Indie Marketer
He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.

- Muhammed Ali

Entries from April 30th, 2010

cyclist

30 Days of Biking – An Open Letter To Minneapolis Cyclists

April 30th, 2010 · Uncategorized

So there’s been a movement this Spring on Twitter called #30DaysofBiking. It was co-founded by a Minneapolis native by the name of Patrick (or @patiomensch if you’re a tweeter.) This movement has coincided with Minneapolis being named #1 Bike Friendly city in America by Biycling Magazine, finally overthrowing our lovely sister city of Portland, Oregon. This recent accolade has lent itself to a visible amount of new cyclists and cycling fervor on the streets of the Twin Cities. This is excellent thing, but it’s a fragile thing.

Cycling, like anything has it’s tiers of involvement and levels of dedication. There’s the rugged messenger types who cycle every day rain or shine, the commuters, the hipsters, the weekenders, the people who have to cycle, etc. I’d LOVE to bike to work if it were more feasible, believe me. But for now I’ll settle for scuttling around the city more often and just going for more leisurely rides to get my cycling fix. I’m sure this opinion will be shared with thousands of new cyclists discovering or re-discovering the joy of biking this year. My concern is that in a city like Minneapolis, the hardcore cyclists can become cynical towards people who aren’t 100% hardcore about biking. This leads to resentment and scorn felt by the new cyclists that can lead to the new cyclists abandoning cycling altogether. This unfortunately misses the point of #30DaysofBiking.

#30DaysofBiking means whether you’re riding rain-or-shine to work or just taking your kid for a ride to the park 3 minutes away, it’s getting folks out on their bikes, enjoying the activity and growing the cycling movement.

So to all the hardcore cyclists out there, please be patient with the newbs (including myself). We’ll get there, and it in the process we’re all helping to build and retain a thriving cycling culture in our beautiful city.

Love,

- Justin Peddycoart (@JPeddycoart)

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Your First 10 Albums and Their Influence On You

April 23rd, 2010 · Uncategorized

Life is full of a lot of beautiful moments. Sure, there are your sunsets, rainy days, first kisses, first loves, baby kittens, etc. But one of my favorite memories was when traveling the California coast with my family in 2001 we were stopping at a lot of seaside towns. One particular town we stopped at was a great mix of bohemian surf culture, locals, and just the right amount of touristy stuff to really get a feel for the vibe of the town. While the rest of my family was off in some of the other shops looking at seashell picture frames or some bullshit that would end up on the garage sale in 6 months, I had asked a local where the town record shop was. I walked a few minutes to it and perused. I didn’t have much time to browse as thoroughly as I wanted, but I found an original Hum poster (you know the one the aqua green background with the Zebra on it). I quickly snatched it up and went up to the counter to pay. Ahead of me at the counter were a dad and son. The dad looked like your regular happy, sun-drenched Cali dad and the son must’ve been about 8 years old. They were in the store to start the kid’s music collection. The dad was so excited and it was clearly being parlayed to the kid’s face too. He had picked out Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds” and a couple of Beatles records (some great essentials if you ask me.) It was just really cute. It made me remember the first few albums my dad bought me. It was odd because I didn’t have to harp or beg, he just – bought them with a smile.

So, what were the first few albums you bought or that your parents bought for you? Did they have an influence on where you ended up musically? What are the first 10 “essential” albums you’d purchase for your children?

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DJ

Everyone is a DJ

April 23rd, 2010 · Uncategorized

Lately I’ve noticed a trend here in the Twin Cities of the types of people who are DJ’ing. To quote Craig Finn, “Everyone’s a critic and most people are DJ’s”. It’s true. At almost every venue large and small it seems regular Joe’s are leaving their laptops and fancy beat-matching programs at home and are filling their satchels and 45 rpm lunchboxes and chilling out at venue’s spinning stuff they dig. At Grumpy’s in NE, the Turf Club in between sets, even King & I Thai has a DJ most nights, spinning great stuff while you eat the best mock duck and coconut curry in town.

I mention this because 10 years ago DJ’ing was a sacred and expensive “art.” I’m not putting it down. But laptops and fancy Serato programs were seemingly becoming the norm in the DJ’s arsenal. Now, there’s a growing backlash. The DJ’s I’ve noticed are my fellow aging indie dudes in flannel shirts and beat up jeans. No slick hair, no 80’s shades or neon, just ladies and gentleman playing wax sides and sipping comp’d brews from the bar.

My guess is this sea change is due to the militant resurgence of the vinyl format – but that’s a whole other post topic I’ll get to at some point. People who like indie music are seekers by nature, they’re hunters and intense listeners. They don’t just accept what the airwaves are regurgitating out. We don’t need instant song iPod gratification. Venues, bar owners and promoters are picking up on this and catering to it. Play us something original or something familiar and we’ll love it either way.

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Why Record Stores Should Encourage Each Other

April 21st, 2010 · Uncategorized

Ever since I can remember, my mother has had a massive, multi-family & friends garage sale 2x a year. If a neighbor or friend wanted to put some items on the sale she never refused. The more the merrier. It created a massive sale. One that any hardcore garage saler would be insane to pass up. Having the sale religiously on the same 2 annual weekends also assured that the folks who loved and counted on our sale, could easily mark their calenders for next year in anticipation. I’ll come back to this in a minute…

For the past 2 years my good friend Joseph Belk and I have compiled and distributed the Twin Cities Independent Record Store Guide or “TCIRSG”. If you live in the Twin Cities area and have popped into any of the record stores or trendy coffee shops, you may have seen our guide. It’s FREE and quite useful for out-of-towners who are visiting and handy for locals looking to discover or be reminded of when/where the record shops are open. As we were distributing the guides we noticed that a couple of the larger independent stores were apprehensive about displaying the guide in fear that it would tell potential customers about the other existing record stores and that they’d lose business to them. They couldn’t be more wrong. In a world when music formats are going digital and the classic, brick-and-mortar record stores are disappearing so quickly, wouldn’t you think the remaining record stores would want to band together and embrace their loyal community of (physical) record buying customers?

What those couple of stores don’t get is that it goes both ways. I’ve personally popped into a larger record store thinking that there was no way they wouldn’t have a particular release that week, and when they didn’t carry it I then went and checked with one of the smaller stores (and vice-versa). One of the places usually carried the release and both were always eager to order it for me if I still couldn’t find it. My point is that this is the same loyal customer frequenting both stores. I don’t care which particular (independent) record store has my release, I just want one of them to have it. I want them all to still exist. For any of these independent stores to try and dissuade a customer from shopping (or even knowing) about another store is just wasted time and effort. Look at the growing success of Record Store Day.

…Back to the garage sale thing. Like my mother’s massive garage sale tactic of attracting a buzz by teaming up with like-minded individuals looking to sell their wares, she created a spectacle that wasn’t to be missed yearly.  The tighter the community of record stores – the more likely it is to not only retain and satisfy your loyal customers but it will attract new customers to the community as well.

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