Some philosophers
posit that you will always become that which you hate. Not sure how much I can
argue with that statement.
By the time you
read this we at the space cadet academy that is Astro Al will have gone digital
or will shortly. Yes, sadly we will no longer be selling cds online. Our store
page on www.astroal.com (yes, remember
above all else that everything is a commercial for everything else) will be
converted so that all we will sell musically are digital downloads. If you come
to see us at a gig, we will still be selling cds but these will only be sold at
our shows.
We live in a world
of wonderful tactile experience. Touching, feeling, holding are a daily
occurrence that should never be overrated. We live in a physical world and
should embrace that yet we are rapidly coming to disdain most material
concepts. We stream our movies, we download our music, we don’t cherish them,
study the artwork on a cd cover, or look at the grooves on a vinyl album, and
we don’t care about the feel of paper books in our hands. I can’t tell anyone
how much time I’ve enjoyed staring at the magnificent artwork on some cds and
vinyl albums and the exciting moment when I pick up the album or cd and hold it
in anticipation of the joy that I will soon have when it’s played, that is
something I will always savor.
So why did we cave
into this trend of replacing the sensation of touch?
Money.
The recent postal
increases and international taxes have put us out of the physical sales realm.
We just can’t justify charging $10 for our cds and then charging people $10 to
ship them. We kept our prices low. We always included shipping in our costs so
basically we were selling our cds for about $5, while charging $10, total $5 of
which went to shipping. We had no problem with that, it worked well for us and
the people kind enough to want to pay for our music.
Sadly this is no
more.
So here we are the
thing we loathe.
Download away.
Yours in self-loathing,
Count Robot
