the thing

a few months ago i had 45 minutes to kill before a rehearsal, i was near the south shore mall so i decided i'll stop by the record store and browse.

i arrive- no store -gone- closed. a major shopping mall and there is no place to buy a cd!

during the christmas season while shopping i notice a very subtle change in the cd and dvd department of my local borders. they both are shrinking, what used to be six display cases is now four. of course what helps these departments shrink is that the stock shrinks. the catalog shrinks, so maybe you'll be able to buy a bands latest album and their greatest hits but good luck finding that first album or god forbid the second album.

"hey" you say "you can get it on line" but online i have to wait (ok maybe two days) but to me, and i imagine to most people buying music is an impulse buy. now! i want to listen, now.

"hey, dummy, you can listen online!"... not the same . I want to listen (now) and as i listen i want to hold "the thing" the case, cover, whatever. I want to read the liner notes, i want to know who played the bass on that tune.

i like the art, the photo, the words, i like the object.

now we seem to be going back to the early days of recordings when the particular song was what the public wanted. you could buy a 45 of just the song you wanted, just like when you download a song. but! when you bought a 45 you got the tune you wanted and the b side! sometimes the b side became your prize. (i remember that odd beatle b side-you know my name, look up the number. i don't remember the a side)

when i was a kid (60's) the album was really coming into it's own. bands would work on a whole album not just a few singles and some filler. lots of pretentious junk but every once in a while, gold!

tower records- gone. one of the last stores to "go deep" in their stock. want a copy of david peel and the lower east side orchestra playing "up against the wall, motherf--ker"? good luck.

(when i was in 8th grade we had an art teacher who would play that album during class, try that today. but that's a different story)

so tonight allow me the luxury of being an old coot and let me bemoan the fact that the world ain't the way it was, and that when i was a kid everything was better.

tonight i celebrate "the thing"