State Of The Nation

 


KRW_CO is currently posting a flood of soundboards so extensive he says it will take years to post everything. As of now they are fair and casino type acts from the PNW but who knows what the future will bring. It's moments like these that I wish living to be 200 is a possibility and keep the hobby exciting. Definitely one of the top contributors to our hobby in the digital age. 

Due to storage crisis I am only grabbing what I hope to find the time to listen to and so far that is only 2 shows for me and 1 for a friend. So check it out at Dime, The Traders Den or YouTube. But always excited to see what he posts just the same. 

The novelty of every festival set being posted in pro shot quality has worn off with me only grabbing 2 Doechii sets from Lollapalooza South America and watching 1. Still thankful for all that exists. These sets would actually constitute excellent research back in the days I was still working. Maybe a handful of Coachella sets I hope to see but can't even remember who's playing without looking. 

And the storage crisis continues to reverberate here. 

Prince, Bruce Springsteen and Eric Clapton folders have been moved to secondary drives. Prince was filler on a hard drive someone gave me but I don't listen to Prince. Realize I never listen to Bruce anymore and if anything happens to the secondary drive and I wanna listen to the LA Sports Arena 1980 / 1981 / 1984 shows again I can easily find them. He has and continues to officially release a lot of classic shows that I rarely find the time for. Every once in awhile I like to listen to a drunk 1970's Clapton show and of course most of his pre solo output remains stellar and has pointed me towards listening to more Jack Bruce. 

Against my better judgement I did buy 2 for Bruce at the Forum thinking of how hard the Forum was in 2024 to get a ticket for. Oops. Of course that was his first LA show in 8 years and I am sure another 20% or so of his domestic fan base has dropped dead or been otherwise incapacitated since. Anyone wanna trade a spare for the Marshall Crenshaw show I considered "not worth it" at $64? Usually I don't announce where I will be ahead of time but no harm at the moment, it's not like there is any value in recording Bruce anymore or anyone in the clubs actually cares. 

I added a lot of official releases to the listening rotation hence the lower number of uploads. Also theoretically added DVD's and updated my DVD list but just don't have much time. Once I would have guestimated my collection at around 2000 discs but looks like it's more like over 7000. So when I do a date search I might pull 10-12 titles or more. Wonder how many are coasters by now? And goes without saying I won't be ripping the collection to drives anytime soon. Likely ripe for a major purge. Probably wouldn't fit in a single dumpster at this point. Revisiting the DVD collection just intensifies major FOMO. Scarcity mindset from the era where video was so hard to come by and being dropped into an era where there is an unlimited amount led to this. And don't get me started on my records and CD's.

I love doing transfers but it's a chore sometimes. A lot of stuff I just don't listen to or wanted to listen to that once. Wish I could find more historical LA recordings of bands I like. Still salivate whenever I get a random email from VegasAnonymous. 

The concert lineup going into the future remains stacked but little is actually exciting. Trying to keep it to 2 shows a week. Want to live a more balanced life even if time not at shows is just sitting in front of computer checking the same few sites over and over again. Not even reading long form articles like I used to. Also no income going on 4 years. Just going to free / cheap shows adds up quickly.But also part of me wants to splurge on what I can now as gas prices will have a serious effect on touring by summer and beyond. Think of all the tours that draw 3-8k a night in a mix of large theatres, small arenas and sheds but still uses 4 buses and 6 trucks and provides a decent living for everyone involved. The kind of stuff the savvy buyers know will end up as a National Concert Week special to help LiveNation sell more nachos.

And on to LiveNation. I remember watching the hearings a few years ago and thinking I don't want those luddites anywhere near ticketing. My opinion hasn't changed. If anything, even if the states succeed it will likely just extract a blood toll from LiveNation for fan frustration. It certainly won't lower concert prices, which are based on artist fees and guarantees. Basically this is a business that has matured into an actual business. And it will remain a business regardless of any individual's emotional attachment to the product being sold.

I found it a lot easier to find a way to work within the system as it exists and use it's weaknesses to my advantage than demand the system change to fit my desires. That's why I am a staunch defender of the current status quo even if it did put me out of business a few years ago. It certainly isn't going to make Taylor Swift tickets any easier to get or fit 5000 Angine La Po fans into a room that holds 700. (Yes, that's Reddit logic right there, TM's fault there are cap limits on a room and a few hundred tickets will be gone in seconds, which happened for every show regardless of ticketing provider). 

Counting on Uncle Sam, or even worse, Governor Newsom, to hold my hand into the Spice Girls reunion at the Sphere isn't a strategy I would readily adopt.

Recently an entity successfully cloned a Ticketmaster page with Phish Sphere tickets so eliminating a safe secondary market isn't going to help consumers who want to wish themselves into a show for which there is no room so desperately they will send their money to the third world to keep hope alive a few minutes longer. But I do admit part of me is happy for the opportunity to gloat and say "This is what you demanded" and "Sold Out" really does mean "You're not going."

Since some other project unraveled in December I have been smoking way too much weed. I got some snarky message from a Dime user about how she never had a bad experience on the site until now due to me not replying to some message I don't remember seeing - yeah, don't expect much from me, once this starts to feel like a job and an obligation I am out for good. It's not even as fun as it was in the list and snail mail days but I am so deeply invested and really have no idea what to do with myself otherwise. But those who try to engage, this is the kind of mind we are dealing with here. 

The last time I took an extended smoke break Oct to December I didn't start feeling manic and that's the best part of any abstinence periods assuming I don't get myself into too much trouble. It was just a slightly higher level of Blah. 

Finished up a VegasAnonymous show and a few more are mostly done so more transfers on Friday. Actually have some masters I theoretically wanna hear and finish too but who knows when anything out of that stuck will come along again. 

Have about 35GB left thanks to posting DVD's now and then I gotta start deleting if I wanna keep honoring repost requests, not confident on upgrading to 2TB storage.