Crisis at The Thrift Store

Sure, you can say it's just a crisis being in a thrift store. But there I was anyway. Truth be told, I was there for a party we're throwing. Thrift stores can be gold mines for cheesy, tacky, cheap over the top items. Or Xmas gifts for your inlaws. Eventually, I got to roaming and found myself in the CD section. For those of you too young to remember, CDs were these shiny discs that people would buy before music was free on the internet. Nowadays, CDs are inevitably lumped in right beside VHS tapes, old magazines and more and more, DVDs and Blu Rays. And even though I've perused CDs at plenty of thrift stores, this time something bothered me.

A lifetime ago, CDs were my income: more specifically, the music on them. Even at my advanced age-a young 27-most of my adult life has been spent around music. From working in and running record stores-remember them?-to helping a local band get signed to eventually landing that dream job of artist development rep for a major label. Along the way, I got to see all the peaks and valleys. For every band that started out as nothing and made it to artists who got that major label deal and never went anywhere. From bands I loved people heard of to even better bands no one ever heard of. For every thrill of a Linkin Park that explodes in less than six months, there was a killer act like Laura Dawn, or Betty Blowtorch or Blue Nile that never connected. This is not about bands who made it and bands who didn't and the reasons/politics why (that's a whole 'nother subject with way more words).

While sifting the stacks and stacks of CDs, something hit me; when I saw not one, but two orphaned CDs by two of my favorite artists nobody ever heard of. The land of forgotten music, the land of rejected CDs.

What happened? How could anybody just throw away that great music? How could they not hold onto it? What was wrong with them? Or maybe, it's more like what is wrong with me?

Did I really waste my life for this? For stuff that ends up on some dusty shelf in some dumpy thrift store?

Here was something I lived and died for. Something that is still very much a fabric of my life. And it's just toiling, one step away from the garbage of oblivion. Here is something I worked so hard on, and it's like it never even mattered at all. And it just bothered me. Bothered me because what was the point?

Many of the CDs were “my” CDs. Artists that were on my labels that I vividly remember trying to break. How the label spent millions of dollars trying to break said artist. Pay for production, “payola” for radio, promotional materials, finance a video or two. How we would work it for weeks/months at a time. And now, just a few scant years later, there it is. Lying with a heap of other CDs. All those artists had stories. Sure, everyone knows how No Doubt and Dave Matthews Band and Matchbox and Eminem and John Mayer ended up. But what about Heather Nova or the Refreshments or the Bottle Rockets or Outcry? Didn't matter if you sold 5 million copies or 5. A one hit wonder or a career artist. Thrift store music shelves don't care.

It was just that shrug of, “All that work, and how much of it ultimately made a difference? ”Sure, you can make the argument that people burned the music into their PC. Very well, that might be the case with most of the CDs I saw. And I would like to think that I did get good music to people who needed it. Maybe because I pushed for an act, I created a lifelong fan. Maybe someone I talked to used one of my bands' songs for their wedding song. Maybe they held onto a disc and it will forever remind them of that one moment in time when something special happened. Man, if I could just know I did make a difference, I would feel a lot better about it.

Right now, it all seems so far ago. An age that barely even happened at all. Back when music was a necessity, not an accessory to move MP3 players. There was a whole economy run by what we were doing. Everyone sold CDs; everyone bought CDs; two record stores in every mall and a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage. Almost like it never existed at all...