The Lonesome Death of the "Event" Record Store

Tomorrow sees the release of the remastered Beatles albums, but you won't see Paul or Ringo turning up in New York. Gone are the days when a major release would be accompanied by an event at a big-name record store, the reason being there aren't any such stores left in Manhattan.

The Virgin Megastore in Times Square stands empty. Tower Records fell almost three years ago. The independents aren't benefiting from this either - Etherea Records closed down earlier this year.

New York, then, is in danger of becoming the city where nothing happens - at least with regard to the high end of the music business. As recently as 2001, Michael Jackson sat patiently like a regular pop star and signed autographs in the Times Square Virgin.

Signings are a rare thing these days, as selling records is no longer how artists and record companies make the bulk of their money. This is generated by the tours, and New York is as busy in that respect as one would expect. Britney Spears has just passed through town and Jay-Z is arriving any day now.

But the megastar no longer has to connect with his or her public in any way. The event no longer fits into record companies' business model. This is all well and good, but it makes life considerably less interesting for those in the city who want to see things that wouldn't happen anywhere else.

Brooklyn Bridge Boot Camp

"9/11 Truth Movement" in Harlem and American scaremongering

In Harlem on a scorching Friday afternoon, the boarded-up nightclub next to one of the prettiest churches in New York took most of the attention. Instead of the usual posters advertising gigs or the latest Judd Apatow movie, the passer-by was encouraged to consider the possibility that 9/11 was "a thoroughly un-convincing lie".

The 911 Truth Movement is a loose grouping of conspiracy theorists who question the mainstream account of the attacks of September 2001. This in itself isn't particularly shocking or interesting. A second glance at the language, however, offers an insight into how Americans who engage in reactionary politics try to get their message across.

Take a look at the top-center poster above, where the viewer is invited to choose whether he is a "dumb-ass", "coward" or "Nazi" for being apparently duped by the 9/11 conspiracy.

Now look at how Rush Limbaugh described Obama's health care plan this week:

"If you want to do a comparison...between the people pushing (the health care bill) and the people opposing it, to national socialism in Germany, it ain't a contest. The people pushing this health care bill have far more in common with the national socialists of Germany - exempting genocide - than any of us who are opposing this health care have."

Pretty shocking. And this type of language just fans the flames in this part of the world. When you get scenes like this in a liberal state like California, you know that vitriolic language has fanned the flames to the point where all common sense and reason go out the window.

One kind of expects this language from conspiracy theorists, it's their stock in trade after all, and they'd have little or no public profile without it. But it's worrying that a significant proportion of the political establishment here throw words like "Nazi" and "evil" at people who are trying to do something as noble as expanding health coverage.

Similar strokes for very different folks, then.

A brief introduction....

Welcome to my blog, "Unfit to Print", which is going to feature mostly unconnected items of interest over the coming months. You might even see some of the work I'm doing at Columbia. Hopefully most of the stuff I post here will be influenced by or related to things I've seen on the street here in New York, and I'll try to keep ramblings about sport or music to a minimum. I promise.