I think that the last few years I have always started out November with some kind of apology in advance about my NaBloPoMo participation. I’ll probably miss a few, some entries will be lame, etc. Why do I even still do it? I really thought about just skipping it this year.
I do know a couple of people actually look forward to my November posts though, and it’s kind of like you get to hear from me, even if what I’ve got to say is mundane. What can I say, middle-aged mom life is not all that exciting. At least it comes with music!
It started snowing this evening. It was hard to notice at first because the flakes were so light, but I could see them in the headlights of a car stopped at an intersection. Ever since we set the clocks back it has been dark by the time I leave the office however today, I had to leave work early to get my daughter to an appointment. This one car thing is old and tiring but there isn’t a good solution so when someone needs to be someplace, I need to be home so they can do it.
After I dropped her back at the house, I went to pick up my husband, then we headed out to a local grocery store/deli and picked up some things for dinner. When we got home, some of the food was still warm so we sat down to eat it right away. By now it looked like midnight out there, dark and cold with snow covering everything. I had stopped noticing what the actual time was but if you’d asked me, I probably would have thought it was close to 6:30. No. With dinner done and no dishes to worry about, I sat down in the living room and saw it was only 5:30. I couldn’t believe we were already finished with dinner. It looked later than that outside, it felt later than that inside, and I felt positively geriatric for having already had my dinner. The New Yorker in me is appalled. Dinner at five?! Ridiculous.
I had never heard of Omni before I saw them opening up for Franz Ferdinand back in June. I liked them and felt like they would be a lot of fun to see on their own for a full set when people aren’t impatient for the headliner. They’re from Atlanta. You could tell, couldn’t you? I mean that in the best possible way, in case that wasn’t obvious.
Once upon a time, that fact would have been enough for me to plop down probably up to seven dollars on their record. I have a pretty decent collection of records by bands who came from Georgia or North Carolina, or who had their album produced by Mitch Easter and/or Don Dixon, or mastered by Greg Calbi, was on DB Records, or 688 Records, you get the idea.
There is an original copy of the Method Actors Dancing Underneath sitting down the street in the M bin of my local (mostly used) record store. It’s $14. I haven’t bought it because that seems like a lot for just five songs. Besides, I feel pretty safe in leaving it there because I’m pretty sure that I am the only person likely to buy it. It’s been sitting there for a couple of years now and I keep pulling it out to see if the owner has realized that it’s not moving at all and maybe he should drop the price. He has not.
Now the price of a new record is rarely less than $20. I’m not begrudging bands for charging that much, given the costs to make and distribute them, to say nothing of how little they make from the streaming services, but it’s far less likely that I’ll take the plunge. The album this Omni song comes from was released in September so I couldn’t have bought it at the show anyway but I’m more likely to buy a record at a show because I am under the (perhaps mistaken – more to come on this another day) impression that the band will net more money this way. Come back this way, Omni! I’ll come see you and buy some stuff!
Noisy Cats 