Guest Book

[keep in mind that the knucklehead who typed what's below used to collect record top 30 charts as a little kid in the 60's, and frets every year that his favorite player -- who unexpectedly batted .425 this past season -- will be forced to retire because of injuries or poor record sales & concert attendance in the coming wartime depression. forgive him. he's lost ALL perspective, and varied WILDLY off-topic][and his salem has a 10 second digiglitch during 'untitled's derek solo!][btw, no controversy on my end, just having fun and hoping that -- as has happened before, what politicians I don't support do works out in the long run, see, e.g., lots of the way the reagan era shook out in the long run] (PLUS I'm challenneling potentially destructive post-election feelings -- that I have EVERY election -- into something more fun and interesting than political quarrelling and simplistic sloganeering, whatever the source. GO ABB - WIN THE PENNANT IN 2003!!!) (and I once was sick of "Whipping Post" too, about 1997...no more though) I'm sure someone in that organization cares about record sales, that's what 'management' is all about. They didn't make the CD for free, and last I checked, most those cats AREN'T quite set to retire on their millions. PLUS, if you want them to keep playing shows, they've GOT to sell tickets -- that's not a ramshackle oldies outfit they're hauling around the country - how terrific was the stage management and presentation, how in tune were the guitars, see all those roadies out back loadin' all those trucks? Getting out a new record means selling it to sell more tickets, so that the off-the-hook great bunch we'll be seein' next summer will be playing to post-BWIAB and Second Set crowds and touring again out west and so forth. Don't get me wrong -- I don't think for a second the band is consciously out there thinking "selling records, shovelling coal, diggin' a ditch" -- BUT the reality is I've seen Warren, when Deep End came out -- tell the crowd a bit about the new disc and say 'buy it,' and when the disc comes out, bet he'll do it again. The reality is that in order to keep this going, not just for Gregg and Jaimoe and Butch, but for the others in the band who haven't had the kind of rewarding widespread exposure and success the ABB has had and still has, for the people who work for the band and whose livelihoods depend on the band's continued success, for us fans who want to have the privilege of seeing great shows enough to get sick of one of the songs (don't get me started on In Memory of Elizabeth Reed -- see, I TOTALLY understand) records must be sold, venues must fill, the merch must move, and I must end this run-on sentence so time can resume its relentless forw -- Anyone throw me a (punch)line?