Holy God, this is very interesting. Looks like selling promo CDs and LPs is now legal!
This is actually a shocking development. Over the years promos have always been a wild card. I would often buy them used at CD shops without even knowing it until I saw what Walking With Thee actually looked like.
Then I started getting them in the mail. I must admit, I’ve always enjoyed getting new music and plopping it right into my stereo and letting it take my day in a new direction. Promos make that happen.
Digital promos just aren’t the same; if you send me a physical there’s a 30 percent chance I’ll end up reviewing it. If you send a digital there’s a 4 percent chance I’ll even listen to it (it helps if it’s a Daedelus-related project).
That’s just how it is. I guess I’m old-fashioned. I’d rather have sex with a woman than with myself; I’d rather have a baby and spend money raising it than spend everything on my consumerist concerns; I’d rather eat meat and deal with the guilt than spend the rest of my life searching for that one, pure vegetarian restaurant that makes you forget about meat with a canny mix of beans, rice and herbs/spices.
So yeah, I’m old fashioned. I like things I can touch, see, feel and taste. I like sleeve art and album jackets. I like the smell of fresh vinyl and the way a CD looks when its underside winks at the sun. I worship 3-inch CDs and 7-inch records too. My all-time favorite, however, is the triple album; is there anything better than sitting down and listening to a 3XLP from top-to-bottom?
No. There isn’t. Good things come to those who wait.
Think Oneida’s Rated O, Neil Diamond’s live 3-LP set, the recent Dennis Wilson reissue on three pristine translucent-blue spheres of wax (which will be reviewed here sooner or later, don’t worry), The Fiery Furnaces Remember, Appleseed Cast’s Low-Level Owl triple-dipped multicolor compendium and, mother of all mothers, Animal Collective’s Animal Crack Box, another document that will see review in these pages in the near future and which also cost me $170 due to a CLUSTERFUCK thanks to p4k’s overhyping (fucking assholes; scalper clones made off like the drug companies when Crack Box came out in an edition of 1,000 and sold out immediately).
So yeah, guess I lost my train of thought here; my point was that I can finally liberate my shelves of the promo deadwood.
And THANK GOD I waited all these years before I sold a SINGLE PROMO. My conscience is clear as a bright Colorado afternoon.
I never, for instance, sold any crappy emo promos I got in the mail. Never. Same with second-rate indie, shit-hop, redundant metal and floppy freak-folk; never sold it.
I never sold any promos on eBay or Amazon and I never sold any at record stores to, for instance, buy the 3121 Michigan Ave. comp and the Merzbannon clear-vinyl LP.
Nope. Never did.
Or at least if I did it’s allllll ancient history, no? Let’s let bygones be bygones, people. Besides, I don’t get
rid of good music …
rid of good music …
