedules a bit instead of just blindly consuming it.
Just a thought.
People used to really think about this stuff, before and during industrial revolutions, etc.
Some thoughts pointed toward the loss of humanity with the rise of gadgets.
Enslavement, possibly.
With everything happening in a Window’s environment these days, there’s a certain template that most thoughts flow through.
I don’t know, but what I do know is my own life and it’s fun and interesting to write a bit of a rant because you know, we’re talking about quality of living here.
Quality of living for me, regarding music, means giving back.
Like, buying music with money is giving back.
Like, the physical object of a finely crafted 12” record vs. a low-quality mp3 (once again, not ranking on the mp3, but the distinction should be made).
The whole debate about morality and music patronage, the supporting of the arts, the major restructuring of the music industry, to name a few issues, is bringing about a bit of a philosophical nuance to the whole music world.
What I want to say is just that, regarding quality of living, I really feel better giving back, bartering, something for the music, not just taking and taking.
There’s a balance, like the luddite balance, you can be part tech obsessed and part cautious, or maybe superstitious about the potential loss of your soul.
You can be a part giver and a part taker equally.
Like there’s millions of bands and musical projects offering free music, samples, promo stuff… you can’t buy it all !
You don’t need to feel immoral for this modern ‘browsing’ that occurs, you’re learning about new music as you go, you’re being turned on to new ideas.
Feel free to take, take away!
But you know, you can figure how to heal yourself in the process of giving back as well.
Buy cds from bands you see, etc.
I don’t know, I have my own system and let’s not deceive ourselves here.
It’s all about me!
I needs to heal myself and my soul and music does that and I really have to treat it as this sacred practice and how I get it and how I listen to it are equally pertinent to the quality of the content.
It’s like setting yourself up to be an empty vessel to receive and transmit the wisdom of the universe.
But in the end, it’s all about improving your own quality of life.
This is a typical tirade, I know that quite well. I wanted to talk about records, vinyl, as if I were starting this new political party or something. Sending out an awareness of sorts and creating a larger context in which this issue rests. Naturally, cans of worms and Pandora’s boxes are continually being opened in my head as I write so it’s cool, man. I wanted to also mention that I was annoyed about my own cynicism regarding all the myspace stuff and all the self-promotion that is running amok from every band and everyone with a guitar who has an album out and wants you to hear it. It’s a glut of stuff and it’s so unsexy in my mind that bands need to pimp themselves because it defies the glory of being a rock star, that you shouldn’t have to pimp yourself, that the world should just worship and worship some more! BUT: I had an epiphany about it all that made me feel really good about everything and took a tremendous burden off my shoulders (because I bear the weight of the world on my shoulders as do many other neurotics). So, I’ll write another entry about that because I’ve been reading a lot of blogs lately about where music is going because that’s my current thing. Like, a lot of writers are considering what the future will look like and as far as the transition from what’s going on now with music to what will be going on just five years from now, it will require a certain amount of creativity just to imagine! Who the hell knows. But, there are certain things that are positive and some of them hit me like a hammer and I didn’t have the feel cynical any more about the state of things and I could relax and not be Chicken Little for five minutes or so. Don’t worry, everything will be all right.