Of food, technology, movies, music, and travel—or whatever else strikes my fancy
Maybe next week? Tonight I have a wedding present to wrap!
That’s the provocative title on the latest issue of This Magazine.
Of course, they don’t mean everything, everything. There’s no passionate defense of rape and grand theft auto, for example. But it was a good, thought-provoking set of articles.
The most in-depth article was Legalize Hard Drugs. And they do mean hard drugs, not just pot; and they do mean legalize, not just de-criminalize; and they do mean in the sense of being able to go into some LCBO-like entity to pick up your heroin, not having to get a prescription from your doctor. So rather farther than most Canadians would agree to go.
Still, it’s a surprisingly compelling argument. Prohibition hasn’t worked all that well so far. All it’s done is fund the gangs and dealers who make the world more dangerous for everyone. Ounce per ounce, marijuana is more valuable than gold, the article points out—even though it’s a weed. And the only reason it’s that expensive is that it’s illegal.
Money currently spent prosecuting and jailing the never-diminishing number of dealers willing to take the risks for profit margins like that could be spend on product quality control, reducing the dangers of the drugs, and addiction treatment and prevention. It’s certainly a queasy-making idea to think of government supplying cocaine, which can bring on an instant heart attack, but they do sell cigarettes, which kill when used as intended. And alcohol, which has damaged many lives. And gambling, which is a terrible addiction problem for many. The line between legal and illegal substances is arbitrary.
But my favorite article was Legalize Music Piracy, because it laid out a plan that apparently has been tossed around for some time, but I hadn’t heard of it before:
Doesn’t that sound perfectly reasonable? Musicians like it. Music fans like it. ISPs are OK with it. The only ones truly and deeply opposed are record companies. And they just haven’t done much to endear themselves to most of us.
I can’t believe we were on vacation a total three days and somehow have an overflowing PVR again, after finally catching up from our last vacation.
Clearly, being a TV couch potato is a full-time job that allows for no time off. At least not during sweeps month.
So I officially hate So You Think You Can Dance (US) being on in the fall, when it’s so busy, instead of the summer, when it’s almost the only thing on and you can bask in it. Now I can’t keep up with it and can’t get into it. And having the judges make the selections for the first two weeks (due to the gods of baseball) was just weird.
What I have managed to get into? Battle of the Blades! I thought it would be sort of a joke, but those guys have turned into pretty decent figure skaters there. I’m impressed.
And it was very nice to see Ron Duguay again. Very nice.
And on Being Erica—is the idea that she is going to turn into a therapist? Because it sure seems as though everyone around her is a lot more messed up than she is, now. Well, except for that apparent sexual incompatibility she’s having with Ethan. Which I must say I found incredibly frank for a network show. (Or even a cable show—I don’t recall that even Sex and the City dealt with quite that situation…)
And the Glee soundtrack turns out to be best in smaller doses, or you end up feeling sort of overwhelmed by the cheese. It’s also missing some of the best stuff, like the two mash-ups, and “Push It”. (Of course, you can buy those songs individually.) But with some nice chasers of authentic music in between (a little Who, a little Joni, a little Johnny Cash), it’s kind of great. Though still a bit alarming to get such warm feelings about songs like “Can’t Fight This Feeling”.
The “main” post for this is now located here: https://culturearchive.ca/roger-daltrey-use-it-or-lose-it-tour/
I wanted to start by explaining why I’m doing this.
First of all, it’s just to get off my ass. Because singers with a fat ass… You don’t want that.
Secondly, it’s to keep the vocal chords lubricated. But it’s not like a guitar—you can’t just add new strings.
Finally, I just want everybody to have a bloody good time!
— Roger Daltrey, 5 November 2009 (quote probably not exact, but you get the gist…)
I’ve given up trying to figure out exactly what it is about Roger Daltrey, but let’s just say, I was really looking forward to this concert. Wanting anything that I can’t 100% control always feel a bit dangerous to me, and my mind skittered over all the possible occurrences that could prevent me from attending (weather, illness, death, fire), until it seemed almost almost miraculous that I’d ever gotten myself to any concert anywhere.
