Two depressing, music related developments have happened over the past week that have made me think a lot about how the “music industry” is more than just artists and labels.
One of Salt Lake City’s few record stores (and one of even fewer ones of merit), Slowtrain, is currently liquidating its inventory and are planning on closing for good by the end of this year. The husband/wife owner pair of Anna and Chris Brozek are expecting their first child and they have made the commendable decision to focus what little free time they presently have — both hold down “regular” jobs in addition to running the shop — to raising their soon-to-be daughter. If one sliver of good news can come out of this otherwise terribly sad event it’s that Slowtrain isn’t closing because of financial constraints like most of their record store contemporaries — in fact, the Brozek’s have noted that “business couldn’t be better.” So although we’re losing one of the places that have made Salt Lake City bearable for me, the success and economic viability of Slowtrain shows how strong the demand for quality music is here in Utah. Who knows, maybe the opening of a replacement shop is not so far-fetched of an idea after all.
“Let’s get vulnerable for a minute, pals,” – that’s how David Greenwald, oversee-er of the site Rawkblog, opened a mood-crushing post last week. Unlike 99.999999% of self-proclaimed bloggers out there (myself included), Dave actually does music journalism as a profession. If you know how bad it’s been lately for the music industry and also know how bad it’s been for the newspaper business, try multiplying the two in order to grasp how utterly shitty the past few years must have been for someone involved in both. The post pretty much dives head first in the troubles Dave has had with keeping his head above water lately and proposes one way, through a digital musical subscription run through Spotify, which might help keep him afloat.
Although I can’t completely relate with the difficulties and tough decisions that Dave must be going through, the one thing that I kept coming back to is how, if I would have chosen a different path, I might as well have found myself in a similar situation. You know when people pose hypothetical questions like “what would you do if you had millions of dollars,” you typically respond with something along the lines of pursuing your “dream job” (well, after the Ferrari purchase, of course). Well, mine would be a position somewhere that is integrally involved with music: whether it be running a label, designing Korg synths, or making a damn-good music site. Instead, though, what happens in most people’s lives is that the real world, with its rent or student debt or car payments, gets in the way and your dreams slowly give way to your practicality. Just how I got more involved professionally with engineering, thus relegating my love of music to “just a hobby,” Dave seems to be at a crossroads as well (in his case, law school). Maybe it’s a little bit of living vicariously through others, but you can’t help but hope that Dave (and all the people that choose to do what they truly love to do – especially when safer alternatives exist) find a way to succeed.
As Dave puts it best with an anecdote about another financially strapped website: “…you should support the things you love; if you don’t, then they go away. It may have happened to your favorite record store already. It may be about to happen right here.”
Indeed, this poignant message is very apropos.
Subscribe to Dave’s Mercury Music Digital Record Club here.
