Smashing Pavement With 311 Cranberries in Marcy Playground

Out on tour with the Smashing Pumpkins/Nature kids, they don’t have no function/I don’t understand what they mean/ and I could really give a fuck. 

- “Range Life” by Pavement

Who says big name bands don't come to central Wisconsin? I've been seeing their names all over the place . . . 

Smashing Pumpkins

The Cranberries

311

Marcy Playground. Do they count as a big name band? Probably not. 

Just as I was spotting this stuff last week, Side Line Music Magazine reported last week that major record labels might (and I’d wager it’s a BIG might) stop making CD’s as early as next year. 

Whether or not you’ve made the transition to downloads, most of us still use CD’s. We may not buy them at a brick and mortar store anymore, but that doesn’t mean they don’t slide out of our Mac’s disc drive with a ding - hot to the touch like homemade bread.

Blank CD’s, I assume, will still be around. But the story suggests that only special releases will be pressed and packed into those iconic CD jewel cases. I can’t blame them for wanting to save the money, but that doesn’t mean I won’t miss the diminutive discs. Having worked at a now-defunct Sam Goody store in high school, the act of unpacking and blocking (Goody-slang for alphabetizing and organizing the separate CD sections by genre) brings back some good memories. 

I made friends because of the compact disc. On slow days, we’d sit and talk about our favorite tracks. On busy one’s, we’d try to hold back the tide of capitalism by playing the one song we each thought would be the most effective at getting people to leave. Typically this meant either Johnny Cash, some form of death metal, the rap song of-the-moment with the highest rate of profanities per second, or a South Park Christmas song called “Swiss Colony Beef Log.”

And in truth, CD's won’t really go away. In ten or twenty years, hipsters will be collecting CD’s like they do with vinyl today. 

And by hipsters, I mean me.

I'd also like to tag a couple of interesting stories about some other dead or dying formats making a comeback. 

Check out this one on cassette tapes  and this one about the return of VHS. 

Note: 

If you happen to spot band names like those above, send them to my email at afolk81@gmail.com. I’ll throw them up on the blog. They don’t have to be 90’s bands, any era will do.