I despise Record Store Day.

As a retailer, the profit margin is abysmal. You get the honor of paying $27.99 for something that has an MSRP of $34.99. Yeah, no thanks. You aren't guaranteed to sell what you order. You aren't even guaranteed to GET what you order and if you fail to sell some items, they basically become worthless online so you take a loss on the product. We did it once and we both hated the entire experience. You get phone call after phone call from people who have never been to your store and never will unless it is Record Store Day calling for special treatment. "Put this on hold for me." "No. Against the rules." All day long. It's hell.

As a collector I just hate it because it's commercial as f*ck and I'm looking for original pressings of stuff. I don't need gimmicky colored reissues of David Bowie records.

2020 has been a tough mother****ing year. You’ve already posted some stuff about this in the threads but how has covid affected your work life?

Also, have the murder of George Floyd and the huge reaction that was sparked and the Black Lives Matter movement had any impact on your professional life?

It's called Action Comics #1. It took a while before his name appeared on the cover.
I don't know if average person has the desire to spend $3,000,000+ for comic, let alone spend that kind of money on vinyl. I guess you are looking for an Antique Road Show moment where you find it out of the blue & require it somehow without the seller knowing what it is. I doubt if you have the desire to spend $3,000,000+ for a first pressing of Coltrane's Blue Train.

Guys, thank you just so so much for continuing to point out that the example I used (First Superman) is indeed more valuable than a John Coltrane record. Thanks. I got it. Thank you.

Thanks.

Where did that nea post come from?

I responded before I approved the posts. I'm on mobile.

It’s like mods have time machines AND big gay.

Oh you're welcome, and guess what? I'm listening to Coltrane's Blue Train right now online. ;)

Action Comics is a separate series from the Superman comic series. Action Comics is still published as another Superman title just like Detective Comics is a secondary Batman comic.

Hawk, can I clean up the unnecessary posts here a bit?

Nah. It’s not like when Ding Dong Daddy messed up my top 100.

**** off, pig.

Ordnung muss sein.

I'm less on edge at work. People actually have been very very good about mask wearing in the store. I just have to occasionally ask them to wear it over their nose. They just don't realize it's falling down. I had a guy try to come in with a pair of shorts wrapped around his face. I told him get a real face covering please. Some lady said she was medically exempt. I said I'm sorry she has a disability but no mask no entry sorry. She wasn't happy. So far nobody has reported feeling ill and it's been a month.

The civil rights movement currently going on hasn't affected my life directly other than dinner table debates with some of my more conservative family members but they listen well and are subject to change for the most part. At work we recently hung up a new banner with our store name and logo and the phrase "Hate has no business here" under it.

Can't really complain too much. Unless we're talking about cheapskates who want things for free in my store for no reason. Then I have LOTS to talk about.

Tell us an outrageous example please.

Four days ago a customer who will occasionally come in and buy a record came in and picked a bunch of nice stuff off the wall. I recognized him and asked how he's been since winter as it was the first time since we closed that I saw him. He immediately asked what the best deal was on the records he picked out. I told him what I tell everybody over the last month who asks..."sorry, no discounts during the pandemic."

He didn't like that.

He basically scoffed at me and asked again what the best I could do was. I added it up. $187. I tell him $187. I told him that we were closed for four months and have been open for four weeks. We are still recouping the $30,000 in revenue that we lost during those four months so for the time being, we're going to just be like, you know, a regular store.

Still didn't like that. Asked what is so expensive about running a store like ours.

Now he's pissing me off. I told him that's it's none of his business and that it's $187. Thanks.

He asks me "This is how you treat a good customer?"

I tell him flat out "I've told you three times we've been closed for four months with no revenue. I haven't raised my prices. I saved all the records we bought for reopening. I'm not taking less money as a reward for starving our income for four months. That'll be $187 please."

He says, "well I count $175."

I say "Tax".

He tells me he's not paying tax. I tell him he in fact is paying tax, because this is how it works in the American system of buying things in stores, and that if this conversation doesn't end, I can take the records and put them back on the wall and he can have a nice day.

He tosses two hundreds on the counter. I toss a ten and three singles back on the counter. He didn't get a bag. "All out, sorry."

F*ck that prick.

lol That’s wild. I don’t remember ever once getting into it with a record store guy. I watched my friend go off on the owner because he didn’t have a new release in stock yet. I was just thinking wtf he can’t help it if the label hasn’t shipped it out yet or whatever. Just order it from the label.

What about shoplifters?

I mean it definitely happens. I occasionally find records in the bins that have NO business being priced that way which only tells me that somebody witched the bags on a $12 and $4 record. I put the stickers on the bags as to not damage the LP jackets but it leaves it open for bag switching. We just recently put all the LPs in the front room by us though so they'd have to do it right in front of our eyes now. Not likely.

Sounds almost like a regular day at any store I worked at or ran.

