by FlexMyHead » Fri Jun 24, 2016 2:01 pm
MXV,
I don't know if you thought I was being critical, I was just speaking about my personal experience visiting his store, I didn't intend to slam him or anything. I was (am) truly amazed that somebody was (is) willing to commit to something (keeping a store, distro going despite $$ problems) that much. I mean, I love music and punk, but fuck man, I also want nice shit and the ability to travel and experience life with those around me so when it came down to it, I wanted a career that I thought could reasonably achieve that for me. Based on my very limited conversations with him, it seemed like all the great things he did with that store (as I mentioned, shows, zines, record label, distro, record swaps, library, friendship, mentoring etc) brought him a lot of stress. I think I remember him saying his wife worked in the library or a school or something and it was getting harder and harder to justify keeping the store going. You might not be able to tell on this board, but I'm the type of person that likes to asks questions and get to know people a bit, so when I went in the store, I'd ask how he was doing and things about running the store and hurdles and obstacles that he faced etc. I also asked about his thoughts about branching out the music selection etc. I grew up in Europe and as a teen I did all of my shopping from Zed Records or Toxic Shock or Blacklist or MRR ads, so having a local punk rock store was something that I never had and, not having it, I always was a bit jealous/sad that it seemed like the kids in Brandon might not have supported his store as much as I would have. Again, this is based on my limited experience obviously some people cared hence the collective zine and free record label etc. I am not friends with him and had no interaction outside of me visiting his store, I didn't mean to judge him or anything. If anything, I think I said a lot of positives about him. If it came out another way, that wasn't my intent.
Anyway, the same could be said for those people that went and did bands, ran clubs, put on shows, roadies, did labels, did distros etc. When I was in college going to shows and saw people my age on stage and "working" I thought to myself "I wonder if in 5 years when "the crowd" is graduated and has jobs, if the band is going to say, what the fuck did I spend all that time riding in vans, sweating my ass off, playing music for people that in 5 years are going to barely remember how much of myself I gave. I was their temporary entertainment and now I'm a distant thought". I dunno, it just seems weird to me that even fairly popular band members from my youth might not have been able to enter the working world or are able to support themselves from all their creativity/musical output that meant so much and really inspired and propelled me to the place I am at now. I guess I just think weird shit.