The #CratesAreEmpty hashtag, tweeted from the Numero Group twitter earlier today, got my
juices flowing. It’s appropriate. All crates in every Thrift Store and Antique Mall have been dug. America’s gold rush
of record hunting is over. I can tell you this. I’ve been out there. I just
spent a long weekend in Iowa of all paces. The Crates Are Empty. #CratesAreEmpty.
Well,
not empty. Full, still, really. Full of junk. Montovani. Guy Lombardo. Golden
goodies of gentle strings for people who hate music only a little less than
they hate silence. Theme From A Summer Place Where Korean War PTSD Cannot Touch
Us. The millions and millions and billions of records that somebody made once
upon a time back when a record was the only way to hear anything. The crates
will never actually be empty. Only bereft of value. Forever. #CratesAreEmpty.
The
internet killed the moth-ridden weirdo with bad teeth who will give you that pristine
original pressing of Relatively
Clean Rivers for “prolly fifty cents” after a squinting appraisal you have
to pokerface your way through as your heart kicks like a rodeo bull in your chest.
Gone is the thrill of the hunt. The acres of Boring Strings Of The World LPs are now punctuated,
find-wise, with occasional scratched-to-shit 70’s re-pressings of Meet The Beatles with $30 price tags even
though they’re in a mildewed cardboard box sitting in a 19th century
oven in a barn full of antiques in Buttfucknowhere, Nebraska. You pull them out and check the condition and your inner monologue screams "who is this FOR?!" while doing the Platoon pose, and then you get back into the car, empty-handed, and you tell yourself Never Again. #CratesAreEmpty.
The best you can hope for these days is a decent record in horrible condition
with a ludicrous price tag. It’s as if Paul Revere himself (of Paul Revere & the Raiders)
rode through the countryside declaring that The City Idiots would from now on
and forever be buying any record in any condition for twenty bucks minimum, and
run go get your pricing gun. “That copy of Led
Zeppelin II your son used as a microwavable burrito plate might be worth
something! Look it up on eBay!” The word is out about records. In a major way. The
mothy toothies are getting their revenge. #CratesAreEmpty.
Now
it’s “Give me $20, and I don’t care that you can’t actually listen to the
thing, and I don’t care that you came out all this way, and I don’t care about
you and your stupid City Idiot feelings. By the way, if you want something to
eat, I recommend you go across the street and pay $7 for the worst salad ever
constructed by man. Or, you know, instead you can drop dead where you stand for
all I care, you slimy hustler.” It’s a much more human arrangement. #CratesAreEmpty.
Many,
many people have asked recently if cassettes
are the new vinyl. If by “the new vinyl” you mean “an analog format to buy
an album in that’s cheap because nobody gives or ever will give a shit about
it,” then yes. Vinyl used to be like that. Everything was a dollar, tops. The good
old days. They are gone. #CratesAreEmpty.
If
by “the new vinyl” you mean “an analog format which will make a huge resurgence,
with rare and collectible titles becoming insanely valuable and tapes become the
en vogue way to listen to music,” probably not. I don’t know. I mean, I buy
cassette tapes. I have a tape player in my shitty ass car. And I bought a tape player
for my stereo so I could make tapes for my shitty ass car. So I can also listen
to tapes in the house. And: I’m the fucking coolest. So maybe tapes will have a
big resurgence. But probably not. They’re tapes. Tapes suck. Except for that
Zig Zags tape. And all the other Burger Records tapes. And the Pussy Galore “Exile
on Main Street” tape. And... oh shit. Now I have to go back to all the places I've ever been and look for tapes. This is a
sickness. #CratesAreEmptyEvenForTapesInFiveYears.
I
recommend you don’t go out there. Just go to your local record store and pay
the $20 for whatever deluxe reissue they’re getting that week. I repeat: do not
go out there. Please. I plan on going out there, so please do me a favor and
don’t. You’re in my way. You’re being loudly nostalgic about Pat Benetar
because you’re bored and idly flipping through the LP’s in this Salvation Army,
and when you "can't believe it," that is my LIFE you're talking about so flippantly, and you’re in my way. Move. You’re standing in front of my crates. I don’t plan
on finding anything in them, but I’m going to take a look just in case. #CratesAreEmpty.
