Rock Block Trades?

Aaron Shurtleff | October 15, 2008
Hey, all! Listen. I don't want to try to undercut Scott's plans to get people trading in cards to get new cards that they want. However, I am stingy as hell, and I figured, if there's a band out there that I would want, why not just say, I would like this band, anyone willing to discuss a trade for it. Seriously? If I can save myself a few cards to get the one I want, why not do it, right? I mean, in Scott's own discussion, he asks that if you have cards you don't want, try to exchange them first before trading them in for another card. I'm going on the other side of it: I have a card I want, and I'd rather make a one for one trade for it, instead of trading up to the ranks of it.

If you are seriously offended by this, Scott, I'll take it down. I really really am not trying to get around your Trade-In plans. OK, I am, but not in a malicious way!

I'll wait to put in who I want until I see Scott's reaction. Hopefully he won't be too offended.

Tony Peters | October 15, 2008
what card do you want?

Scott Hardie | October 16, 2008
I'm totally in favor of this. I'd like to build a more comprehensive trading system, where you can offer an open trade to the community on any terms you like, and interested bidders can reply with their counteroffers. Eventually it would get so complex that I'd probably just have to reintroduce R$ for complex trading.

Anyway, in the meantime, this is great. Please use it all you want.

Tony Peters | October 16, 2008
Kid Rock is up on the Block, looking for 80-90 punk/new wave/alternative

Amy Austin | October 16, 2008
You know, Scott... you might could simplify that (the reintroduction of R$) just by creating a dollar value for rank. That is to say, everyone would have a net worth based on the cumulative value of the rank of their cards (arbitrarily, $1000 for each level of rank -- I think that's what you had it at before, right?). Then, if you wanted to implement trades by dollar value instead of combined-card swaps, you could just force a card dump in the amount of the dollar value in question (on behalf of the buyer) and then allow the seller to pick up those cards to collect.

I don't know if what I just said actually differs any from what you were saying/thinking or if it made any sense, but I tried. ;-)

Aaron Shurtleff | October 16, 2008
OK! Who's going to trade me Polly Jean?!? PJ Harvey, I choose you!!!

Fifty foot queenie! Fifty foot queenie!

Seriously, can I have PJ Harvey? :D

Tony Peters | October 16, 2008
what are you willing to part with for PJ Harvey?....Puddle of Mud?

Aaron Shurtleff | October 16, 2008
Heck yeah! Check the Exchange!

Tony Peters | October 16, 2008
Done thank you very much

Aaron Shurtleff | October 16, 2008
That's awesome! Now for a harder one.

Steve West, can I beg you to part with Gin Blossoms? I think you have the only one. :)

Aaron Shurtleff | October 16, 2008
Apparently I'm in the middle of no man's land in the ranked themes. Everyone seems to either be still at R1, or far beyond my measly R4! I just got here! :) I try to challenge people who also haven't won the theme (so maybe one of us can achieve it), but everyone who's unlocked it has already beaten it...

I gotta get Cascade rule, too. I hope that's not the one you need to win 5 in a row for, because I can't maintain that kind of superior play. Don't tell me! Just thinking out loud.

That has nothing to do with trading, so, to make this an official post:

I'm also eyeing Ani DiFranco, if anyone is willing to let her go. Just sayin' ;)

Tony Peters | October 16, 2008
looking for NIN and Sublime....

Steve West | October 16, 2008
Aaron,
STP, Alice in Chains, or the mystery 50's card would be cool for Gin Blossoms.

Aaron Shurtleff | October 16, 2008
Done and done, good sir!!

Scott Hardie | October 17, 2008
I'll be happy to play a few ranked-theme concerts with you, Aaron.

Steve West | October 17, 2008
Me, too.

Steve West | October 17, 2008
Stevie Ray Vaughan would be nice...

Amy Austin | October 17, 2008
I don't think I've ever turned down a theme challenge, Aaron.

Aaron Shurtleff | October 17, 2008
Oh, it's not that I can't find people to play against (but thank you all seriously). It's that everyone's that's able to play it has already won it. I like to challenge people who also need to win it, when I can. I haven't seen someone like that to challenge lately in the rank themes.

Amy Austin | October 17, 2008
Slightly off-topic... but I can't remember -- are the bands assigned to the decade of their inception... or the height of their success? I seem to recall it being the latter (otherwise, U2 would belong in the 70s... and it's still hard not to perhaps consider them 80s for War)... but either way, I think Depeche Mode probably belongs in the 80s. I guess it's somewhat debatable, since Violator came out in 1990 -- but Music for the Masses ("People Are People", in particular) was international before that, and there were singles off Violator released before 1990 anyway.