In the weeks leading up, H1N1 became the main focus of my fretting, and the difficulty of accessing the vaccine led me to shielding myself (and Jean) with an elixer of hand sanitizer and vitamin D, hoping that would keep the virus at bay.
I’d also been following the tour virtually since it began in late October. The digital age has changed everything, hasn’t it? After each show there were not only written concert reports but lots of photos and quite a bit of video. And reports were generally rapturous, until… the Cleveland show.
Chicago, by all accounts, had been a huge triumph. Cleveland was the next day, 2 days before the Orillia concert (with a day of rest in between). And in Cleveland, his voice gave out. And he had to cut the show short.
This was so not what I was hoping to read before my show. And if I’d been operating on fairly low-level neurosis before, it now kicked into high gear. Having managed to keep both Jean and I free of not only flu but also colds and food poisoning and any other ailment that could possibly keep us bedridden, I was now gripped with the fear that laryngitis would force a cancellation of the Orillia show.
“You should have been sending Roger Daltrey the hand sanitizer and vitamin D,” Jean pointed out.
The night before the concert, there was no cancellation notice on the Casinorama website, and then I decided, I didn’t want any more news. From anywhere. Since I had to work the first part of the day, and since I have to use the web to do my work, that was trickier than you might think, but I managed.
We got away at exactly the time we’d hoped to (3:00) and although it was a fairly wacky weather day, switching rapidly from sun to rain to hail to light snow and back, the drive went really well. At our check-in at the Day’s Inn, just down the road from the Casino, it was clear that the concert still wasn’t cancelled. It finally felt safe to just get giddy about the whole thing.
When I would mention this event to people, the reaction would either be, “Who’s Roger Daltrey?” (and it’s very difficult to resist the temptation to just say, “Yes, that’s right” to that comment), or the comment that it was a bit sad he was playing a Casino.
I’m not going to comment on that aspect, but this is was playing a Casino (versus the smaller music clubs he was otherwise performing at on this tour) meant:
It apparently wasn’t a sold out show, but let me tell you, it had to be pretty close to that. (The venue holds 5000.) That was a big crowd. Age skewing toward baby boomer, I’d say.
The announcement that photography was strictly forbidden was not enforced and was completely ignored by everyone.
Our seats were excellent, at least in terms of sight lines. We were in the seventh row, very close to the center, so pretty much in line with the lead guitarist. The stage was raised enough that you could see over the heads of tall people. There were large screens on either of the stage, but we didn’t really need them. What was less excellent (per Jean) was that the seats weren’t the most comfortable ever, and they were packed pretty closely together.
But one other aspect of casino shows that I discovered is that those of us in the good seats are allowed to go stand in front of the stage, if we want. I hadn’t realized that we were allowed to do that, though, until I saw a bunch of other people doing it. “I want to go stand there,” I told Jean (who’d previously told me if I “rushed the stage”, he was leaving). “You go,” he said. “I’ll watch your stuff.”
So after the opening number (“Who Are You”), I did. And there I stayed. Right up close to Roger Daltrey.
So how was his voice, after all that? Well, not so hot, really. Pretty hoarse. Actually, I can let him tell you:
The thing is, I barely noticed that. I was actually sort of stunned, afterward, listening to the video Jean that had taken, to hear how hoarse he was actually was. It just didn’t sound that way to me at the time.
I can point out that it became clear pretty fast that standing right up close to the stage does not give the best auditory experience of the event. For example, I was still pretty much right front of the lead guitarist, most of the night, and where from my seat the guitar just blended in with everything else, from closer up it sometimes drowned out other instruments, like the harmonica.
I could certainly hear Daltrey sing, though. But it’s like I couldn’t really assess the quality of what I was hearing.
