Reject Roundup has decided to grant a voice to those embittered victims of our economic betrayals (there are no innocent acts in a capitalist marketplace). We asked some musicians this question: How did it feel the first time you saw one of your own CDs in the used CD bin?
Take heart, dear readers -- these wrenching testimonies are tragic tales of love's labor lost.
Eddie Spaghetti, of the Supersuckers: "When you're thumbin' through, you don't really want to see your CD in there. You think, 'I want mine to be so coveted that no one would possibly ever return it.' But of course there comes a time when you see that it's in there. And the first thing that crosses my mind is, 'Oh, great, we suck!' Then the second thing that crosses my mind is, 'Well, Sub Pop just made too damn many of them!' And then you see that there's plenty of other quality bands in there, and if I can find some music in the used bin, that's the first place I'm going to buy it from. So Soundscan be damned! Throw me in the used bin. I don't care."
John Doe, of X: "I never have seen an X record in the used bin. I'm glad to be spared that humiliation. But the closest I ever came was seeing an empty record jacket of Los Angeles that was signed to somebody [for sale] at a yard sale in Hollywood. I thought: 'Oh, yeah, so they like the record so much that they lost it! And they valued the signature so much... why didn't they just throw it away?'"
Jesse Dayton: "We were in Abilene, and we'd just come from this Western clothing store that hadn't changed since the '60s. Punk rock never hit Abilene, you know what I mean? We went into this used book store and we saw our first record, and it had only been out for like a year. What was the worst was that they only wanted three bucks for it. I said (to the clerk): 'Man, you can probably get a lot more for this record.' The guy goes, 'Really? Is he good?' And I said, 'Oh, man, are you kiddin'? Forget about it. He's great!'"
