Music Geekdom On Acid

When I was living in Seattle in the 90s I was pretty resistant to technology. I know, it was a weird place to be living and not want to delve into the world of the internet and resist getting an email address. I finally gave in, reluctantly, mostly because so much communication by 1996 in the Seattle theatre scene was already being done by email. I was starting to miss out on rehearsal schedule changes, meetings and job announcements. I got an email address at a local internet cafe, not having a computer myself of course, but probably still didn't actually "surf the net" for over another year.

I was reluctant mostly because I saw technology like the internet and cell phones (which I went a lot longer without before finally caving in) as making people less social creatures, not more so, as the promoters of these things claim. I still think that's true, but I've come to see the benefit of it, I guess.

I originally only went on the net to read and look, not to participate in any community of any sort. I avoided internet message boards because they seemed like a drug to so many people. What finally drew me into them (as I wrote about in my Geekspotting trilogy here, here and here) was the lure of live music trading.

I joined the Wilco fan site to find people who would supply me with CDs of live shows. And it worked great, I started a nice little collection of Wilco and Jeff Tweedy solo concerts. I just love collecting shows. When you like a lot of the musicians I do, the shows are different from night to night, compared to , say, a Britney Spears lip-synched dance show. So it's great to be able to hear shows that I would have loved to been at if I were wealthy enough to actually follow my favorite bands on tour. And it's great to be able to get copies of shows I was at to be able to hear again whenever I want.

But when trading shows, you have to actually deal with other uberfans out there in the real world, even though you meet them in the virtual world. And then people start to think that they are friends. Anyway, I won't rehash all that, it's all in the previous stories. Needless to say, I got in too deep and had to get out. But while I was there I discovered something that the super-music geeks had already been hip to for a while, Torrent files.

Torrent files are the bestest, greatest, most wonderful thing that has ever happened in music. Someone tapes a show, puts it on their hard drive, "seeds it" on the internet, list it on a "tracker" site and then members of that site can grab it for their very own. And after I have the show myself I become a seeder and more people can get parts of the show from me and others who have the show. And it's free! It's like the old Dead-Head tape trading thing, except I don't have to go hang out with some unwashed, patchouli-oiled hippy and his "old lady" and take communal hits out of his skeleton bong just so I can get a copy of the Golden Gate Park '75 show.

It is so beautiful. It's like reading a menu and deciding what you want. Robyn Hitchock at Maxwell's on 11/19/06? Sure I'll take that, I was at that one. Billy Bragg in Dallas on 2/22/92? Don't mind if I do. Jeff Tweedy at the Vic in Chicago in 2003, The White Stripes at the Aragon Ballroom, The Dresden Dolls in Munich? Load it on the plate, please. Genesis in 1975 on the Lamb Lies Down tour?!?!?! Please sir, may I have some more?

Dessert? Oh no, I just couldn't. What, you have Robyn Hitchcock doing a Syd Barrett tribute at a Pub in London from just a few days ago that includes performing The Piper at the Gates Of Dawn in its entirety? Or Robyn performing the Beatles' White Album at the same pub from a couple of years ago? Oh goodness, how will I ever decide? Well I better just have both.

Best of all, I get to have all of this without dealing with a bang-my-head-against-the-wall mundane conversation with the Jack Black character in High Fidelity over whether Billy Bragg's better band was The Red Stars or The Blokes, or whether Peter Buck's guitar playing was better during the Green tour or the Life's Rich Pageant tour.

Thank you internet!