Hallelujah. Dammit!
“It’s the music that matters™”
As I flipped through my 2011 Music Direct Catalog what do you think would leap out from among the $24.95 (and up) audiophile fuses and $49.99 45rpm LPs and make me jump for joy?
An advertisement. Well, yes, everything in the 2011 Music Direct Catalog is an advertisement but the John Varvatos centerfold is a real ad for stuff you can’t buy from the 2011 Music Direct Catalog. Namely, fashionable clothing. Commingling with Shakti stones, mixing it up with Mo-Fi there sits a two-page spread featuring some of rocks most notorious outsiders: Iggy, Alice, Buster, Billy and Dusty, Robert and Jimmy, Slash and many more. And I thought, cool.
Of course my next thought was, not cool. That’s how it goes with this stuff, isn’t it. When rebellion gets capitalized and all dressed up in $345 jeans and $698 boots, its hard to remain rebellious. Or maybe it isn’t. Success it seems is a double-edged sword mainly for those without it. From outside looking in, the view onto success can get clouded with envy and visions of excess. But that’s exactly what’s so odd about hi-fi – its the insiders, the hobbyists that appear to have the most difficult time dealing with how much some people choose to spend on their hi-fi. Oddly self-deprecating, no?
But I have to wonder – does anyone really buy a $19,995 turntable by clicking on the “buy” button? Maybe the same person that’ll spend $4,795 on a coat with the same mouse. But that’s more or less my point and beside the point – why is it that audio is plagued with a negative image relating specifically to price when in almost every other hobby, job and industry greater cost relates to greater success and implies at least an appreciation for if not downright connoisseur-ness of the thingness of the thing (to misquote Heidegger). Good taste, tastes great.
John Varvatos at Bowery
315 Bowery, New York, NY 10003
That John Varvatos ad celebrates their 10-year anniversary. Ten years in business and I’d imagine John Varvatos Inc. makes more money than the sum of all of the hi-fi companies listed in the 2011 Music Direct Catalog combined. While I could dislike John Varvatos for turning CBGBs into a theme park / boutique, I’d rather applaud their success and be thankful that someone from outside our little rarefied hobby has taken enough interest in it to inject some much needed life-blood. Some swagger, some style, some life style. Even if theirs is more. Like John Varvatos, like Iggy.