Bryne Yancey

In a word: Yes.

In a few more words: Yes, but what music format/trend hasn’t eventually gone too far?

This piece hits the bastardization of Record Store Day on the head, though. The last time I participated in RSD was 2010. I waited in line for three hours while a Park Ave CDs employee ushered customers into the store piecemeal. One in, one out. Two in, two out. Being a late April Saturday in Orlando, it was uncomfortably hot outside, even for a native. But I waited, mostly because I really wanted the Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros LP reissues from Hellcat and I figured I wouldn’t be able to secure them if I didn’t. I’d worked until 3 a.m. the previous night, so I was already exhausted before the sun started beating down on my face. But, Papa Joe was worth it, I thought to myself. Plus I loved vinyl, I loved supporting indie record stores and most importantly, I enjoyed the ritual, the experience of thumbing through records on a weekend. It soothed me. It still does.

Once I finally entered the air-conditioned doors at Park Ave, what I saw was likely logistically necessary, but disconcerting nonetheless: No one was thumbing through records. The listening stations were empty. Employees weren’t talking to customers, making recommendations. Instead, the line that began outside continued inside. It snaked around the aisles full of vinyl, CDs and other merch until the end right before the registers, where all the RSD exclusive releases were placed in their own section for easy grabbing—provided the ones you wanted were still available before record flippers had placed these “rare” gems on eBay at a 1,000% markup. 180 gram reissues from classic rock behemoths. Split 7-inches featuring two oddly-paired bands released by a trendy indie label. Vinyl singles for already-released material from the previous year. The prices were, and are, egregious; the limited nature was manufactured to create artificial demand for releases most people would thumb past on any other day of the year. Some of these RSD releases have extremely large, one-time pressings; often 5,000 or more—not exactly what most people would call “rare.” The Record Store Day experience had become automated, soulless, unfun. I got my copy of Streetcore, but haven’t been back to a RSD since.

The counterpoint to this, and it’s a valid one, is that RSD is a boon for indie shops because it gets more paying customers through their doors than any other day out of the year. As a vinyl/record store enthusiast, it’s hard to get upset about that aspect of it. As a vinyl/record store enthusiast, it should be relatively east to get upset about virtually every other aspect of it.

Indie record stores are great. They should be celebrated, but not like this. Not without all the pomp and bullshit and major label reissues no one asked for at $30 a pop. Celebrate your local indie on a different Saturday afternoon by walking in, thumbing through record bins, checking out staff recommendations and maybe buying something you’ve never heard before that day. Buy something based on a recommendation, or because the cover art looks cool. Record Store Day isn’t a holiday; it’s a bastardized, commercialized version of what will hopefully remain a rite of passage for every music fan.

Great piece on where the micropublishing world is headed, and hopefully where good journalists cast out by the Buzzfeeds of the world will take their best work going forward. That is, away from sites beholden to advertising dollars and to their own brands, where consumers searching for substance in their reading will find them—and, get this, pay for it.

That’s not to say there isn’t still good work being done at pubs still using the old model—far from it. But as a reader/writer who appreciates quality reporting without all the politics attached to it, this is a welcome trend.

These will all be posted by me. Some of it will get weird.

This is great.

I love love love reading (and writing!) personal essays, humor pieces etc., but let’s not sit here and pretend it’s something other than what it is.

“Left unsaid in most discussions of this sort of writing is the fact that most people’s lives are not that interesting. Certainly, simple math will tell you that a 20 year-old has only a limited store of really compelling personal stories to tell. Most people who decide to base their writing careers on stories about themselves end up like bands that used their entire lifetime’s worth of good material in their first album, and then sputtered uselessly when it came time for the follow-up. Sure, you can extract some thoughtful stories of humiliation from a college class. And sure, you can get some of them published. But that is not a career plan. Writing about yourself can be part of a balanced journalism diet, but it sure ain’t a whole fucking meal. By plundering your own life for material, you are not investing in yourself as a writer; you’re spending the principal. Soon, it will all be used up. There is nothing more painful to watch than a writer desperately grasping at ever less-important aspects of their own lives in order to make word counts, until they must simultaneously eat lunch and be writing about eating that lunch at the same time. It is the most small-minded interpretation of “journalism” there is. It is sad.

The good news, young writers, is that your life does not have to be extraordinarily interesting, because there are billions of people in the world who do have interesting lives, and you have the privilege of telling their stories. Even the most productive journalist could not write 1% of humanity’s freely available interesting stories in the course of an entire career. Your friends, and neighbors, and community members, and people across town, and across your country, and across the world far and wide are all brimming with stories to tell. Stories of love, and war, and crime, and peril, and redemption. The average inmate at your local jail probably has a far more interesting life story than Susan Shapiro or you or I do, no matter how many of our ex-boyfriends and girlfriends we call for comment. All of the compelling stories you could ever hope to be offered are already freely available. All you have to do is to look outside of yourself, and listen, and write them down.”

That second paragraph, THAT’S why I initially wanted to be a journalist. It’s a wonderful way to tell and advance someone else’s story, compellingly so, and in a way that can effect people’s lives. As a journalist, you are a vessel for someone else’s story. That doesn’t mean you can’t have fun telling that story, but stick to the story. That also doesn’t mean that you can’t also write personal essays! Hunter S. Thompson was an amazingly talented journalist and also an entertaining essayist, for example.

If you’re weaving personal narratives into someone else’s story, you aren’t serving the subject; you’re only serving yourself and geeze, chances are there are very few readers that give a shit about your personal life. The younger you figure that out, the better off you’ll be.