Thanksgiving Thoughts

It's that time of year again. Winter is in the air, turkey is on the table, and football is on the TV. Thanksgiving is a time to reflect on all the good things in life. So, with that in mind, here are some music related things for which I am thankful:

Online CD Ordering.
You can find and buy just about any CD in print anywhere in the world. Online prices are usually cheaper than you find in stores (even with shipping), you can listen to audio samples before you buy, and you don't have to get in the car and drive. Here are some online CD shopping tips from someone who has purchased literally hundreds of CDs from internet stores. First, buy more than one CD at a time. Most places charge 2 or 3 bucks for the first item, and 25 cents to a dollar for each additional item. Save up and consolidate your purchases to save on shipping. Next, use a service such as My Simon that searches dozens of online stores and finds the best prices. Find the store that has the best average price on the CDs you want, and shop there. If it's a company you're not familiar with, visit http://www.bizrate.com It's a site that uses actual customers to rate online businesses. I've found it to be very useful. Stay tuned for an upcoming article about different online CD merchants and buying CDs online!

Online Auctions
There are a lot of rare and out of print CDs that aren't available at online CD stores. That's where online auctions come in. I'm a big fan of 80's music, and have been able to find some CD's that I've been wanting for years. The biggest thing I've learned is to do some research before you bid. There are dozens of CD's being released each week, and a lot of them are reissues of older music from the 80's. So check an online store to see if the CD you want is available. If it is, you probably don't want to bid more than the retail price, unless you want the original CD instead of a reissue. Ebay has the biggest and best selection of music and music memorabilia. Yahoo and Amazon.com are starting to get a pretty decent selection as well.

Local Music Scenes
With the popularity of DJ's, it's getting harder to find good local music scenes. But every decent sized town has some good local bands. It's fun to go out on a weekend, have a few beers, and listen to some loud, live music. And who knows, the band you're seeing in a bar tonight might be selling a million CDs in a couple of years.

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