Or, quite possibly, I was just too excited to be seeing him up close to care what he sounded like.
At any rate, the voice also forced the show into being a little shorter than it usually is, with Jean and I both sort of stunned when they were wrapping it up. Which of course was a little disappointing, but if the worst you can say about a show is that you wished it had been longer, that’s pretty good.
I made no effort to retain exactly what was played in what order, but it certainly was mostly Who, with just a side order of Daltrey solo. And of course, some of the big hits were done: a very exciting “Who Are You” to start; great harmonies on “I Can See for Miles”; a very fun “Squeezebox,” albeit without the hip thrusting that apparently accompanied the “In and out” chorus back in the day; and a truly rousing “Baba O’Riley”, featuring full shirt opening and the night’s only incidence of microphone swinging.
As I knew would be the case, there was no “Won’t Get Fooled Again” (great song, but I’m actually kind of sick of it anyway), nothing from Tommy (the girl in front of me who kept piping up “Pinball Wizard” all night obviously didn’t get that memo), nothing from Quadrophenia. He explained that they’d tried to drop “Behind Blue Eyes” as well, but the protesting there was too great. So instead, they’d rearranged it, and presented that version. It reminded me of the way he’d done in it in his wonderful 1994 Daltrey Sings Townsend concerts, with the “When my fist clenches, crack it open” part rendered nearly a capella:
I was surprised to hear “My Generation,” but this was the “My Generation Blues” version (as featured on the Maximum R&B video), and it segued, through another song that I forget, into a fantastic version of “Young Man’s Blues”—giving one to ponder on how the once young and hungry Daltrey is now transformed into “the old man—who has all the money.” Nothing accidental about that song choice.
But another thing he wanted to do on this tour was bring out some of the more neglected songs in The Who’s canon—like “Pictures of Lily,” which had been dropped along with Entwistle’s vocal range; “Going Mobile”, sung by Simon Townsend (yep, Pete’s little brother, who does sound very much like Pete); and one of my personal favorites, “Tatoo.” They also indulged a request for “The Kids Are Alright,” despite Townsend commenting that it might have been better if the band had learned the song first, and some debate about what key it was actually in. Keeping in mind the wonky state of my brain and hearing that day, the song really sounded great to me.
From the solo oeuvre we got a couple of very fun numbers from his quite good Rocks in the Head album: “Walk on Water,” dedicated to President Obama (“Those Americans don’t know what they want, do they? First they love him, and now… I mean, give him a chance!”), and “Days of Light,” which he explained harkened back to his days as a sheetmetal worker, a pretty crap job that made the weekends all the sweeter: the “Days of Light.” And a couple numbers I didn’t know, but still enjoyed.
As the set list hasn’t exactly been fixed on this tour, I don’t really know what numbers normally performed were left out in the abbreviated set. I think “Naked Eye” has made a number of appearances, and we didn’t get that. Nor did “Boris the Spider,” which would have been cool to hear him do. And he has done the beautiful “Without Your Love” a few times, but I suspect that one would have been beyond him this night.
(YouTube of “Without Your Love” at New Jersey concert, 4 days later. He sounds great. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN_9lsa5xHY)
Except for the afore-mentioned Simon Townsend, I don’t think anyone in his band is well-known. But they did do lovely vocal harmonies and quite a credible job of re-creating the Who sound. There was a drummer, a bass player, and a keyboard player. To my surprise, Townsend didn’t play lead guitar, but accoustic. As well as handling all the Pete vocal parts in the songs. The dude I was standing in front of most of the night, apparently recently named band musical director, ably handled the lead guitar parts.
It should be noted that Daltrey also played guitar on a lot of numbers, as well tambourine and harmonica. And ukelele.
The glitches reported on some earlier tour dates were not in evidence this night. No forgotten lyrics. There was only one request for monitor adjustment: “It sounds all horrible and basey. Or maybe that’s my voice.” (Someday I’ll have to find out just what a monitor is.) No complaints about excessive cool, drying air (it was hot in there). No giving up on songs partway through. He did seem to have to keep readjusting his earpiece; that’s about it.
