THE END OF AMOEBA AS WE KNEW IT, Part 2.
Yesterday, I brought a bag of CDs and LPs to Amoeba Records in Hollywood, hoping to trade out some of my record collection for hard currency. I had about 60 CDs and 30 LPs with me and figured the lot would be worth several hundred dollars to buy groceries with for the next several weeks. This small collection was not a pile of detritus, including about 4 early Miles Davis recordings, Major Works of John Coltrane, the Art Ensemble live in Japan, Dolphy, Basie, Wayne Shorter, Sidney Bechet, Toru Takemitsu, Charlie Parker, Brian Eno, Ornette, Jobim. A very diverse group of records in great shape, which I thought might merit 4$ each or so. I told myself that I wouldn't accept anything less than $300 and dropped off my stuff, the consignment officer telling me to take a look around the shop and they'd call me on the intercom. Imagine my surprise, when called, to be offered $138 cash. Wow. I had no idea records, CDs or LPS, had descended in value to such a level. Like everything else I guess since no one seems to have money to buy anything. I was also expecting to see a line of people waiting to sell records there, but I guess people know at this point they will be offered very little money at a retail store like Amoeba. I want to support the brick and mortar record store, but I couldn't just give away a piece of my collection, purchased carefully over so many years. I realize that a place like Amoeba has a huge overhead to pay for, and while they did amazing business the past 15 years, which allowed for their expansion out of the Bay Area into Hollywood, who could have predicted the slump of the world economy and thus have saved appropriately? Prices for records at Amoeba has not gone down. A new CD is still stickered at $12.99 or so and good used CDs are still 9 or 10$.
Record collecting, doing radio programs, listening and thinking about music are major parts of the life I have lived. I am of a generation of music lovers for whom buying an LP was always a major aspect of identity. I have lived for finding new music, lifting the record out of the shop bin and exclaiming "Ahh!" after looking for it for so long. Collections are now stuff for rich people, museums and foundations. I mean, who can even house a collection of a few thousand LPs anymore? And what's the point? How many people maintain a turntable and a decent pair of speakers? You do what you can.
I can't imagine letting go of my entire record collection and accepting a virtual library of hollow-bodied MP3s. Maybe trim down to a skeleton selection of a few hundred LPs and CDs, but the wholesale shift to Going Mobile is not an option. Of course, I haven't been evicted yet.
Young people (and some excitable contemporaries) are content exchanging MP3s with one another and spend their spare dollars on iPhone apps. They cross the street at the same time as they read their e-mail, both are given a percentage of one's attention. Can the same people be present at a concert or a film screening? Do they feel anxious about the twitter feed they might be missing? I have to ask: What's "smart" about the new generation of mobile phones? They may allow us a million ways to interact with the internet and our un-present friends, but what are we losing in presence by being a slave to the "hand-held device"?
Committing a certain percentage of my life to buying music, supporting music both live and recorded, it is surprising to find that the record collection no longer holds much value. A friend used to say about his burgeoning collection: "It's like putting money in the bank!" Well, that has changed. And sure, some of these records will not be hard to sell. Single pieces sell depending on their rarity and niche importance. I sold 1 Sun Ra Saturn LP about 10 years ago, when the internet was still sort of new, for 130$. I just saw the new Sun Ra 14CD box at Amoeba for around $110. You can buy the world for $100. But raising $100 is another story. Some of us must now resort to scavenging, although I guess that word applies to what many of us do here on Earth.
Records are like vessels with holes in the middle. They only hold water, or function, when they are connected to larger home listening systems, the hole is plugged. People don't seem interested in listening to recorded music any longer. Or they accept music as part of a background within their larger experience. People watch movies and other programs on large LCD televisions partly because the medium envelopes more of our total sensory ability. We want to be consumed by experience. Maybe that's a reaction to being conditioned as consumers for so long. And a stand-in for what was once community.
Life is broken down into smaller and smaller units. Songs cost 99c on iTunes and each one is ephemeral as the smoke from a cigarette. Didn't Buddy Holly exhale this smoke? We have cloned the smoke.
The most vital and real recorded experience might still be a great sounding LP on a good home music system. Though many people can't stand the solitude that comes from hearing intensely great music, eyes closed into the dark interior.
