So I'm working at Tower Records where I have worked for the last three years. I currently make $7.40 an hour. You read that right. I just got my ***15 CENT*** annual raise. I've put off leaving for a long time and I honestly don't know why anymore. At first I told myself it was because I had built up so much vacation time that it would make it possible for me to afford to go on tour with the band I used to be in, but we've broken up now and I'm still working there. I know that part of it is that I don't want to leave just to go work at some shitty other retail job where I get paid marginally more because at least at Tower I know that I get along really well with my bosses and co-workers and I've got scheduling flexibility and nobody's going to dick me around.
Blah.
ANyway, accentuating the positive, I do occassionally bring in a truly awesome haul of free promotional copies of albums and stuff, which was the case this past weekend when I took home entirely free copies of:
- The Libertines (Self-titled second album. It's grown on me and some of the songs are really great, but it feels more like the ghost of the truly brilliant alsbum they could have written if Pete Doherty hadn't become such a smack/crack head.)
- The Mekons, "Heaven and Hell" (2-disc best of. Holy fucking fuck I love this band. I heard "The Old Trip To Jerusalem" off the "Oooh!" album a couple of years ago and nearly shit myself. They have been around since the late 70s and they're one of those band's that has played every genre of music but all of it was punk, ya know?
- Elvis Costello, "Almost Blue," "Goodbye Cruel World," "Kojak Variety Hour," (2-disc Rhino re-issues. Almost Blue is his fucking brilliant country album. Just plain great. Goodbye Cruel World was his last album with The Attractions and the album itself totally sucks. Way over produced with that really horrific overusage of synths that damned so many great artists in the 80s. HOWEVER ... the 2nd disc is fucking fascinating because it has all the little home demos he made of the songs with just him and his guitar and maybe a few piano or vocal overdubs and listening to it you realise that a lot of the songs are actually really fucking great, they just got fucked up in the studio. I particularly like 'The Comedians' and 'Peace In Our Time' and there's one sing called 'Inch By Inch' that sounds so much like early Elliott Smith it's creepy. Kojak Variety Hour, meanwhile is just pretty much boring. Nor stunningly bad but not very memorable either.)
and finally ...
I got a FUCKING FREE copy of the new BILL-FUCKING-HICKS DVD that Ryko just put out. It's got three seperate live performances from 1991 plus an hour long documentary. If any of you have never listened to Bill Hicks, he is probably one of the top three stand-up comics of the last 50 years. Some of the funniest, most acidicly humanist stuff you will ever hear. There's a good Best Of disc called "Philosophy" if you need somewhere to start.
So there are some positive of working for Tower. However, if I get a better job I can afford to just BUY THE FUCKING CDs AND DVDs I WANT RATHER THAN WAITING FOR SOME LABEL REP TO BRING ME A PROMO. Yeah. Should probably keep that in mind.
Has anyone reading this ever read "Watchmen" by Alan Moore? I finally got around to it a few months ago and it is still bouncing around in my head something fierce.
Anyway. That's it for now.
BiLLy
Blah.
ANyway, accentuating the positive, I do occassionally bring in a truly awesome haul of free promotional copies of albums and stuff, which was the case this past weekend when I took home entirely free copies of:
- The Libertines (Self-titled second album. It's grown on me and some of the songs are really great, but it feels more like the ghost of the truly brilliant alsbum they could have written if Pete Doherty hadn't become such a smack/crack head.)
- The Mekons, "Heaven and Hell" (2-disc best of. Holy fucking fuck I love this band. I heard "The Old Trip To Jerusalem" off the "Oooh!" album a couple of years ago and nearly shit myself. They have been around since the late 70s and they're one of those band's that has played every genre of music but all of it was punk, ya know?
- Elvis Costello, "Almost Blue," "Goodbye Cruel World," "Kojak Variety Hour," (2-disc Rhino re-issues. Almost Blue is his fucking brilliant country album. Just plain great. Goodbye Cruel World was his last album with The Attractions and the album itself totally sucks. Way over produced with that really horrific overusage of synths that damned so many great artists in the 80s. HOWEVER ... the 2nd disc is fucking fascinating because it has all the little home demos he made of the songs with just him and his guitar and maybe a few piano or vocal overdubs and listening to it you realise that a lot of the songs are actually really fucking great, they just got fucked up in the studio. I particularly like 'The Comedians' and 'Peace In Our Time' and there's one sing called 'Inch By Inch' that sounds so much like early Elliott Smith it's creepy. Kojak Variety Hour, meanwhile is just pretty much boring. Nor stunningly bad but not very memorable either.)
and finally ...
I got a FUCKING FREE copy of the new BILL-FUCKING-HICKS DVD that Ryko just put out. It's got three seperate live performances from 1991 plus an hour long documentary. If any of you have never listened to Bill Hicks, he is probably one of the top three stand-up comics of the last 50 years. Some of the funniest, most acidicly humanist stuff you will ever hear. There's a good Best Of disc called "Philosophy" if you need somewhere to start.
So there are some positive of working for Tower. However, if I get a better job I can afford to just BUY THE FUCKING CDs AND DVDs I WANT RATHER THAN WAITING FOR SOME LABEL REP TO BRING ME A PROMO. Yeah. Should probably keep that in mind.
Has anyone reading this ever read "Watchmen" by Alan Moore? I finally got around to it a few months ago and it is still bouncing around in my head something fierce.
Anyway. That's it for now.
BiLLy
take care! and glad you finally updated.