Meet the new boss, David Lowery tackles the internet and the past while Ted Lucas gets past around

I did this a lot when I was 15, 16.

i dubbed a lot of cassettes, still remember getting this awesome two cassette + tuner + turntable thing at jc penney's and knowing it was going to make me an unstoppable copying machine once i could get to the library.

lotsa stealing!

it just took a lot more effort, time, and physical storage space.

Oh my library had no cool albums or CDs. I didnt have a CD player for a long time.

when i was a kid, i didn't even know what to be curious about -- no one i knew personally enough to talk to had ever heard of more music than i had. no older brothers to talk to until high school. the library was really important.

― nicest bitch of poster (La Lechera), Friday, June 22, 2012 10:22 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah -- i remember loving Carla Bozulich's voice on Mike Watt's first record and then it taking me 2+ years to stumble upon something in Alternative Press that mentioned that she was a member of the Geraldine Fibbers and i quickly hunted down their records. sometimes i think of those 2 years like shit if i had google back then i might've gotten to see one of my fav bands live before they broke up.

AMG's database might've been pretty dependable by then but i don't think i even discovered that until a couple years later

haha one of the features of the music store where i worked in the LATE 1990s was a dedicated amg station where we could "look things up for you"
at that point people still had to go to the store, stump the employees, and then resort to the machine

most people, that is
we also sold some stereo equipment including a 5 disc changer + CDR machine thingie and had a liberal return policy
out of business, obvs

oh yeah, i had a friend at Barnes & Noble who had one of those little AMG stations in the CD section (xpost)

employees could also check out whatever they wanted (5 per week, no box sets) sort of like a library too. we were encouraged to learn about new stuff. it was pretty cool, really. in spite of the horrible oversized uniform shirt that came down to my knees and had to be tucked in.

again ---> lotsa stealing!

the high price of CDs in the 90s was one reason i stayed with cassettes until about 1994. used cassettes were a bargain--complete discography of the smiths, $30. in general i bought used stuff much more than new back then. except that in the late 90s best buy used to have catalogue title CDs as loss leaders, so you could get reissues of the byrds for $6.99, etc.

the high prices of CDs are probably what drove me back to vinyl ultimately, for which i suppose i'm thankful.

btw i don't know if t his has been cleared up but "kids these days" don't go to record stores. they also don't go to libraries. i asked one of my classes of incoming freshman how many of them had physically gone into a library and checked out a book and about 40% said they hadn't.

just wanted to frighten you all.

also the last thread this thread has taken is feeling very "hey nineteen."

xpost -- Oh believe me I know about that. The more fundamentally depressing thing is when they do come in and ask if they can 'rent' books. I always point out, as casually as I can, that we don't do that -- because I hate the idea of them thinking that a library is monetized in that fashion. NO.

funny, if kids only knew the type of intensely inappropriate stuff that awaits them in libraries. better than any r-rated movie!

The more fundamentally depressing thing is when they do come in and ask if they can 'rent' books.

(off topic)--does your library loan textbooks? do you allow students to get them on ILL?

tylerw massively otm

xpost -- Yes to both.

I was really pushy once with a Boise State library aide ––– they weren't supposed to check out LPs but I persuaded him he had to let me check out this Stockhausen record. I got a call later that night from him imploring me to bring it back. He'd gotten in a lot of trouble. I felt pretty bad because I knew it ruined my chances of ever holding hands with this handsome library guy who liked Stockhausen.

Some of my best, most mind-blowing music experiences were just from scrounging around at the library. American Anthology of Folk Music!

I've bought like 5 albums since this thread started and made significant cuts to my holds queue at the local library.

My kids looooooooove the library. I have no idea how they could possibly ever unlearn that love.

I blame the parents who are not me.

my son does too. he got his first library card yesterday (he's almost 6). it's a godsend for kid's books.

I lived at the library when I was a kid/teen. and I've copied my share of music. I kind of feel like I get a pass considering how much music I've purchased over my life and how much I still buy. I don't download much anymore to be honest; I feel like it was a phase that I've gotten past. It kind of cheapened music consumption for me, I wound up with things I just had no time to listen to. I've gone back to buying vinyl so I can't even listen to it on an ipod and have to sit down and pay attention. It's nice.

But yes to the idea that having it all is a weird thing. I loved the Beatles when I was a kid. I remember distinctly each purchase; getting the odd album at garage sales and living with that one for like, a year, because my parents didn't let me get things willy nilly. My son is six and has already heard every album and hours of outtakes and isn't in any position to differentiate between them really. I never heard a fucking beatles outtake until I was in my 20s! He thinks of Leave my Kitten Alone as a song like any others!

