One of the best albums (as in, a musical statement designed to be listened to as a whole) of the year so far, pressed on glorious 45 RPM translucent red wax, and yes it sounds divine. [Pro tip: translucent vinyl (of any color) is usually the best sounding. It's the 'marbled' colored stuff you kinda wanna be wary of. Good black vinyl is actually somewhat translucent if you shine a light on it.] There's only 75 of these puppies available worldwide, and you could put stuff like this in your daughter's dowry, so get like me h8rz!
I was just listening to an interview with Steve Albini where he talks about the heard-it-a-million-times-now 'shift in the music industry' away from records and towards live performance. This is significant for him, being a producer/engineer n' all. He seems positive about it, saying that records are now a 'service' for bands used to promote their live show. I'm of a totally different mind about this: I kind of hate live music, and always have. Sure, I've been to some unforgettable shows, but it's a completely different sort of sensation from experiencing recorded music. Occasionally you'll hear live versions that trump the recorded ones in some way, and rarely you may hear some mysterious unreleased song that never makes it to record. But mostly live shows are bland social affairs where you're scanning the room for single hauties and wondering what'll be at the merch table. I used to go see bands because because I wondered what the people making the cool sounds I heard on an album looked like, wondered what kind of personal vibes they were putting out, but now I can find all that kind of info on Fader TV, Facebook, etc. while I listen to their records. So what's the point of going to a show? I can't even scan for hauties anymore, I'm in a relaissh.
This is not my beautiful music industry. I miss the days when the shows were the promotional tool for the product. An infrequent, whimsical affair that was affordable (because tours usually broke even or lost money) and gave one some context about the making of the record, sorta like a book-signing. Will people stop buying books and instead opt for the 'experience' of listening to authors read them aloud? Maybe I feel that music doesn't deserve to be foregrounded. I know the few times I've played live I felt uncomfortable being scrutinized while playing my 2-note part on a synthesizer. Maybe I find the notion of 'watching music' to be vaguely ridiculous [just like I hate being forced by audiophiles to sit and watch the stereo while they emote along with the lyrics next to me on the couch]. That's what music videos are for! Maybe, in the end, I'm just selfish - I want music to be my soundtrack, something to accompany me while I explore drugs/sexuality/car rides, something to listen to at parties with my clique. I want recordings to be well-crafted sonic universes, with their own internal logic and aesthetic laws. And in most cases, I don't want to see the performers of the music, because they won't live up to my imaginary constructions that are the privilege of the listener.
Perhaps one day this will change course. Recordings will seem lame and live music will become some kind of virtuosic, improvisatory cabaret that I can't even imagine yet. But as far performance goes, musicians have some pretty big shoes to fill:
Are these dudes on bandcamp?
The corollary is that as people take recordings less seriously, demote them to the status of promotional devices, they start to take on a slipshoddy quality (to say nothing of the derivative, unfocused songwriting these days) that really distances me from the music, harshes my buzz, and basically forces me to live in the past. Am I gonna end up like this bro?
"The 1920's were the zenith of Western civilization."
Living in my basement, never having had a real job, just visiting random folk's houses demanding to let me buy their records? I hope not. I want a real life, one that involves quality recorded media. It's weird, because at the turn of last century, when the teenagers were making out by the gramophone, dudes like me were saying 'it'll never be like the live show'. But I'm a product of the hypermedia environment of the late 20th century and for me, the recorded sound captures the mystery, the eros, the ethos, the pathos of music. A magical displacement of time and space, experiencing sound far from its original creators and their intentions. Seeing dudes strap on outmoded instruments or push keys on a laptop in my presence usually leaves me flat.
That said, and vis-à-vis Hopscotch, I will be at the party AFTER the show. See you there.
Good writing. I Was There, best of the new WOD, implies you should still go to the show.
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