Hey now, RYM is the best resource I've ever had for new music.

as if I have all that time

i haven't even gone through the backlog of stuff I've accumulated from recommendations for the past four-five years

Lately, I've mostly been fine with Spotify, with a few exceptions of albums I've really wanted to download / just weren't on Spotify. When I do download, though, I usually delete it fairly quickly if it doesn't strike my fancy.

I'll buy music from time to time - people love giving me iTunes gift cards for holidays - and that's always me buying the work of independent artists I really enjoy. I mean, if I have to buy something on iTunes, it's going to be that. I'd like to have more disposable income and be able to buy more music legitimately.

not sure if I've said this before but i only download when the physical copies aren't available here, if they're out of print, or bands with discographies that are just daunting and i don't wanna pay for the bad to mediocre albums

That sounds awesome. I'd like to go there. The coolest record store I've ever been to is about 20 minutes from where I live. It's a sweet little shop owned by this cool old guy who is real good friends with Ben Harper. Ben even invited him to join him on his tour of France. He had multiple pictures of him and Ben, so I'm sure he's telling the truth.

Bands like radiohead, RHCP, and people like Stevie Ray Vaughan and John Densmore (drummer of the Doors) have been there for record signings.

I can't promise that he knows any of the people this guy does!

He's just a safe old English hipster!

i used to chat with the bass player from My Chemical Romance (he used to hang out in the Yahoo! rock room) - that's my only claim to fame

he was a boring fuddy-duddy, though, every other sentence is either a plug for a show or a song

I enjoy it too, but I have found it harder to find new music on RYM than any of the others.

Here's an interesting story...

There is a band that I like called 16Volt (Industrial, Coldwave, Machine Rock) who have been going since the early nineties and were one of the first bands to have their own website. They released their entire back catalogue for free on their website, along with an optional donation button. Funny thing is, they actually made more money through donations than they did from their entire back catalogue when they were selling it.

I think the customer has been screwed over for a long time by the record industry. As a broke college student, I can seldom afford new CDs, and when I do buy them, I don't want to spend my cash on a CD that turns out to be awful. People appreciate goodwill.

The guys at my music store think artists will go independant more and more.
The top 40 big money monsters will always be there, but the music most of us like wil probably only become cheaper.