We had two big burly guys come in on a busy Saturday night wanting to sell
really crap records and complained when I told them they weren't worth
anything ("Frampton Comes Alive"...). After these guys kept on raising their
voices and shouting and the whole thing reaching a fever pitch of agitation,
I had enough and shoved their two boxes of records off the counter and onto
the floor and told them to get out. We didn't notice until we were closing that night,
that on their way out the door, they grabbed an employee's leather jacket
which had his car and house keys and probably other stuff in it that was
hanging up near the entrance to the store. They were arrested shortly afterwards.

Anything else you’d like to tell us Exo or have we about covered it?

Hopefully I'm not doing this for the rest of my life but if I am I guess it's not so bad. Maybe I'll be the next Rostasi. :beer:

There you have it people. An inclusive insider look into the record store world staring music banter’s very own... EXO!!!!

Only on Freak Fighter!!!

I have no response to that. To be honest, I don't know if Exo was referring Action Comics #1 (1938) or DC Comics "Superman" #1 (1939). So I should have asked him first before assuming what he meant. Like they say: "when you assume you make an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me.'"

Funny thing happened me today. It's pretty much life imitating Music Banter. So I run into a friend, and made a comment about his cartoon face mask which lead into a conversation that ran into all different directions e.g. gaming, superheroes etc etc. So long story short he said "... which is why Superman's first, Action Comics #1, is so expensive ... " It gave me an instant flashback to MusicBanter and Exo's analogy. I like the fact that at the moment he said "Action Comics #1" he seemed pleased with himself like he's dispensing rare and important information.

OK I'm pretty much done with this now. I don't like posting in other member's journals cause it make me feels like I'm trespassing or something.

I wish there were more conversational digressions here.

Hmmmm....

This album

http://i1.wp.com/atwoodmagazine.com/...size=300%2C300

Home is decent soft rock / indie record.

I’ve decided to try to put together a top 10 of my favorite records of the two thousand teens (*grunt*) but I didn’t really put a ton of work into it so I’d like to consider it a fluid document meaning that if anyone has issues or thinks I forgot something or whatever I’ll make adjustments in future posts. The formatting is from whatever I copy & pasted it from. Sorry it’s not pretty. I gave every year at least one slot which doesn’t really make sense either but here it is:


10) Christian Fennesz* & Jim O'Rourke ‎– It's Hard For Me To Say I’m Sorry
9) You Want It Darker by Leonard Cohen
8) Richard Dawson Nothing Important
7) It's the Big Joyous Celebration, Let's Stir the Honeypot by Teen Suicide
6) FLY or DIE II: bird dogs of paradise by Jaimie Branch
5) Coin Coin Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile Matana Roberts
4) Matana Roberts Coin Coin Chapter Three: River Run Thee
3) COIN COIN Chapter Four: Memphis by Matana Roberts
2) Bells for the South Side by Roscoe Mitchell
1) Susana Santos Silva ‎– All The Rivers (Live At Panteao Nacional)

Dawson, Marana, and Branch would definitely be on mine. Fly or die #2 is my fave from Branch too, you seemed skeptical when I said that it was better than the first one iirc.

Don't want to turn this into grilling your list but while Coin Coin Chapter 2 is a ****ing amazing homage to traditional styles tantamount to a historical document, I rank them 1=4>3>2. Maybe you do too, idk, I just noticed the 1 per year thing in your post.

I still need to get around to more Susana Santos Silva. I see that she's involved with Fire! Orchestra and I only have a vague memory of checking out that album and that's the extent of my knowledge.

I’m not 100% positive. Not based on how good it is from the standpoint of importance but just rubbing me the right way The Chicago Project is way up there and maybe my personal favorite. That’s outside the time window though. It’s hard to explain why outside factors like cultural relevance matter. Like sometimes it’s not just music that I enjoy about music. Like I think 4 is her best but not necessarily my personal favorite if that makes sense.

Best/favourite has never seemed like a dichotomy to me but I know what you're getting at. There are some albums that are really important statements or whatever but you still find a deeper personal connection to something else in that artist's discog.

Yesterday while watching a quarantine concert a was completely blown away by the avant garde violinist, Laura Ortman. I really hope I can spread the word about her music on Freak Fighter because she’s an unassailable powerhouse.


As her Bandcamp page points out this was released in 2013. It was recorded on a 4 Track cassette recorder at a place called the Dust Dive in Brooklyn. Actually, it seems the Dust Dive refers to a place and a band of which she has been a part of.

https://wavefarm.org/ta/archive/artists/2fsm83

Not sure. The BandCamp page says “at” the Dust Dive and she’s the only musician credited.

Here’s the url:

https://thedustdiveflash.bandcamp.com/track/rapid-lands

A limited edition of 300 physical releases released in 2020 this is a fantastic and as always unassailable release from the brilliant Silva and her band.

The Free Jazz Collective Blog, the definitive most authoritative voice on free jazz on the internet gives it 5/5 Stars and an excellent review that can be found here:

https://www.freejazzblog.org/2020/06...silva.html?m=1

On this album I hear strong and extremely effective influence of both Charlie Haden and Don Cherry. Obviously both Haden and Cherry have a good deal of diversity in their releases so I’ll add more specifically Liberation Music Orchestra and Mu, two records that are both old friends that I love love love. Again, this may be redundant but I recommend this record fully.