Let’s get the shallow stuff out of the way first: up close and in person, Roger Daltrey looks really damn good. He’s growing the hair out a bit (and there’s certainly still a lot of that), he seems to have dyed it blonde again, he’s tanned, he’s fit and muscular, his face still unremarkably unwrinkled. I’m about ready to drop the “for his age” qualifier from the “he looks really good” comment. (He’s 65.)
And, he seems to be having a great time on this tour. I have recordings of his 1985 and 1994 solo tours, and a lot of DVDs and recordings of Who tours over the years, and I have never heard him be as verbose on stage as he has been on this one. He was funny and charming and entertaining… yeah, kind of sexy.
In introducing “Tatoo”, for example, he explained that he wanted to do this song because it illustrated how much had changed, culturally, since the era in which it was written (1967). Back then, he said, only men got tatoos, and only a certain kind of man at that—a criminal sort, really, that he’d decided he didn’t want to be, and therefore remains untatooed to this day. (The song, by the way, is all about the singer and his brother deciding to get tatoos as a mark of their manhood.)
But now, Daltrey continued, it’s women who get all the tatoos. “And they get them in these places… That you couldn’t imagine you’d want a tatoo…”
Later, he talked about working with The Chieftains, and convincing them to do a Who song in return for his singing a couple of their songs. Their version of “Behind Blue Eyes” got picked up by radio and led to the album being a great success and them winning a Grammey.
“But I didn’t get a Grammy,” Daltrey complained. “I wanted one, too! By the time I finally get one, they’ll be called the Grannies.” (Now doesn’t the fact that The Who have never won a Grammy just make you think that there’s something terribly wrong with the Grammy’s?)
And after “Baba O’Riley,” he explained how he didn’t do encores. “We never did them in the Seventies,” he said. (And agreed that “smashing all your gear” was a good way to avoid them.) “But if we had, I could have used that 10 minutes to have some fun. But what good is 10 minutes to me now? That’s bloody useless. Now I need a whole evening! Sometimes two!”
Standing in the “pit” was generally a congenial experience, but there was one guy who kind of getting on my nerves. It was a little bit that he was just standing there instead of joining in on the singalongs and clapping, a little bit that his height occasionally interfered with my sightline, but it was mainly that as a people got tired of standing and moved back to their seats, he didn’t move over closer to Roger. Instead, he just left space there. And because he was beside me, that meant that I couldn’t move over closer to Roger.
Until finally… For the last three songs, he did get out of my way. Now I was more in between Roger and the lead guitarist instead of just in front of the guitarist.
Then Roger started in on his Johnny Cash medley (much to the delight of some dude behind me who’d been asking for “Johnny Cash” all evening, only to get weird looks from everyone around him). He explained that he was kind of worried about attempting these with his wonky voice, and that he might have to stop if it seemed too brutal. But he did want to pay tribute to this great singer.
And then he looked at me. I mean, right at me. And he smiled. And of course I just beamed back at him.
Then he said that if he got through it, the last number would be “Ring of Fire”, and he’d split the audience into men and women. And he’d have the women sing the chorus on their own, “because that’s really sexy.” And then the men would sing on their own. And finally we’d all sing along together.
So he did get through them (and sorry, I’m not enough of a Johnny Cash fan to know what songs he did), and he got to “Ring of Fire”, and he said, “Now all the women,” and he looked right at me again, through the whole chorus. And know what? It’s both intoxicating and intimidating to be singing about your “burning ring of fire going down down down and the flame getting higher” while Roger Daltrey is looking at you.
YouTube video of Roger’s Johnny Cash medley from Atlantic City. (I could only wish he’d been this sweaty and shirtless when I saw him…)
“Blue, Red and Grey” is this lovely little ballad on The Who’s underrated Who By Numbers album. Pete sings it, and Roger said he’d tried for years to get Pete to do this song in concert, but Pete refused, feeling he’d look like completely idiotic standing there with his ukelele.
