Fair Enough...

Just returned from a record fair at the NIA in Brum and it got me all misty eyed over ye olde days. Not too long ago record fairs were full of people drooling at the mouth at the prospect of some rare Right Said Fred 12 inch promo. They would happily fork out big money for that A-Ha picture disc and give their right arm for the limited edition Deacon Blue tour EP. Okay, I jest slightly, but if you want a snapshot of the state of the music industry (from a commercial rather than artistic perspective) just take a trip to your local record fair (assuming there is one) or HMV/Virgin. HMV seem to be on some kind of suicide mission. Faced with rapidly dwindling sales (heavy competition from the supermarkets as well as downloading) they've come up with a great plan to aid recovery...they're going to put up their prices. Nice one fellas.

Anyway, back to record fairs. Picked up some real bargains (and I'm a bastard for a bargain). Brand new albums from The Bird and the Bee, Shockrock (Wall of Sound - stuff like CSS, Infadels, The Gossip), The Ripps, The Fall, The Little Ones, Mutemath and an EP by The Destroyers (a Birmingham 14 piece Eastern European influenced band much beloved by myself and fellow blogger Russ L)...all 50p each. The new Gruff Rhys Album for a mere £3 and a 3 CD Jah Wobble compilation for a fiver. Some dude was selling off a load of stuff from a old recording studio and had a pile of signed records from such household (admittedly an old household) names as Madness, Depeche Mode (including Vince Clark), The Jam, Human League, The Police etc for £3 a pop. Silly money. Of course, that's all this stuff is worth in these days of 'digital'. In fact most of the dealers (generally older folk nursing thermos flasks and each other)looked on the edge of topping themselves. It's all a bit sad really. I'm the first to admit that the world of the web has opened up more genres of music than I can shake a (glow) stick at, but there was something about the old fashioned way of doing things that, I don't know, just made the whole music thing that bit extra special (although anyone who would want to give up a world in which you can listen to pretty much anything ever recorded at the click of a mouse to return to the days when there was only vinyl and 'cassette' would have to be barking). For people of a certain age the question 'what was the first record you bought?' transports you magically back to the time you first parted with a huge sum of money for a small bit of plastic that somehow contained music (I think mine was Golden Brown by The Stranglers in 1981...I was very young then...obviously). Will people in the future remember their first download? I doubt it. The music business in general today now seems to be a lot more dispsable than it ever was too. There's little room for artists to grow and develop. The media isn't helping. NME in particular seems hell bent on shoving as many new bands into each issue as they can and hoping that one or two will stick. I predict that before too much longer we'll have a daily music chart, bands will get signed and dropped in the space of a few hours and you'll get paid to take stuff away from record fairs. HMV will obviously start offering mortgages so you can afford their CD's. Hmmmm...if it can happen, it will happen.

No point to this post really, just felt like waffling for a bit on a Sunday afternoon. Thanks for sticking with it...if you still are...if you aren't you smell of wee. Ha! Anyone who wants to show off how cool their first record was is free to post it in the comment bit...