In which the neighborhood changes
Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008 07:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rolanniWe have a Tradition here at the Confusion Factory. Every Yuletide, often on the Solstice, sometimes as late as Christmas Eve, Steve and I go together or meet at the Music Gallery in downtown Waterville and buy music to tide us over the holiday. How much music we buy depends on how much funding is available. The Rule is that we buy Holiday Music from green in hand. Some years, that's meant we've each chosen one CD, sometimes it's meant we've carried home twenty. Such is the life of the freelance writer.
This Tradition has spanned fifteen years or more. We've known Bruce, the owner, since he opened the store in the basement spot that's now ReBooks, underneath our friend Ellen's bookshop, Children's Book Cellar, which was...a pet store, I think, back in the day. Bruce relocated to more visible, second-floor digs, renting from Sign of the Sun, plugged in to the local music scene, such as it is in Waterville, and turned us, and others, on to some really fine home-grown artists, as well as jazz and blues artists from every-dern-where.
Bruce called Steve today while I was at work. It is, you will apprehend, the day before Christmas Eve and the second day after the Solstice. He knew our Tradition, having participated in it for so many years, and he wanted to be sure that we knew that...
...he was going to be closing the store on January 15.
June, he said, when we talked to him this evening, was the worst month his store has had...ever. July and August weren't much better. Then came October and the Official Economic Meltdown. He ran the numbers and realized that he was pouring money down a hole.
He'll be taking the business online, he says. He's got old vinyl, still factory sealed. He's got some other treasures, that he hopes will pull him through.
I hate this.
Anyhow, the Tradition. This year, we picked up Gordon Bok in concert, Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis, an anthology of sea shanties, a Michael Hedges best-of, and the second album from a local guy named F.B White. Last time for that Tradition.
Well. We exchanged email addresses. Told each other we'd keep in touch.
And, hey...Johnny Winter's going to be at the Skowhegan Opera House on Valentine's Day. Who would've known that, except Bruce?
This Tradition has spanned fifteen years or more. We've known Bruce, the owner, since he opened the store in the basement spot that's now ReBooks, underneath our friend Ellen's bookshop, Children's Book Cellar, which was...a pet store, I think, back in the day. Bruce relocated to more visible, second-floor digs, renting from Sign of the Sun, plugged in to the local music scene, such as it is in Waterville, and turned us, and others, on to some really fine home-grown artists, as well as jazz and blues artists from every-dern-where.
Bruce called Steve today while I was at work. It is, you will apprehend, the day before Christmas Eve and the second day after the Solstice. He knew our Tradition, having participated in it for so many years, and he wanted to be sure that we knew that...
...he was going to be closing the store on January 15.
June, he said, when we talked to him this evening, was the worst month his store has had...ever. July and August weren't much better. Then came October and the Official Economic Meltdown. He ran the numbers and realized that he was pouring money down a hole.
He'll be taking the business online, he says. He's got old vinyl, still factory sealed. He's got some other treasures, that he hopes will pull him through.
I hate this.
Anyhow, the Tradition. This year, we picked up Gordon Bok in concert, Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis, an anthology of sea shanties, a Michael Hedges best-of, and the second album from a local guy named F.B White. Last time for that Tradition.
Well. We exchanged email addresses. Told each other we'd keep in touch.
And, hey...Johnny Winter's going to be at the Skowhegan Opera House on Valentine's Day. Who would've known that, except Bruce?
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no subject
Date: 2008-12-24 01:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-24 02:01 am (UTC)With 15 years of Holiday music, you may be able to help me with a dilemna: A friend of mine does a lot of hosting and would like to have a cd (or more) of holiday music that is not specific to Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or whatever in order to maintain an appropriate professional/nondenominational atmosphere to her holiday hosting. She says she's found some CDs that have festive but non-holiday-specific songs, but that they always tend to throw on one Xmas song at the end which ruins the CD for her needs.
I would like to either find her a non-holiday holiday music CD, or at least assemble one from a few CDs. Other than Carol of the Bells, Jingle Bells and Winter Wonderland, I'm drawing a blank on songs that would fit the bill. Any suggestions?
no subject
Date: 2008-12-24 04:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-24 02:04 pm (UTC)*grin* Neither one of us is ...very patient with Holiday music, which is why we buy blues and jazz and sea shanties at Yuletide.
If I have to be Holidayish for other folk, I play things like December, George Winston; Wintersong, Paul Winter; selections from the Nutcracker Suite; Fresh Aire II from Manheim Steamroller; and selected bits from the Trans-Siberian Orchestra (I'm senselessly fond of "Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24" and also of "Wizards in Winter").
You'll note that all of these are instrumentals.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-24 04:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-27 05:43 am (UTC)Music stores have it tougher than book stores
Date: 2008-12-28 12:09 am (UTC)My brain boggled and eye goggled.
I am so sorry. So so sorry.
And my heart goes out to Bruce - it's a tough decision.
Out of curiosity - who/what did the sea chanties?
Lauretta, who just bought some John McCutcheon (I'll be humming Waist Deep in the Big Muddy for the evening.)