Whereupon Roger, now alone on the stage, posed with his ukelele.
Even when in good voice, this one is challenge for Roger to sing—it’s in his upper range, it requires you to go from low to high notes in a beat. But I know he’s been performing it all tour and I’m delighted he attempted for us as well.
It was certainly a struggle for him. As his voice broke on the upper part of the second verse, he commented, “Makes it rather poignant, doesn’t it?” “You sound wonderful, Roger” somebody shouted, and as he did a fairly credible job on the last verse, the applause was very warm.
While we didn’t spend a lot of time talking to other people there—we aren’t very good at that—from what I overheard, it wasn’t just me who really enjoyed this concert. (Jean said it “wasn’t completely awful.” That’s actually pretty good, from Jean.)
So as to goals of this tour:
“He made me who I am. I owe him a lot and I love him.” — Pete Townsend on Roger Daltrey
(All photos and video by Jean.)
All the leaves are brown
And the sky is gray
I’ve been out walking for a while on a winter’s day
I’d be safe and warm
If I was in LA…
Or, better yet, back in San Fran…
Yes, it was a good trip. We were there for a week, Saturday to Sunday. We started with a visit to Yosemite on Sunday, headed to Napa and Sonoma on Monday and Tuesday, and drove into San Francisco on Wednesday, where we stayed for the rest of the trip.
People ask, “What was your favorite thing?”, which I can never answer. Too many options. But to quote Maria, these are a few of my favorite things.
And then there were the more “interesting” experiences that will probably make the best stories…
Longer web page on the trip: San Francisco, Yosemite, and Napa—All in one week! (Not in that order)
Taking Woodstock is a movie by Ang Lee that opened this weekend. Based on a true story, it features one Elliot Tiber (played by The Daily Show’s Demetri Martin), a repressed young man who has returned to his small home town to try and help his parents save their rundown motel. When he hears that another nearby town has banned a planned major music festival, he seizes on the opportunity to convince promoters to hold it in White Lake instead. Despite some bumps on the way, a deal is struck to hold the proceedings on a neighbour’s farm. Soon Elliot, his parents, and indeed the whole town are caught up in a tidal wave of history, as Woodstock brings thousands of young hippies to town.
I’d read about this movie a couple months ago, in the Princess Guide, and always planned to go, just because it sounded like something I would like. And that Jean might even enjoy. But then the day it opened, the critics starting commenting. The movie doesn’t work, they said. No magic. Too many characters; you don’t care about any of them. The main character is dull. The movie is dull. It’s too slow. The split screen only multiplies the boredom. The jokes all fall flat.
Geez.
Forewarned, forearmed, expectations lowered, we decided to go anyway.
And we really liked it. Both of us.
One useful point the critics made is that this is no re-creation of the Woodstock Music Festival itself. It really is a sideways, faraway view of that. It all swirls around Elliot; he is not, he wasn’t, at the center of it.
But that perspective worked for me just fine. It was exciting to see more and more, cooler and cooler, people come to town. It was fun to see the effects on the townspeople. Yes, there are a lot of characters, but I generally enjoyed my brief time with each. The main character may not have been the most interesting of them, but that was the point, and to me made him easier to identify with. The jokes did not fall flat; a lot of it was really funny. And it was quite the cast: Imelda Staunton, Eugene Levy, Robert Downie Jr, and newcomer Jonathan Groff (as Zen concert promoter Michael Lang), whom I expect we’ll be seeing more of.
The split screen, while making it a bit confusing what to focus on, did harken nicely to the famous documentary, as did the mudslide scene. Elliot’s one acid-fueled glimpse at the famous stage really is a gorgeous. And the whole thing was a nice reminder that it was pretty amazing that so many kids came together, in conditions so far from ideal (mud, rain, show stoppages, inadequate toilet facilities, inadequate water and food, traffic jams for miles), yet have the whole thing be entirely peaceful. It may not have been the dawning of the age of Aquarius, but it was still a really nice weekend.
