LINEAR NOTES, THE ENCORE & TATTOO SLEEVES

It occurred to me last night as I was attending a concert at the House of Blues on Sunset Blvd. watching early 1990's guitar pop hair band Collective Soul, that I miss reading the linear notes that used to accompany CDs. I have not purchased a CD in years, but I remember when I would go CD shopping at Tower Records on Sunset (which is now gone....), that I would get home, pop the CD in my top loading CD player and read the linear notes as I would listen to each track. The linear notes had the lyrics, as well as who produced and wrote each song. But the best part of the linear notes was the "Thank You's" from the band or artist. These ranged from family members, girlfriends, boyfriends (sometimes celebrity boyfriends or girlfriends, who would not be thanked in subsequent CDs in the linear notes due to the inevitable break up). The linear notes were usually personal and funny, especially since I'm terrible with remembering lyrics (a trait I inherited from both my father & grandfather - both of whom make up their own lyrics to songs).

And later at that same concert, I was thinking about how utterly & completely stupid encores are at shows. I mean, what are they for? An artist or band finishes a set, leaves the stage for 5 minutes, everyone claps in the dark, and then they come back on and play 3 or 4 more songs?Let's be more efficient people, I have to get to bed early. Just play whatever your full set is and be done with it. And really, bands and artists work for 4-8 months touring and only work 3 or 4 hours a day. I work 9 hours a day, barely take a lunch and only occassionally take a 15 minute break. By encore standards, I should leave my desk for 2 1/2 hours and then come back and do an hours worth of work? WTF?

And then finally toward the end of the concert, I was thinking how sexy tattoo sleeves are. I myself have 1 modest tattoo, and I have always wanted to get more tattoos, but I am well past the age of further body art. But if I was going to get a tattoo, it would be the sleeve. It's so sexy. But I work in a senior management position at a Fortune 500 company, so tattoo sleeves are out of the question for me.