The Living Rockumentary

"Such is the duel nature of record collecting: it's pathetic and it's glorious. Yes, you're filling your life with extraneous stuff-vinyl and aluminum slabs that will never transport you back to your youth, or get you a hot date, or bring Nick Drake back to life...Never mind that you can't take it with you, you can't even find a tidy place to put it in the meantime."
--from Vinyl Junkies by Brett Milano (2003) p22.

This is a book that I ordered for my sister/brother in law (both vinyl junkies), but ended up with an extra copy thanks to a shipping error. So I gots my own, and am enjoying it. The book spends time talking to famous collectors (Thurston Moore, Peter Buck, Monoman from the Lyres, Roger Manning from Jellyfish) and not so famous. The author mentions getting his first taste of the record collector subculture years ago at Northampton's Main Street Records (maybe he knows Ray Mason?).

But as we enter a new year, and as I'm finding that the Rio and Rhapsody and the radio even are how I'm getting my musical fixes these days (when I'm not busy playing music), this book is very timely.
Every 6 months or so, when I get panicky about money (i.e. when my car decides to screw up again), I scan my CDs and see if there are 5 or so CDs I could do without and sell back.
Say I have 200 CDs. How many of these in the past year have I actually taken out and listened to? Maybe 10? I mean my favorites bits of each of them are loaded onto the Rio. So it's not like I don't like the CDs.
And yet, each is a reliable, passive, enabling friend. Like cigarettes were when I smoked.
"Hello, you weird hairy guys in The Move. Hi, spooky Joy Division artwork!"
My vinyl? Another story. Though I love every record I have, and have a story for every one, I so seldom listen to my records. YET, could only find FOUR I was willing to sell back (out of 120).

I think if I was in a social circle that got together and listened to vinyl and got all record-nerdy, I could validate their awkward existence on my living room floor.
To today's computer savvy music fan, who would like to live a footloose life, these large boxes of CDs+vinyl become quaint memorabilia.

At 16, 17, I sat and listened to the Yardbirds and imagined what it must be like to play in a smoky small room, and having imbibed a couple gin and tonics. Or my god, imagine if I ever get to play on Ludlow St in NYC, where Lou Reed used to live?
I'm now 32 and have done the above and more many, many times.
It will never be 1966 again. Records took me back to a time I never knew, to the point that I almost feel like my youth took place in the mid 1960's (I'd have saturdays where I'd listen only to albums from 1967, pretending they were brand new).

There was also the "these are who I am" quality of my collection. My personality can be summed up by my loves of Wire and The Be Gees. Get used to it, man. Or hit the road. But I've since met so many people with similar taste, that there's nothing so crazy or signifying about it. Though seeing certain bands in someone's collection could always bump them up (or down) a notch in my book, it now seems somewhat superficial. But I retain an element of that in my makeup.
There's also the element ,at certain times in one life, of status symbol, or conspicuous consumption--like "I really should have ______ in my collection even if I don't really like it", like having "Finnegan's Wake" in your book collection if you know you'll never read it.

Add Rhapsody to the equation and things get really hard. One can argue that having all your collection on an MP3 player, or listening to everything on your computer is the musical equivalent to the old notion that "soon, we will only have to take a pill to experience a lasagna dinner and another pill for dessert".

Have I missed any CDs that I've sold? Only when a person has made me feel momentarily guilty about it. " Dude, you sold back (Sonic Youth's) Sister?". Well, damn. I loved it for a couple years in college, and it does look cool in my collection. But I'm not trying to impress anyone anymore, I'm not a completist, and though "Schizophrenia" is one of the best songs ever, ever, ever, 7 years had gone by since my last listen.
I hope this does not result in Thurston sicking his dogs on me next time I see them walking. I still listen to "Daydream Nation" and "Goo" and Rhapsody has turned me onto last year's "Sonic Nurse".

What am I on about? I don't know. When I was in Stockholm in '03 , I spent time with an American living there who had his entire old CD collection (which he sold all of) in his computer. I admired how mobile he could afford to be.

In a year and a half, I just may be be sharing a small aprtment in a city with one other person and two cats. I'm expecting there to be lack of space, there may be lack of funds. I grapple with the idea of possessions. There are some tangibles you need. You can't put a blanket or a toothbrush or a carton of orange juice on an MP3 player. You can't subscribe to a service that provides you with downloadable coffee or transportation or cats.
But music. Books even. They're all out there for us to borrow from libraries, listen to on computers, GO SEE LIVE (concerts, readings). It's weird to think we all wanna OWN them.
I guess enough time has gone by, where I've played drums on 15 or so records, spent a lot of time and energy, have loved every minute, but have not made any money from recording (live performances are another, more positive, story) that the concept of making money from recording an album seems as foreign and far-fetched as being sworn in as a member of Bush's cabinet.
The Pixies have said that they question the logic behind putting out a new CD for a record company. I've read older performers saying the same thing. The game has changed. The tide is shifting over to the consumer's side, and the artist needs to know how to adapt. As a consumer, don't dispair, o singer songwriter. I, as a consumer, still wanna hear great new stuff. And o consumer, I, as a performer, still want you to hear the great new stuff I'm involved with. And if I get some grocery money out of it, awesome.

In 2005, there will a new Lo Fine album which I feel is 100% perfect. Of course, I hope there are consumers, or a label somewhere who finds it as such. 2005 will also hopefully see a new batch of songs I wrote. Why I do it, I'm not sure. I have nothing to prove. Maybe the OC will want to buy a song. There will be a new Figments record (recording in Spring) And the 17 year old in me who's still fantasizing about unconquored places is extremely pleased to know that my drumming will be heard by music fans in the UK on a cd that comes with a magazine. More about that later. AND that SFTD (the reason your're here) may just be playing in Chicago at a beautful time of the year. These things, they keep me going. Very willingly. Keep stringing me along, old teenage dream. I will allow you to evolve with time, but don't desert me.

Happy New Year everyone. Music makes so much worthwhile in my life, and I hope to continue to be involved with music that makes all of you happy for a long time to come.