I know I sound old but that's just how it is.

Via maura, another thing:

http://www.futurehitdna.com/is-stealing-music-really-the-problem/

going "lowery's argument is invalid because HIS music isn't being downloaded by many people" is the dumbest gotcha bullshit

In the 90's, not all cds were so expensive. Ajax, Merge, RRR, kill rock stars, simple machines, i remember ordering them for 10 sometimes 12 dollars. One mail order catalog that was really great was called 'Good As Any, Better than Some' great prices.

yeah a lot of indies were real cheap. even drag city. i bought a bunch of drag city stuff for real cheap. i also bought some merch, wish i had all of it still.

major labels on the other hand.

remember this joke from the mid 90s?

"what do you get when you pay for that new page/plant album with a $20 bill?"
"no quarter."

that dates me.

I once checked out a Fairport Convention Cd from the library of a college I was attending. That's it.

But I am obsessed with libraries, which are awesome. There's a couple small colleges about ten-fifteen miles from where I live, and when I get on huge writing kicks, I'll totally drive to one of their libraries a couple days a week, find a quiet floor and get some work done.

Like, libraries are literally my favorite things about this country right now.

amen

i asked one of my classes of incoming freshman how many of them had physically gone into a library and checked out a book and about 40% said they hadn't.

The university library staff goes "Look, our only customer!" whenever I check out books. All students use it for is to get study rooms and laptops.

Like, libraries are literally my favorite things about this country right now.
This. Amazing to me how many people either take them for granted or don't use them altogether. In Rhode Island, I totally abuse the Interlibrary loan system. There's always a book or a Blu-Ray from the other side of the state waiting for me to pick up at my hometown library. Makes me feel like I'm getting away with something.

The Brooklyn library is always packed with people, many of them looking at porn on the computers

https://encrypted-tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSSyYGyIKHkCFvSvJE9YqQ6yWO2WJNt_mUCCEX7J1O7bSdadcIAzA

xposting myself, obviously with libraries we all contribute $$$. It's the perfect example of how everyone can benefit when everyone ponies up, willingly or no.

it's better than that. rich people (and aspirational people who also think libraries are 'icky') don't go to libraries.

Like, libraries are literally my favorite things about this country right now.

Me too. Though I probably use them differently than most people. The books I check out usually haven't circulated since the 1970s and are the ones getting sent to storage or the bullshit library sales. I mean, really, no one has given a shit about Wendy Walker since 1988? Hang your heads in shame.

Who is Wendy Walker?

do you have fingers? or a keyboard? figure it out alex.

I googled her name and writer and the results seem out of place with what you are talking about.

Unless you are lamenting that no one gives a shit about Chicken Soup for the Soul: Power MOMS since 1988 when it was written in 2009.

power MOMS

really? talking about a great writer published in the late 80s by Sun & Moon press whose books are pretty much unknown seems out of place to a post where I talk about checking out books that haven't been checked out in decades. I'm not sure where the confusion lies.

No I'm saying I used the keyboard and the results were not consistent to what you were talking about.

I guess you found some other author named Wendy Walker. My bad for picking a kind of generic name. No--I'm talking about the awesome weirdo fantasy novelist (married to Tom LaFarge) who wrote "The Sea Rabbit" and should be way way more popular than she is.

Though this misconception pretty much underlines my point that even in the age of Google and whatnot, no one has given a shit about Wendy Walker since 1988 or so. Which is why University libraries are awesome for idiots like me. Because we troll them for neglected books.

No I'm saying I used the keyboard and the results were not consistent to what you were talking about.

Sorry. I was too harsh there, but googling wendy walker and sun & moon gets you here:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Secret-Service-Moon-Classics/dp/1557130841

My main point is not "Everyone should know who this obscure author is" but "Libraries put me in contact with a bunch of obscure authors who I now waste my time trying to tell people on a message board about in a hostile and unlucrative way."

You're otm about university libraries being awesome. I have spent some time reading goofy lit crit.

"bullshit library sales"

this is the only time i go to the library.

the sea rabbit! an underwater rabbit squad? awesome.

As as bullshit library sales:

My library in Iowa City had a n awesome collection of Jazz vinyl and Comedy lps. checked out record after record for years. But some idiot decided that vinyl was dinosaur so we should sell off the whole collection for 10 cents an album, first come first served.

Sure that's great for the one jobless prick who showed up first and snagged everything good, and probably sold it online. (I'm still murderous toward some of the swine I witnessed at these sales.) But it screwed everyone like me who actually used the library as a resource.

Fuck library sales.