I’ve been working in music retail and wholesale — buying, writing and selling — since 1980. This does not necessarily make me a smart person, I know.
I live in the eastern realm of the San Francisco Bay area with my girlfriend Kate, our cats, Wafflehead and Timmyhead, and probably too many external hard drives, LPs, CDs and plants. I work full-time for an independent music distributor. I buy and sell music on Discogs. I contribute music reviews to Confessions of a Part-Time Audiophile. I used to deejay at KDVS and write for PULSE! magazine.
About this site:
I’m a vinyl fussbudget. I tend to obsess over the minutiae of LPs — mastering quality, surface noise, packaging…and sometimes even the music.
Despite the title of this blog, I occasionally list links to MP3s, AACs and streaming media. I would always prefer to link to high-resolution digital files (he said, his nose in the air) but these formats are, unfortunately, not always available for recordings I love. I figure the most important thing is to share information about music that appeals to me and get the word out, rather than proselytize and evangelize (not that I won’t still do those things, mind you).
I try not to get too hung up on transcribing artist’s biographical info into blog posts; I’ve seen far too many onesheet regurgitations from the music press over the past 30 years to want to participate in that kind of monotony. If you need additional historical background on an artist, there’s always the internet, right?
Regarding “buy” links: I urge you, discerning consumer, to please buy as directly from the artist as you can. For this reason I’ll only post Amazon links as a last resort. Giving your money to the top of the music food chain doesn’t always mean that your hard-earned nickels and dimes are going to drop down through the gears of the machine to the source of the music you love, mixed-metaphorically speaking. A portion of a few dollars for, say a A Wizard/A True Star CD on Amazon isn’t necessarily going to mean even 25 cents for Todd Rundgren.
I suppose myself and my music-biz and creative brethren should just be content to have music lovers pay ANY money at all for recordings, but please remember that your dollar (or quarter. or dime. or nickel) is a vote.
Consider the concept of buying direct from an artist analogous to buying locally-grown fresh food.
It matters.
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Labels/artists:
I like to review recordings sent to me when I feel they fit in with the general spirit of my blog. I tend towards the modern classical/electronic/Americana portions of the genre spectrum, but I’ve been known to be open-minded about other pigeonholes, as well.
I can be reached at anythingbutmp3 at gmail dot net. Thanks!
The current front-page header photo is a detail from “After Raphael” by Tom Phillips.
