It’s been interesting to watch CDs piling up in bargain bins this year. Right now the compact disk feels as obsolete as VHS tapes did a few years back. Throw in a major recession and there’s a lot of great music out there being flogged off ‘for a song’.
While three quid albums by the likes of Can and Augustus Pablo more than pique my interest (and there are plenty of them around), what really amused me last time I was in FOPP were the bargain bin copies of Keep Reachin’ Up by Nicole Willis & The Soul Investigators.
As far as I can recall, I first heard tracks from Keep Reachin’ Up while listening to The Robert Elms Show on Radio London. Nothing surprising there, it is vaguely reminiscent of material by Elms’ songbird ‘ex’ Sade. However, much as I enjoyed the album when I first heard it (in I guess 2006, it was recorded the year before), there was no way I was gonna part with eighteen knicker for a copy imported from Finland. Apparently 3000 copies where sold at this price before the album got a British release in 2007.
I don’t listen to Radio 2 but I’m told Keep Reachin’ Up was championed on that station by Mark Lamarr. In his sleeve notes for the British release, Lamarr writes of this album: “one play will tell you it’s never going to end up in a bargain bin or secondhand shop.” Despite Lamarr’s outlandish sleeve note claims, copies are now being scooped out of bargain bins. Never say never!
Incidentally, the few branches of FOPP that remain open are now owned by HMV. Some commentators got excited by the fact that recently reported HMV profits are up, and supposedly bucking the credit crunch. Actually, since HMV’s two major competitors Woolworths and Zavvi went out of business a while back, profits would need to be up far more than they are if they were really bucking the downturn trend (not to mention the demise of the high street record shop). On top of which, a chunk of those increased HMV profits were made flogging off bankrupt stock picked up cheap for two and three quid a pop, and there aren’t too many UK record chains left now to go bankrupt (excepting HMV itself, of course), so this particular source of revenue will in time dry up.
Don’t forget kids, the credit crunch is a groove sensation! Capitalism can only go backwards, it has nowhere else to go! It’s suffering its death throes!
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!
Comments
Comment by North West Essex Frontier Province Psychogeographical Workers Union on 2009-07-12 15:32:52 +0000
Benefit gig for Swat Valley Refugees
NO BOMB NO BOSS NO BORDER
Fighting between the Pakistan army and the Taliban in the Swat Valley has left millions homeless. Donations from this event will go towards the Edhi Foundation’s relief work in Pakistan.
7pm – 11pm
Friday 17th July 2009
rampART, 15 -17 Rampart Street, London E1 2LA (near Whitechapel, off Commercial Rd)
Bands include:
W€$T €$$€X INQ@£@B ÇäÞáÇÈ West Essex Inqalab
http://www.myspace.com/westessexinqalab
S.L.A.P.P.E.R.
http://www.myspace.com/slappertime
Revolutionary Discipline
http://www.myspace.com/revolutionarydiscipline
COGS Collapse of Geographical Significance
http://www.myspace.com/cogsartmusic
OFF GROUND TOUCH
http://www.myspace.com/offgroundtouch
ABSTRAKT
http://www.myspace.com/absorbatron
+more
“As for the offensive, the military has not cared a fig for the people of Swat, using heavy artillery, helicopter gunships and the air force to blast their way into the Valley from three directions at the cost of three million people’s displacement. These people fled for their lives in the face of this indiscriminate bombardment, which arguably saved many soldiers’ lives, but at the cost of so many tragic stories of local people killed, children and the old having to be abandoned, and the continuing misery of the displaced in camps and amongst host communities. The military advanced behind this heavy bombardment into Swat from the south, east and west. Despite this, they failed to cut off the escape routes of the Taliban (an inherently difficult task in such mountainous terrain). The result is that the Taliban leadership has by and large escaped, probably into surrounding mountains and FATA. That is the harbinger of a protracted war, especially since the military is now planning an offensive into South Waziristan, the stronghold of Baitullah Mehsud, the head of the
Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan.
The Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) will have a tough time even after returning to their shattered homes, with no economic opportunities, smashed infrastructure and a huge reconstruction and rehabilitation task,
which on the evidence of the government’s capabilities of looking after the IDPs promises to be another disaster to add to the long list of Pakistan’s miseries.”
http://reddiarypk.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/
see also
http://swatvalley.org
http://www.edhifoundation.com/
Comment by Michael K on 2009-07-12 18:34:19 +0000
You don’t listen to Radio 2? Shame on you, it’s a groove sensation, they play a ton of Macca among other great hip shaking tunes!
Comment by Eddie The Eagle on 2009-07-12 19:12:41 +0000
Capitalism makes me feel good about myself, it’s as useless as I am!
