RTP-area local music and culture

[grady <grady AT ibiblio.org>]

Bryk wrote:
> ross, WTF that was a little harsh.

Yes, it was. However, you have to admit that giving bands a binary 
choice between charging <$12/CD or losing a sale to a burned copy is 
also a little harsh. Glenn subsequently pointed out that he was merely 
giving voice to the same decision being made daily by gazillions of 
kids, and that their threshold amount is probably closer to $3. Or maybe 
he didn't point that out exactly, but he was right, in whatever he said. 
Damn these kids today. I should have directed my reaction at the Gods of 
the Youth Market, rather than at Glenn.

That still doesn't do much to help the artists, however, except for in a 
sort of Bushian sense of "helping" them to confront the reality of how 
fucked they are.

But most musicians I know don't need any more help with that one, as 
Skillet so eloquently pointed out.

I suppose one could translate what Glenn was saying into "bands who 
charge more than $12 per CD are probably shooting themselves in the 
foot, because the kids today will have the *perception* (as voiced by 
Matt Hedt earlier) that anything more than $12 is somehow a ripoff, 
regardless of reality."

What *I* don't understand is why anybody can bitch at all about any 
prices down at the indie-rock level we're talking about. Have y'all been 
to Walnut Creek lately (or to that Stones show at Duke last year)? You 
get half as much music for 100X the price, *and* it sucks ass to boot. 
Plus you have to pay to park, and half the time you get rained on. $8 
for a show at a bar with $3 beers and $12 CDs is quite possibly the last 
greatest entertainment bargain in the universe.

There's an essay in this month's Atlantic Monthly about how the American 
public is way more skeptical of/hostile towards Capitalism than it has 
any right to be, given how well Capitalism works. Sellers set prices and 
buyers willingly buy things at those prices, all without any central 
control or interference. It sure was funny. I laughed & laughed.

> are you telling us that you've NEVER burned a CD you just wanted to  
> check out?

Fuck, man, my shelves are full of burned CDs that I *didn't* want to 
check out. I have this little problem with obsessively 
collecting/cataloging all the local music. If you makes you feel any 
better, I never listen to any of it, though.

xo

Ross