55 songs in 55 days - one for every year of
my life...so far.
Promotional bits and bobs. The ridiculous amounts of stuff that record companies gave away. Quite apart from advance copies
of singles and albums, in my time I was given bottle
openers, pens, writing pads, bottles of
plonk, hip-flasks, towels, cameras, denim
jackets, cuddly toys, mugs, tea-pots, mouse-mats, baseball jackets, hats, sunglasses,
presentation discs, concert tickets, hundreds of t-shirts,
thousands of posters and many more strange
and unconnected things that were used to plug the
latest releases. Most of these items would
come decorated in the band's logo or a sleeve
design and the majority of them I would give
away to genuine fans of the bands in
question, as a thank-you for their custom. I often wonder how many of those freebies
subsequently found their way onto eBay, when
they were discovered at the back of a cupboard, years later.
1999 was my last full year of trading. HMV
and Virgin were busy undercutting each other,
supermarkets were selling CD's for less than
cost price and a new phenomenon called file
sharing was beginning to take hold. It was a
very stressful time. No-one knew the full
extent of the financial hole I was in, other than my
accountant and bank manager and they were both pleading with me to throw in the towel. As midnight approached on December 31st, I took a walk along the prom, which was buzzing with people who were out and about to usher in the new millennium. I left the crowds behind and wandered to the quieter end of the beach and looked out into the darkness as the waves crashed in. I still hoped for a miracle, but in my gut I knew that the game was up.
-----------------------------------------
In 1999, ace UK post-rockers Fridge briefly
signed to Go! Beat Records, who released
the band's third album, 'Eph', as well as a couple of
EP's. Kieran Hebden of Fridge
later found great success trading as Four Tet. From
the 'Of' EP, this is the fantastic 'Remix'.
('Remix' was nowhere to be found online, so
this is my first attempt at using Box. Please
let me know if I've uploaded this incorrectly!)
Fridge - 'Remix'
.jpg)