Comment by Simon Evans on 2009-07-12 19:28:50 +0000
I am doing the shake’n vac – except my vacuum cleaner is fucked, and I’m out of carpet cleaner – still its the thought that counts.
Comment by Merv The Perv on 2009-07-12 20:32:27 +0000
If me and my mates come round with our blow up sex dolls and vacuum cleaners, can we have a key party at yours Simon?
Comment by Simon Evans on 2009-07-12 21:14:01 +0000
Simon Evans
I haven’t been doing things illicit with my vacuum cleaner – I meant its ‘fucked’ as in’ broken.’ ..Jesus fucking Christ – What do you take me for ?
Comment by Tania Glyde on 2009-07-12 22:22:29 +0000
Ewbanks are the way forward, I tell you.
Comment by David Cox on 2009-07-12 23:17:34 +0000
Why is Rocky & Bullwinkle situationist? Because Rocky says “oh that trick NEVER WORKs”
DC
Comment by Meabh Mc Donnell on 2009-07-12 23:57:50 +0000
Yes lets all rock out with beans on toast!
Comment by Michael Jackson on 2009-07-13 02:48:42 +0000
It’s enough to raise the dead and set them moonwalking….
Comment by Justin on 2009-07-13 16:10:47 +0000
”Well, there was no sex for 14 days.” Arnold Schwarzenegger-on getting the cold shoulder from his wife after backing President George W. Bush at the Republican Convention
Comment by Harold Pinter on 2009-07-13 19:54:45 +0000
CD by Harold Pinter
CD-dee-dee-dee-dee
CC-CD-MT
Harold Pinter © 2009
Comment by Geoff Jordan on 2009-07-13 20:02:23 +0000
Congatulations on one of the most concentrated bits of smug, stupid nonsense posted anywhere on the web in the last 10 minutes. You say:
Don’t forget kids, the credit crunch is a groove sensation! Capitalism can only go backwards, it has nowhere else to go! It’s suffering its death throes!
Your description of the credit crunch is a masterpiece of clichéd crap, and your predictions for “capitalism” (whatever your fucked-up idiot version of that might be) is breathtakingly smug and ignorant. Well done, dummy; this kind of uninformed, swagging bollocks nicely sums up your take on things. You’re a puffed-up fool; Wanker, is, I think, the word I’m looking for.
Comment by Geoff Jordan on 2009-07-13 21:13:17 +0000
The credit crunch has left millions of workers without savings and/or the pension they were counting on.
The credit crunch has meant that tens of thousands of people have lost their homes.
The credit crunch is the result of the temporary collapse of financial markets. Financial markets have their own momentum, but in the end, they’re just the front office for those individuals who attempt to maintain the satus quo in order to maintain their wealth. Less than 5% of the world’s population own 80% of its wealth. We can narrow down the real decision-makers to less than 0.001 of the world’s population – the rest of the really rich being mere hangers-on. The Bush dynasty is one example of part of this elite. This bunch of crooks control governments, whose job it is to support them.
To those with a minimum of sensitivity, there is nothing glamorous about the credit crunch: absolutely nothing. to describe it as a “groove sensation” is to demonstrate a truly decadent and ignorant hold on things. Disgraceful, in my opinion, however lightly it’s done.
As for capitalism, it is supposed to be the economic system in which trade and industry is privately-controlled, rather than state-controlled. Any examination of the USA or the UK, not to mention Sweden, shows that we can no longer use such a definition and nor can we use Marx’s defintion either. Capitalism nowadays refers to a globalised market where commodities in their broadest sense, including the kinds of commodities highlighted by the Sits, are offered for sale, and the arms industry is one of its most important components Capitalism is, today about markets
To say that capitalism can only go backwards and that it’s in its death throes is both smug and stupid; what happens next is unclear, and depends, to some extent at least, on us. There is nothing inevitable about capitalism, or much else, for that matter: even Mister Trippy is not condemned to be a prat for the rest of his days.
Comment by Old Rope on 2009-07-13 21:47:48 +0000
I listen to somewhere in the region of 100% of Radio 2’s programming. This leaves me in an unenviable situation.
Roll on Paul O’Grady’s next “three-in-a-row” Northern Soul tunes. They seldom seem to stray into truly rare territory, but I could listen to ‘What Shall I Do’ by Frankie & The Classicals for hours, even as capitalism crashes noisily around me. Now that IS a groove sensation
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-07-13 23:04:09 +0000
Hey Old Rope, you make Radio 2 sound like a funky sensation!
