Воскресенье 25 Мар 2007, 10:06
I am not one to be a big "Screw corporate rock" guy… Hell, if it sells, there's some good in it somewhere. And even if it's something I don't LIKE, I can find something I appreciate. But then I realized, yes, there is a problem. There are too many middle-men in the world of what I want, and how to get it…
Recently, I was digging through my vinyl collection. This contains records I inherited, found at garage sales, or bought fresh. One of said 'fresh' records was a copy of The First Four Years. To negate any theory of my 'punk cred', it was bought at Hot Topic. But I also bought The Velvet Underground & Nico… Instead of the kids who all bought the Panic! At The Disco album on vinyl.
But anyway, as I sorted it out, an order form fell out of it's sleeve. Y'know, one of those things for mail ordering the label's catalogue. Recently, I've come into money, so I thought "Cool! Maybe I'll get myself some stuff…" For those of you who don't know, SST has some great albums. Black Flag aside, they've got a good collection of stuff by Bad Brains, Saint Vitus, Husker Du, Soundgarden, The Descendents, All of Greg Ginn's crazy solo shit…
Yeah, you see where I'm going with my money. So, I look at the order form, and something hits me right in the jaw. The same album I'd bought for around… 19? 20 dollars maybe? From the label, that was 9$. The HELL!? Granted, the shipping is 12$, so it'd come OUT to 21. But by then, I could easily add a CD or some cassettes, or even a sweatshirt to make it worthwhile….
Suddenly, I started looking at all the albums I'd found in my mall on CD. 10$ difference on the Descendents album. 10$ difference on the Bad Brains album (which had been marked DOWN in FYE). It was clear, every time I bought out of a mall any SST product, I'd been had.
This lead me to further research, so I checked some of the other labels I like (Hydra Head, Ipecac, just to name a few…). An Ipecac album is about 16 dollars through their Amazon store, which is about the same or hopefully less than their FYE counterparts. A lot of Hydra Head's stuff is only 10$… I'm not counting shipping yet, because I don't know the rates, etc. etc…. But you see my point I believe. I'm now imploring people, if you want something, get it straight from the source. Buy it from the band's website, or their label's. Better yet, buy it at their concerts! But please, leave record stores out of this. Mom & Pop places are fine, but please, don't support this tumor that has become music whole-sale.