Hiphopnerd

I got an email last Monday from lala.com, a used CD community, inviting me to join. I don't remember exactly where I heard of lala, but I was intrigued enough to give them my email address. Here's how they work:

1) Enter CD's that you want by searching through their catalog of CD's and selecting "Want It"
2) Enter CD's that you own the same way and selecting "Have It"

If someone has a CD that you want, they can opt to send it to you via a prepaid mailing envelope (provided by lala). Lala charges you $1.49, and upon receipt of the disc you have to login and specify whether it was sent in good condition or not.

If you have a CD that someone else wants, you'll see a button that says "Ship It" next to that album in your collection. You're under no obligation to do so...in fact, you can click a different button that says "Keep It" and you won't be asked to ship it again. If you do agree to ship it, lala will give you the requesting members address, which you write on the prepaid mailer. Insert CD, close, and drop in mailbox.

Obviously, in order for the system to work, you have to send out some CD's in order to receive any. But it's a rather economical way to clean out some stuff from your collection, and get some stuff you've been looking for. I'm using to pick up some old-school albums to fill out my collection in that area. Things I don't really want to pay full price for, but definitely want to have. The site is also a community, setup similar to myspace where you can define friends, leave blurbs or tidbits for others, and maintain a blog of your own. At any rate, here's my tally so far, at a cost of $6 (the first cd upon joining is free):

CD's I'm receiving:
Digital Underground - "Sex Packets"
Das Efx - "Dead Serious"
Prime Minister Pete Nice - "Dust To Dust"
Masta Ace - "Sittin' On Chrome"
Jaylib - "Champion Sound"

CD's I've sent:
Mike Ladd - "Welcome To The Afterfuture"
Badmarsh & Shri - "Dancing Drums"
Bone Thugs N Harmony - "Art Of War" (both discs)

The funny part has been trying to decide whether I want to keep an album or not. Well, this Esthero EP only has 2 non-album songs on it...are they good enough for me to keep it? Is this Dead Prez mixtape any good...i certainly haven't listened to it in forever. Man, I was the biggest Bone Thugs fan around (no, seriously...I was. I had a baseball cap AND boxers with their logo on em)...do I really want to get rid of this double album magnum opus?

To that end, I was listening to the Bone Thugs album on Friday, and it was funny because I found myself singing along. I was thinking, man, it's easy to see how I got so into them back in the day...solid beats, catchy hooks, the sing-songyness. They did what they did very well. Krayzie Bone was always my favorite...he seemed to have the strongest verses and the best voice, and usually did the hooks. Wish Bone though...man is he awful. He sounds like someone's relative that they just allowed into the group to be nice...and his raps often suggest that themselves. I swear he had a line expressing 'i'm so glad to be part of the bone thug family!' in each of the first five tracks on that "Art of War" album. I still have to get through disc two, but I decided to send the CD out anyway. I still can't see myself listening to it all that often.

Now...do I really want to keep these Coldplay discs??

No wonder I've complained about the Shure e2c's being somewhat annoying to wear...I've been wearing them incorrectly for a year and a half! An error in the instruction booklet misidentified the left and right earphones, and I never questioned that as the fit seemed to make sense. Turns out the earphones are supposed to be upside-down.

Of course, I never would have found this out if one of the earphones hadn't started malfunctioning two weeks ago. For the second time since I bought them in January 2005, one of the earphones was shorting out. In the course of looking up warranty info to make sure I was still covered, I visited Amazon and found a product review that mentioned the error in the instruction booklet. A guide on Shure's site confirmed this. Feeling sheepishly stupid, I tried the new correct way of inserting the earphones. Needless to say, it was more comfortable

I sent my malfunctioning e2c's back to Shure on a Thursday April 20th (thankfully its a 2 year warranty), and promptly received a brand new set on Monday the 24th. I'm happy to say they fit and sound better than ever. Shure's warranty/service department definitely deserves praise...but it's a little disconcerting that I've had an earphone short out twice now. If it happens again, I'll probably be out of the warranty period.

Of course, I do still have my Grado SR-80's to fall back on. I did wear them to and from work this time...

Radiohead is easily my favorite non-hip-hop group. I've been meaning to write about them for awhile now, but haven't gotten around to it. Actually, that's not quite true...there's a half-written entry on my ticket buying strategy & experience for this show, just waiting for a few more paragraphs to be added.

Alas, the concert is 2 hours away now...and I'm finally getting excited. This'll be my fourth concert of theirs- one of the previous three (Chicago - 2001) ranks as the best concert I've ever attended, and another (Denver - 2003) is in the top 5. This one might end up there as well. It's in an extremely small & intimate theatre (3929 seats!) with excellent acoustics...and they're testing a lot of new songs prior to recording them for an album (and i've managed to restrain myself from listening to any of these online in the last few months). I can't wait to hear these new tracks, and a lot of old favorites in such a small indoor setting...