Listening to classical music on Spotify is a bit different than other genres. All the old composers being in the public domain is certainly how it should be but you don’t want to be ****ing with a goddamn high school talent show recital recording just because some dillweed’s soccer mom put it on there. So let’s take some very fundamental essential listening: Johann Sebastian Bach

The Well-Tempered Clavier (Das wohltemperierte Klavier or Wohltemperirte Clavier) is a great place to start. What it is is Bach composed a piano piece for every major and minor key signature there is. The music is intricate and extremely logical. It’s extraordinarily grounded. Listening to it is psychologically pleasing in a way that’s kind of similar to acing a math test when you know you’re killing it. So if you wanna listen to Bach and you don’t know much about his music this a really good starting point.

http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG...er=allrovi.com

András Schiff The Well-Tempered Clavier - JS Bach

Presently this entire collection is available for streaming on Spotify

You can identify great classical performers by their association with labels. Decca ain’t no ****ing joke so you know you’re safe. The thing is Schiff didn’t only record on Decca. Dafuq does that matter? So, and I get that it’s not rocket science, but you can search by Schiff’s name and check out whatever he recorded on whatever label. It’s all going to be good.

Schiff also has some interesting interviews on YouTube. He’s a 66 year old European dude who has a lot to say about the far right and fascism in Europe. And he also loves to talk about music.

Now it turns out there’s a great accompaniment to The Well-Tempered Clavier

This dude

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...eroszewski.jpg

Wojciech Żywny taught Frédéric Chopin using the The Well-Tempered Clavier as his material. It should be mentioned that for this music to be practice compositions was indeed originally Bach’s intention.

I feel like we owe it to Żywny to at least check him out so I dug this one up:



But anyway later Chopin would compose a series of preludes in the tradition of The Well-Tempered Clavier using the cycle of fifths instead of Bach’s chromatic approach. For this you wanna go here:

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/...vL._SS500_.jpg

Chopin: Preludes; Sonata No.2 Martha Argerich

Label: Deutsche Grammophon

Again you can run Martha Argerich through Spotify’s search engine and get a lot of results. She’s a 79 year old Argentine cancer survivor.

Also there’s nothing wrong with checking out new performances either. Generally the standard is super high (but not always)

That's a great post, I had no idea about those Chopin preludes! I'll check them out

Thank you, Daddy.

Just listened to it, it's lovely

Didn't realize you were such a big Bach fan, OH. Very nice.

Cool!

Thanks. I’m still in recovery from Frown’s criticism that I left him off the Freak Fighter Forty

Today’s Topic:


A band that includes Laura Ortman 2005 release freak folk

Music that expels emotion like a bad marriage bring to tangibility the frailties of your father living inside you JAMC style. A brother drowned, a dragon in the navy. Setting out to sea in an orange sunrise to the heart of the distance. YES! All dust and ashes. Burial at sea beastie bin laden brooklyn davy jones locker. The Boer War. The sea burial wasn’t even real and you never got to wear khakis and only shot BB guns from the kiddo pool. Because it’s like that. And that’s the way it is. Don’t run. Don’t swim. The wild is not for us.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...s_album%29.jpg


Mean What You Say by Philly Joe Jones

I had to skip over about three PJJ albums because I couldn’t find them online so I’m moving on to this one. Unfortunate too because one with an all Italian band looks really interesting. Thankfully, a kind soul put this one up on youtube. It bounces from hard bop to cool. The band may not be stacked with big names but everybody steps up. Pianist Mickey Tucker whose most impressive credit imo is on Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s Blacknuss pushes forward with an aggressive hard bop agenda and sax player Charles Bowen composed a cool ballad and has some excellent pre-modal era Coltrane inspired passages. And Jones does his thing, of course.

https://jaccrecords.bandcamp.com/album/fish-wool

All tracks are improvised around a discernible theme. I’m not 100% sure but although these musicians from Portugal, Catalonia, and Brazil (respectively as ordered in title) have interacted in various ensembles this is, I think, their only release as a trio. To put this 2019 release in a historic context the noticeable influences are Ayler and Cherry. To my ears this feels less organic and more mechanical than either however that is in no way a criticism. The exploration within the framework of an existing paradigm can have equal or even more value than the pioneering earlier works. I’m not going to come right out and say this is definitely on that level but I do think it might be. This isn’t flashy music. I get that a cautious review might not be that intriguing but music that falls in the middle like this takes time to get to know. I’m a huge fan of Silva so I will be returning to this. I encourage all fans of free jazz and improvised music and even composed atonal music to tune in. She’s in a very elite group of the best of the best in a time that is absolutely saturated with incredible talent. Branch, Roberts, Halvorson, Silva. It’s a woman’s world out there but it wouldn’t be nothing without a man and a boy.