First off, tha goodz: Hannis Brown – Oh Ah Ee – self-released [Tiny Mix Tapes review]
I just bought a Dead Raven Choir LP on eBay; I’d wanted it for god-knows-how-long and now, finally, IT’S MINE.
An unexpected benefit I received from this purchase was a personal note (I call it a “letter” in the title because I didn’t know what else to call it) from the seller, who apparently has been reading Skyscraper Magazine – where I cut my teeth as it were — for years and remembered my writing (which was credited to Grant Purdum — which is my name — not Gumshoe; honestly I sort of feel my identity is split-up; why did I do that? Actually, for very specific reasons, if you must know.).
Checkie:
“For what it’s worth, you were a huge influence on my record buying and musical opinions for years. I uses to religiously read Skyscraper and pretty much just for your reviews. As A 34 year old with a wife n’ 3 year old daughter shit has changed for me and I can’t keep up like I used to, but it’s pretty fucking rad that you’re buying a record from me. Hope your still contributing to the music world cuz you have had a monumental effect on many of us in a positive way. With the demise of the printed zine and the continuous advent of souless internet bickering, and Pitchfork posturing people like you are sorely missed.
Anyway, I’ll ship out the LP ASAP,”
cheers,
brant
Talk about Making It All Seem Worthwhile; as few and far between praise like this is, it really makes all the difference. And, one thing you’ll notice about this communication is that it’s based around a transaction a lot of people have forgotten of late: BUYING A RECORD. See? It’s that simple — BUY records, and life gets more interesting by default.
It’s a win-no-win-brainer; in fact, I’ve been thinking that a new Holiday should be brought into fruition: “Buy a Friend a Record Player” day; it’s like Record Store Day but instead of serving a lot of ailing shops (which is, indeed, noble) you serve people who are either too poor or too lazy to currently own a rec0rd player . It would bring sales up, get vinyl out there as a thing for “regular” people to listen to (not just us FREAKS, who can’t stand that new genre of music out there where white guys rap over super-fast beats) and continue our culture’s for-the-better changes .
