San Fran and "The Folk"

If only my trains were always late…for some reason, crying children, huffy-puffy middle-aged women and chain-smoking old-timers make for a really productive ambience in an Amtrak station. With three hours to kill in Seattle, I got a lot of writing done, and had some valuable phone conversations in the midst of a crowd of people practically ready to load their guns and shoot a few train conductors for representing such a seemingly incompetent company.

However, the ride to Eugene was quite pleasant and I had an interesting conversation with a fellow traveler about blogs, of all things. Naturally, I didn't tell him I was writing one, but he offered that he did a lot of blogging for The Stranger (the City Pages of Seattle for all you Minneapolites). Since I've only read a few blogs in my life, and I only regularly read one ("Anna goes to Tanzania" is awesome, by the way–how'd you think I got "James does America"?) what he said to me boggled my mind…or perhaps bloggled it…sorry. I guess a lot of people do a lot of blogging in Seattle, and sometimes it gets a little out of hand, with people hurling insults and otherwise unintelligent criticisms at each other over nothing. And there's blogs about blogs! And one girl in New York had to seek psychiatric help after feeling so threatened by bloggers and late-night TV interviewers ripping her to shreds that she no longer felt safe on the streets! I suppose the up-shot of all this is, dear readers, thank you for being civil and posting intelligent, discussion-worthy posts. I can't express enough my gratitude for everyone's support and the numerous requests for participation in the Homemade Album Art Historical Preservation Society.

I'm sorry to say that Eugene was a bit of a bust for finding homemade covers, not that I expected much to be honest, what with Portland being so close. However, I was introduced to the band Caroliner at the House of Records near downtown. While I'm in San Francisco I hope to get in contact with them, since they've been around for decades, and have been making unique, homemade covers for as long. If anyone knows anything about them other than the gibberish posted on their myspace page, I would be tickled to know.

Ah, good old San Francisco! People here are so courteous–I was reading a plaque on some historical hotel today, and someone said 'excuse me' as they walked between me and the text! What's even more incredible is that people smile to me here despite the fact I haven't showered in a few days. Wow. High five, San Fran.

But seriously, I stated in the last post that I wanted to talk more about the folk part of this project, as such a discussion may shed some light on the network of people who handle the objects in question, and the subsequent relationships defined by the transferring of them. With that said, let's first attempt to answer the question of who comes in contact with these objects. A list is appropriate here, no?

• I may be an oddball figure, but I count nonetheless–someone who is curious about these things and traveling, trying to put together a narrative with the assistance of others. In a sense, I'm like a collector, but I try not to fetishize them. Although some are so cool I'd like to keep them…

• Those who do everything. They write, record and perform their own music in addition to producing the packaging and distribution channels for it. Karl Blau is a great example, because he tours extensively and is prolific in recording and making his own covers.

• Those who record the music and make the covers but don't perform the music. I haven't come across any examples of this, and for good reason it would seem–if one is to distribute their records, playing shows is one of the most effective ways of selling something that wasn't practical to commercially produce a large scale run of to begin with. Thus, artists can't rely on record stores to sell albums. Adam, the shopkeeper at Bop Street could verify this statement at an observational level. He even went so far as to say that flashy, eye-catching covers fail to attract consumers and usually get lost in the stacks of the store.

• People who make the covers and do distribution but don't have a hand in the music. Dan Black comes to mind, a Minneapolite who does high-end design work, like the latest Signal to Trust double LP and the Best Friends Forever cassette cover I came in contact with the other day.

• Record store workers and owners. I already mentioned the process by which record stores acquire homemade covers. Briefly, large (or small) collections come through the store, the owner of which is paid a lump sum, the costs of which are recovered by selling the few gems, and the rest are cataloged.

• Avid collectors. I spoke with one such character on my last day in Seattle, Jon, (quite a knowledgeable son-of-a-gun I might add) who had a collection of homemade covers that surpassed that of any record store in variety, but not in age. Subscribers might fall into category as well, but more on them later.

• Fans, Friends and Family who are out to support their favorite band or artist by giving them something (money, labor, beer) in return for the album.

• Record labels. From what I've heard from Jon, usually this just means one guy who operates out of his P.O. box and calls himself a label for distribution's sake. Record labels also exist to help out other friends to get their tunes out. Jon cites this as a reason for starting his own record label, and I would suspect that Calvin Johnson of K Records would say similar things. People who run labels are often interested in creating networks. (This may be a bit on the assumptive side, since I haven't talked with too many of these people.)

• People acquiring them who have no connection with the band whatsoever. These may be people who scour record stores for obscure things for obscure reasons. The person who buys the band's album at a show after seeing them for the first time might fall into this category.

Already, we begin to see a network develop here that may help in understanding The Big Question of "why do people make these things?" Although people involved with the homemade model and the commercial model of producing and distributing music may all contend that the reason for producing music is "to get our tunes heard" (and I'm not being facetious here, really), the facts may speak otherwise. Perhaps there's more to this than just letting everyone know that you're a kick-ass guitarist. Albums are exchanged in the homemade model in the interest of forging relationships.

Sigh. My presence is requested in a short while here and I'm unable to develop this thought as of the moment, but I'd like to get something up after not posting anything for a few days. I'll try and edit this one later, so please bear with me.

all my love,
James