I don’t know how to explain it. I’m generally on the somewhat leading/bleeding edge with technology. However, sometimes I’m really a luddite. I didn’t really go full-blown tech geek until 1996 or 1997, which means that I think I was a little old for the arrival of mp3s. I confess that there’s just something about holding a solid object when buying music that appeals to me. I own that disc. If it gets fucked up, it’s my fault, but I can predict the things that might fuck it up. Buying mp3s, on the other hand, is a little too ephemeral for me. So, yeah, I bought it, but what if my hard drive crashes? It’s gone, right? I can’t handle that.
That being said, I bought a Nomad Jukebox in 2001 in lieu of a band or a DJ for our wedding. My rationale was that I could program exactly what would be played and when and I’d have something to show for it after I shelled out the money for the player. If I shelled out money for a DJ or a band, they might suck or play crap I didn’t like and once I paid them, that money would be gone. It went pretty well actually. I had to pay a little more attention to what was happening at the wedding, but I think it worked. Those who attended can comment otherwise.
Anyway, I digress. I bought an iPod Shuffle at the beginning of the year ostensibly to use during workouts. That didn’t really happen. However, it did get me to finally open an iTunes account. I’d browsed once or twice, but never bought, mainly because of the reason I mentioned earlier. Well, today I needed a copy of the Dictators’ “Faster And Louder”, quick. My band has been wanting to cover it for a while and it was decided to work on it tonight. I’m not familiar with the song, so I needed to get a copy fast. Turns out iTunes had it, so I bought the sucker. Just like that, I popped my iTunes cherry. (Does that sound as vulgar as it does when I wrote it?)
It was too easy. It’s all downhill from here. Hide my credit cards.