I read an article in the paper this morning about Metallica finally allowing their songs to be purchased on iTunes. The story went on to list some of the artists who continue to holdout from online distribution citing things like contractual issues for older catalogs, piracy concerns and a desire for their work to retain it's artisitc integrity as a full album.

Who are some of these holdouts?

- The Beatles
- Led Zeppelin
- Radiohead
- Garth Brooks
- Kid Rock

That's right, folks...Kid Rock's "Devil Without a Cause" is a musical work of art that simply must be listened to as an album. It loses all meaning when cut up and sold as individual songs...

Earlier this month, Tower Records announced that they were going out of business. All their assets were bought by a liquidation company, which would begin conducting going-out-of-business sales at all locations. My initial reaction was of slight sadness- I kinda liked Tower. They had a pretty good selection, carrying older releases and indie labels that get overlooked by places like Best Buy, at slightly higher (but still reasonable) prices. I certainly didn't shop there with any regularity, but on those occasions when I needed to have something somewhat obscure right this very second, I'd walk over to the Loop location after work and there was a good chance they had it.

Then the excitement hit...going-out-of business sales mean discounted music...and considering Tower's deeper catalog, I'd probably be able to knock a few albums that have resided on my 'buy eventually' list for cheap. I stopped by about two days after the announcement, and things were only marked down only 10%. Not a good enough deal, so I took a quick gander at the hip-hop selection and walked out.

This past Sunday, after an all-you-can-eat sushi dinner with friends, we walked over to the Lincoln Park Tower location. The hip-hop discount was up to 30% (good, but not great), so I picked up the two most recent Coup albums. On Monday, I went back to the Loop location to check on the discount there. It was also 30%, so I noted a few titles I wouldn't mind buying at 40-50% off levels and then purchased, of all things to randomly find, an Astronautalis album.

And that's brought back me back to feeling sad over Tower's demise. It was good to have a chain where people could stumble upon things like Astronautalis. However, the more I thought about it, the more hypocritical I felt. I rarely purchase music from the smaller chains or the independent music stores around town. I've become so price conscious with my music...wanting to spend the absolute least possible on a single CD, so that I can buy more music overall. This attitude leads me to make 90% of my music purchases from Best Buy and Amazon. How can I be upset at the loss of Tower Records, when I did nothing to support such a store and only visit it with regularity when it's closing and selling off all inventory? And if stores like Tower are hurting so badly, what does that say for all the mom-and-pop shops? I'm sure 3 or 4 times as many small independent stores have closed across the city this year. Am I really OK with that? Why don't I shop more at the independent stores? Is saving a couple dollars by buying new releases at Best Buy and older titles from Amazon really worth the loss of cool, unique, and interesting record stores where you can actually find cool, unique, and interesting titles??

Maybe I can make myself feel better by repeating "Well at least you still actually buy CD's..." a few hundred times...

I didn't save my receipts, so I can't tell you exactly how much I spent at Tower Records during the two months of going out of business liquidation. But I made quite a few visits, and this is the haul I brought back home:

Astronautalis - "The Mighty Ocean And Nine Dark Theaters"
Astronautalis - "You And Yer Good Ideas"
Atmosphere - "Lucy Ford"
Beastie Boys - "Hello Nasty"
Beastie Boys - "Ill Communication"
Chino XL - "I Told You So"
The Coup - "Party Music"
The Coup - "Pick A Bigger Weapon"
Diatribe - The Roaring Twenties"
DJ Spinna - "Intergalactic Soul"
Ghostface Killah - "Ironman"
The Grouch - "Crusader For Justice"
Immortal Technique - "Revolutionary, Vol 1"
Little Brother - "The Chittlin Circuit 1.5"
Mass Influence - "The Underground Science"
Mayday - "Mayday!"
Mr. Lif - "Live At The Middle East"
The Pacifics - "Sunday's Chicken"
The Pacifics & Illmind - "The Case"
Panacea - "Ink Is My Drink"
Pigeon John - "Is Clueless"
The Procussions - "5 Sparrows For 2 Cents"
PSALMOne - "The Death Of Frequent Flyer"
?uestlove - "Babies Makin' Babies 2: Misery Strikes Back… No More Babies"
Skalpel - "Skalpel"
Slum Village - "Fan-Tas-Tic Vol 1"

26 CD's. Enough to fill up my existing CD storage rack and make me ask for a second one as a Christmas gift...


Of course, now the new one looks pathetic and barren.

S1W's - full fatigues, Chuck D - mesh jersey & shorts
It's the time of the year again in Chicago- massive outdoor music festival season. This past weekend was Pitchfork, and next weekend is Lollapalooza. Basically, you get just enough time to recover from one before having to go out and do the whole grueling festival thing again.