Mutton Geoff, I don’t have much time for confused and angry old men. I should however explain that I am not a social democrat, which is what you appear to be. Are you a paid up member of the Labour Party? You say: “The credit crunch has left millions of workers without savings and/or the pension they were counting on.” Money is only a representation of wealth, the credit crunch doesn’t take any ‘real’ wealth out of the world, but the working class still needs to expropriate that real wealth as part and parcel of the overthrow of capitalism (which will, of course, include the abolition of money). It will also mean an end to consumer culture, built in obsolescence and the production of crap goods for profit. In a communist society production will be geared towards real human needs rather than consumption for its own sake (which to date has mainly been for those living in the over-developed world, and the relatively well off elsewhere).
You say: “The credit crunch has meant that tens of thousands of people have lost their homes.” There were an awful lot more people already homeless in the world (and in particular outside the over-developed world), and those you refer to as having lost ‘their’ homes are not all now homeless. The figures are pumped up by the media/spectacle and generally refer to people who have lost ‘ownership’ of their home, but actually they didn’t own it in the first place since it was bought with a mortgage and was effectively owned by a bank. Property speculation and the selling off of social housing prior to the credit crunch are far more real as causes of homelessness than mortgage foreclosures.
“Capitalism can only go backwards, it has nowhere else to go!” This is an unattributed citation from a manifesto put out nearly forty years ago; it is not original to me but will be familiar to almost anyone interested in the relatively recent history of revolutionary struggles in the British Isles. The relevance of this slogan is proved by the destruction of the welfare state(s) that were erected to buy off the European working class after the last inter-imperialist war. This process had not begun when the slogan in question was composed. It does not follow that I endorse the tactics of those who put out this manifesto, which I (and at least some of those involved in its composition now) view as mistaken, but the slogan stands.
While social democrats, Labour Party hacks and those even further to the right, bemoan the credit crunch, for communists like me it remains a groove sensation!
Comment by Christopher Nosnibor on 2009-07-15 20:36:06 +0000
…and the range of stock in HMV is STILL gash!
The old Zavvi in Leeds is now called Head and seems to be run by some former Zavvi-ists flogging off a strange and eclectic mix of CDs at insanely low prices (2-3 quid being about the norm). I suspect that they’ve been buying up stock from all of the shops that have gone bust (or perhaps more accurately from their administrators overseeing the liquidation) and on one hand that’s pretty cool but the well will inevitably run dry before too long and then what?
Comment by Geoff Jordan on 2009-07-20 17:33:36 +0000
Well, Mr. Trippy. You say: “Money is only a representation of wealth, the credit crunch doesn’t take any ‘real’ wealth out of the world, but the working class still needs to expropriate that real wealth as part and parcel of the overthrow of capitalism (which will, of course, include the abolition of money).” How and when do you reckon this will happen?
To deny the fact that the credit crunch and the resulting economic slump has led to a great many people losing their homes and jobs is absurd. To then say that things were better when there was a stock of “social housing” is not only a contradiction, but also implies that the state was doing a good job of looking after people, which it obviously was not. You compound your incoherent argument by saying that the welfare state was a ruse to buy off the working class.
To then suggest that the absurd claim that “Capitalism can only go backwards, it has nowhere else to go!” gains credibility because it is “an unattributed citation from a manifesto put out nearly forty years ago; … familiar to almost anyone interested in the relatively recent history of revolutionary struggles in the British Isles” is simply further evidence, as if it were needed, that you are a brainless fool.
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-07-20 19:22:20 +0000
Mutton Geoff, it appears you not only have an aversion to dialectical thinking but to thinking per se. There’s no fool like an old fool.
Comment by Geoff Jordan on 2009-07-20 19:49:09 +0000
Great reply Mr. Trippy: as lacking in content as I’d expect. A stupid reference to dialectical thinking and to age ties it up, right? On now to more about the only important things in the universe: you and your relationship with your mother.
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-07-20 20:30:34 +0000
But there is no foole to the olde foole, folke saie.
[1546 J. Heywood Dialogue of Proverbs ii. ii. F4V]
No fool to an old Fool. Spoken when Men of advanc’d Age behave themselves, or talk youthfully, or wantonly.
[1721 J. Kelly Scottish Proverbs 256]
No Fool like the old Fool.
[1732 T. Fuller Gnomologia no. 3570]
And troth he might hae ta’en warning, but there’s nae fule like an ould fule.
[1814 Scott Waverley III. xv.]
‘There are those who have years without knowledge.’ ‘Right,’ said Puck. ‘No fool like an old fool.’
[1910 R. Kipling Rewards & Fairies 257]
But these fantasies are more proper to a young person; beyond the age of, say, 50, they become the fantasy of that fool like whom we are told there is no other, the old fool.
[2001 Washington Post 8 July B5]
Related to: old age; stupidity