Its been a while since I actually bought an album, I usually get all my music from limewire

you must die

It comes right in through my ears.

Epicenter (RIP), Amoeba and Aquarius Records in SF.

Lately I've been getting all my music from the library. It's fucking great! But if I don't get it there I get it from a brick and mortar store.
I don't have any downloaded music - just not my thing. I'm somewhat anal about my music. I like to own it as it was intended to be released (cover art and all). I also like to listen to albums from beginning to end. So I won't buy an album that has anymore than two weak songs.

I hear you there. Before my band released our last album we sent out a three song advance cd to club/radio dj's, magazines, etc. As soon as they went out all three songs on it started popping up on the file sharing sites. And never mind mp3's, not long after our album was released there was a Russian site that was offering the entire album for free download as one continuous wav file. Nice.

What really pisses me off about the whole downloading thing is I'm not signed to any label, so I'm not getting any kind of support, you know? We're self financed and we release everything independently. So every illegal download does directly affect me.

And we try and be cool about it. If you prefer to buy CD's, we make full previews of every song available on sites like CD Baby so you can listen to the entire album and decide whether or not you want to purchase it. And we understand that not everyone has as much disposable income as they'd like so with every album we release, we pick a song or two to make available for free download on our website.

But even though all of my band's catalog is available for purchase from just about every legitimate digital file provider, every time I do a search on the peer to peer's, we pop up. And that blows. It seems that there's been a cultural shift and a large portion of the population just doesn't believe that they should have to pay for music anymore.

And with declining CD sales, the labels are demanding a cut of merchandise sales from new bands they're signing, and that money from CD & shirt sales at shows is really how most bands are keeping their heads above water. Never mind Mtv dreams of superstardom, now more than ever it's a shitty time to be a working musician.

Yeah, me too.

Yeah, I agree with you. Once people get something for free it's really hard for them to go back to paying for it.
I've noticed it with myself and getting music at the library. I always check the library first when I want new music - we're on a new budget and so any time I can save money is good. But I've found new music through the library that lead me to purchase other albums by the same band that the library didn't have in their collection. In a perfect world I would buy the album that I got from the library - but right now I don't have the funds to do that. And a lot of what I've been getting is stuff that I would like to have, but would never spend money on...like all the old CDs I had in high school. I already paid full price for them at one point in my life - I'll be damned if I'm gonna spend another $19 for an album I wanna listen to a couple times a year!

That brings up a good point. We always sell our cd's for $10. I think a lot of the backlash against buying cd's started happening when people started having to pay $18.99 for a new disc. Retail pricing on cd's started getting out of hand and I think that helped clear some people's conscience about downloading for free.

Yeah, I was aware of that. Comments & viewpoints like that are what alienates the music industry from the music consumer. The music industry as a whole came to the downloading table way too late in the game to actually have a hand in shaping the medium, and they're proving themselves to be just as inept at dealing with the consequences of their own inaction. How will testimony like that or sueing some woman for $200k solve the problem? All it does is cloud the real issue with the resultant PR nightmare.

Who in the hell pays $19 for a CD? In the age of teh internet, I find it hard to believe that anything other than the new Britney or Nickelback would sell for that much. Christ, if you live that far away from a major metropolitan area, I'm sure anyone here would hook you up for less than that. Just sayin'

Your little sister better give some good fucking head.

Considering I listen to hardcore punk music allot of the times my only choice is to but vinyl. I've been buying records for 23 years now. Some of this stuff you can't find on the net. I really like kbdrecords.com and 7inchpunk.com for the shit I can't afford or just want to hear.
On another note,any hardcore fans from the 80's,I just took these out and spun them and I wanted to see what,if anyone,thought of these;
*Law And Order "Anything But The Critic's Choice" 7" DC hardcore 1981
*Bum Kon "Drunken Sex Sucks" 7"
*Frantix "My Dad's A Fucking Alcoholic" 7"
*Flipper "Ha Ha/Love Canal" 7" 45
*Project X 7" w/zine (aka "Straight Edge Revenge" 7")

law and order is good. I dont listen to this record ever because it kind of hard to listen to due to production. singer was the brother of someone in void but I cant remember who.

project X record is a killer record! maybe its because im edge. I dont care what anyone says. I love this record still. someone post the picture the photo of them playing in PA in 88 where dwid/aaron of integrity are infront and look like theyre crying.

The Law and Order 7" pre-dates all that DC hardcore/Dischord 7" stuff!!! The only other record earlier than the Dischord stuff that I know of is the Beaver 7"(w/Lyle Preslar on gits).
Yeah I'm edge too for about 20 years now. Are you the guy at the SDCC with the Judge t-shirt on during the Pushead line?? I was the guy with the glasses with the Fucked Up tattoo and Red Sox hat!!!

+1

If I understand correctly... What happens when someone high up in the music industry decides again to upgrade to a new format (usually another reason to make more money)... so we are not allowed to copy the music we have that are on CDs to another format? Really f&*ked up.

very sad to see oink go down. it was invaluable for me. i have over 3000 physical cds so, plenty of evidence that i buy the stuff i really like. But who wants to go buy a new cd, taking a chance on a new band, then get home to find out it's crap? or there is only one good song? not me. I used oinks to get turned on to all kinds of music i would have never taken a chance on with extravagant cd prices. i bought the things i liked and burned everything else to disc

oink was asking for it, but they made no question of their intentions or purpose. they didn't try to hide. they were proud of who they were and what they were doin and i, for one, will miss the bloody hell out of them.

that being said. i have a bunch of new single tracks, some advance on my website now. feel free to go and sample what's up. addy is
http://homepage.mac.com/satanicporno/FileSharing6.html

featured artists include Arcade Fire, the Slits, King Creosote, David Shrigley, Hot Chip, Modelselektor, Willie Nelson, and the new Prefuse 73 "From the East" (must download!)

I spend a good amount of money on music but rarely actually buy albums. When I do I end up ripping the songs to my ipod anyway and sticking the cd in a drawer somewhere. Physical CDs do nothing for me. I do envy those of you with record collections , but collecting toys takes up enough of my time. I'd rather go to a show and buy a poster or something if I want to support an artist.

I wish online stores (i.e. MP3) were as thorough and as strict with the encodes as OiNk was.

Tell me about it! Their quality is sound was far better than any music store out there.

ikkashinju - Escondido? Esco Viejo Santos? I fancy myself as one of the first punk rockers in Escondido damn it! I grew up there...Went to Escondido High (was removed) and went to Orange Glen High!

on another quote..."EPICENTER"? Boy that's been a while.

ALSO...BIG DISCOVERY FOR ME....a lot of the bands i've been buying lately are releasing LP's WITH the CD included for FREE or a code to download it for free.

I AM SOOOOOO STOKED ON THIS PHENOM! ANYBODY SEEING THIS?

stealing music sux SHIT!

that is me! very small world in this community. did you get to catch govt warning while they were out there? they had a good time and so did wasted time.


Paul, I meant to mention this ealier as well. I love this. Great Idea and has actually got me to buy some records on vinyl that sometimes I may have only bought on cd, things on major labels. I did this recently with the new WIlco and the new Rilo kiley(shut up!)

Aquarius Records is the best music store in the world.

http://www.aquariusrecords.org

And no, I don't work for them.

But with as much as I have spent there, I think I pay the salaries for the people who do.

Today is a good day.

I recovered a 250GB drive full of music.
Back to listening to the Velvet Underground....