So there you go. If this sounds like the type of movie you would like, if you’re not sick to death of boomers and their nostalgia for the 60s, then try it. I think you’ll like it.
This is how Jean explains the fact that we were in Orillia this weekend:
I got back from my canoeing trip and Cathy says, “You need to book November 6 off work. Because we’re going to an adultery concert.”
So I said, “Ah, is there something you’re trying to tell me, honey?”
But see, she meant Roger Daltrey—you know, from The Who?
So, that’s why I can’t do woodworking / go canoeing with you / stay any later at this party. Because we have to drive to Orillia this weekend, to get the pre-sale tickets at the box office, so we can get the good seats.
Which is a good little anecdote. Amusing. Not quite how I remember it, but some of the facts are there.
I did indeed find out, while Jean was away, that Roger Daltrey was touring (for the first time in 25 years), and that his only Ontario date was at the casino in Orillia. Of course I wanted to go—not like there are tons of opportunities to see him perform in relatively small venues—but Orillia struck me as a slightly annoying location, as it wasn’t so far away as to be impossible or terribly expensive to get there, but not so close as to be able to just buy tickets and worry about the details later.
The Who’s official website talked about this 2-day pre-sale (available only to Who fan club members—$50 US for that), including meet and greet packages. That all seemed cool, but there were no price details, and I wasn’t sure how many tickets I’d be needing, and… I fretted, but let those 2 days pass.
Which turned out to be a great decision, since Orillia was excluded from all that—no Who fan club pre-sale, no meet and greet packages on offer. (And by the way, it’s $350-$400 for that meet and greet stuff. Rather a lot for what would likely just be an awkward, 2-minute conversation with a stranger, eh? Like, what would I say to him? “Mr. Daltrey, I’m a big fan of your work. What a great voice. And what a great chest. Really, thank you so much for not wearing a shirt for most of the seventies! I really appreciate that!”
I’m sure that would have gone over well.)
Anyway. Pre-sale tickets for Orillia were set for August 16, so I had about a week after Jean got back to talk him into it. Because, see, Jean doesn’t particularly like going to rock concerts, as a rule, and while he has nothing against The Who, you wouldn’t call him a big fan, either.
I waited a day, then launched my pitch. I started with a joke about researching casinos because I thought I might take up gambling, but that fell a bit flat, so I just went into the facts, “and I know it’s a three-hour drive, and it’s Thursday night, which means you’re on call, and…”
“Well, find a friend to go with you and I’ll drive you. We’ll stay overnight, right?”
Say what now? “Yes, we’d have to. And I don’t know that any of my friends would be interested, but I don’t mind doing the concert part by myself.”
“Well, if you’d be alone, I’ll go with you.”
Say what now?
My second bout of fretting now deflated, I turned to the matter of getting tickets.
I called the casino and asked what the deal was with this pre-sale. Which was that, first of all, you needed a casino card. It was free to get one of those, so fine. But secondly, you had to take yourself and your casino card to the box office in Orillia, in person, and get the tickets there.
I concluded it just wasn’t reasonable to drive six hours in a day (there and back) just to get tickets, but then I fretted that they’d be all sold out in that two-day pre-sale.
Jean sighed. And then suggested that maybe we could make a weekend of it, spreading the driving over two days.
I started cooking him all his favourite foods.
But, you know, Orillia turns out to be quite a nice little town (and really only a 2.5 hours drive), apparently not drained of its life blood by its casino. It’s right on the water, and it was a beautiful weekend, so we quite enjoyed the beach and the marina. Downtown had an exhibit of classic cars, which was kind of interesting. Our reasonably priced Inn room had a little kitchen, living room, king-size bed, and two TVs! We ate in this neat restaurant set up in an old train, and went to see a musical revue about golf. (Which, OK, was a little weird, but it did fill up the evening.)
And, I am now the proud owner of two tickets in the seventh row, just slightly to the right of center stage.
On the way home, we stopped at Michael’s Statdlander’s new bakery in Singhampton. Best ice cream ever!
So now I can stop fretting. (But Jean can keep telling his anecdote.)
From 1974 interview with Roger Daltrey:
Q: Will you still be doing this in your 60s?
A: Sure. Why not? Singers only get better with age.
Q: Would you play Vegas?
A: I don’t know. Maybe.
Q: You won’t get fat like Elvis, though, will you?
A: No. That will never happen.
This was originally written in 2009, but from 2024 vantage point, two of the videos mentioned and linked to are no longer available…
Last one, though, still exists—and even still seems kind of relevant, as we’re still facing issues of mistreatment by airlines (ask people in wheelchairs). The ability for an individual to actually get a corporation based on a viral video… I guess can still happen, but sure feels harder now that most of the key media for doing so are owned by giant, evil corporations. Anyway. This is what I’d written at the time.
And finally, United Breaks Guitars. My God, this guy has been everywhere since this went viral—CNN’s The Situation Room, CBS Morning Show, CTV National News, Q with Jian Ghomeshi… And more.
One thing not always noted is that Dave Carroll is originally from Timmins (just like Shania). As he recounts in the song, his guitar was tossed around and damaged by United Airways staff, who did nothing to compensate him. So this is his revenge. His goal was to reach over a million views in a year. He’s achieved that in less than a week.
Also, the video is pretty funny, and it’s a catchy little tune as well.
So I’m pleased with myself because I’ve figured out how to record music as it plays on my computer.
Now, I’d be more pleased if I could have figured out how to configure Windows to do this, for free, as is supposed to be possible. But after the simple instructions failed, and then I tried more complicated instructions that also failed, and eventually ended up in the Windows Registry and it was 1:00 in the morning and I still wasn’t recording…
I realized this was insane. So before I blew up the computer, I bought some inexpensive software to do this. Very simple; works great. Anything I play on the computer, I can now convert to MP3 (and other formats).
I wanted this for things like:
This, my husband informed me, makes me a thief. Even though I pointed out that none of these things seem to be available for sale. He said that the artists should still paid for their work, and I said, well, I’m sure they were paid for their original work and now their stuff is sitting on the Internet for free listening and what difference does it make if I listen on my computer or my iPod? (And actually the argument went on much longer and grew progressively ridiculous, so I’ll spare you.)
But it did make me think that, however I get my music now—and I use many means—someone seems to thinks it’s either stupid, or immoral, or just plain weird.
Most commonly expressed by those under 30, who like to point out that everything is available for free on the Internet. I don’t know how immoral it is to never pay for music, but it’s at least kind of tacky.
Boy, do some people have issues with iTunes! That it’s too expensive, that everything is DRM, that it chains you to your iPod. But expensive is relative, the DRM thing is now history, and as for chaining you to your iPod; well, I’ve never figured that was so hard to get around. For example, I can just play whatever is in iTunes on my computer, and make an MP3 copy of it using my handy new software! Voila, no more ties to Apple.
Amazement that I still acquire some music little plastic disks, which clutter up your life. Especially since the first thing you do is convert it for the iPod anyway.
Now, I used to say all those CDs were my iTunes backup; but now I’ve started backing up my library to DVD.
Or, that I liked the packaging—but I don’t really refer to the CD case, within its tiny print and sad little cover picture, all that often. But I still buy CDs because of:
As for clutter, my neatly organized CDs, all stashed away in cabinets in alphabetical order by artist, then by release date, are really the least of my problems there. But it brings me to…
This is, as opposed to just songs. Of course, it’s wonderful to now be able to just get songs so easily, but yes, I still get albums too. Because…
Because someone has to stimulate the economy.
Destinations: Quebec City, Charlevoix, and points between
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