Probably not the place to issue a nit-pick over such things, but I was just wondering...

Tony Peters | October 17, 2008
I agree that Depeche Mode should be 80's...speaking of them the 3 of you that have the card what would you take in trade?

Aaron Shurtleff | October 17, 2008
Are the Violent Femmes in the game yet? I just looked, and I haven't seen them yet...

Amy Austin | October 17, 2008
I just swapped Garth Brooks for them from Justin, so no, not looking to trade them... especially with you and Aaron chasing after much of the same musical interests.

Tony Peters | October 17, 2008
one down...ok the other two of you....please!!!!

Aaron Shurtleff | October 17, 2008
I don't want Depeche Mode, thanks! :) I'd take Violent Femmes if they are, though! ;)

Amy Austin | October 17, 2008
Didn't say you did, punk... but I'd like the Femmes, too, thanks!

Aaron Shurtleff | October 18, 2008
You said Tony and I were chasing much the same musical interests, didn't you? That's how I read it, but now I can see how you might have meant that you are chasing the same ones as us. :P

Amy Austin | October 18, 2008
Bravo. (Yep. ;-))

Scott Hardie | October 18, 2008
Bands are assigned to a decade based on what I estimate to be the peak their critical and/or commercial success. Sometimes it's a tug of war between those two: Metallica's 80s albums will always be more respected by metal purists, but their hits in the 90s outweigh that. Aerosmith scored their biggest hits in the late 80s and 90s, but they'll never top their hard-rock glory days in the 70s. Sometimes it can be really hard to choose only one, but if I allowed multiple decades per artist, most cards would have a column of decades running down the side and it wouldn't mean anything.

For artists I'm not familiar with, which is many of them, I have to judge the best I can using Wikipedia and AllMusicGuide, and I'm more than willing to admit I guess wrong sometimes. I chose Depeche Mode's decade based on Wikipedia's description of the heights of their fame and success, but I could have been mistaken from not knowing them better. Should I change it? Are there others?

Tony Peters | October 18, 2008
if you look at there best of disks Depeche Mode lists singles 81-85 and singles 86-98...though they had staying power and made money in the 90's Depeche Mode was one of the defining bands of the 80's

Amy Austin | October 18, 2008
I agree that they're one of the defining bands of the eighties... but since 1990 was kind of the cusp, I can see leaving them there, too. It's like I said about U2 -- War and The Joshua Tree were fairly major 80s success, but it's quite easy to see that they were completely overshadowed by the stadium-filling extravaganzas of the 90s and beyond... there is no doubt that the 90s are the peak of U2's career, whether you liked those albums or not. Same with Metallica. But it just seemed a little fuzzier with Depeche. Since they are still active, however, I think I would go ahead and leave them as a 90s card. I certainly don't want to call them a "has been", but I don't know that they'll ever top Violator. Stick with what you've got.

Steve West | October 18, 2008
On the cusp of two decades is exactly the issue for them. Billboard lists one top forty hit for them in the eighties and four in the nineties, three of those in 1990. Their highest charted hit was Enjoy The Silence in May of that year. Billboard is not the only criteria of course and what they did in England prior to that should carry some weight.

Scott Hardie | October 18, 2008
The decade cusp makes certain guesses tough. Crosby Stills & Nash (with and without Young) has recorded for many years, but I'd put the peak of their career in 1969 and 1970, without a clear winner between the two. Arrgh.

Aaron Shurtleff | October 18, 2008
As long as Metallica doesn't become a 2000's card, everything's good there! ;) Do you like their new album, Scott? I think we had this conversation around St. Anger, but I miss the old Metallica... *sigh* I so got my hopes up when I read this album was a return to their roots.

But, yeah, I got no problem with where anybody is placed, personally.

Tony Peters | October 18, 2008
I would count CS&N a 60's band

Scott Hardie | October 18, 2008
I love their new album and can't stop listening to it. But I know other old-school Metallica fans who can't stand it, same as it's been for every album since 1991. I don't expect them ever to like one.

Amy Austin | October 18, 2008
Talk to Levi about that... he's disappointed, too.

Scott Hardie | October 19, 2008
I don't get it. This new album sounds exactly like what people have been complaining that Metallica no longer delivers. Is it that the lyrics are about more personal topics now instead of religion and warfare? Is it that the production is too slick? The volume on the CD is controversially overcranked, but that's an issue with the record label.

This is far closer than I ever thought they'd come to sounding like their 80s selves again; that band ceased to exist twenty years ago. A friend recently complained to me that they don't rock like "Kill 'Em All" any more, but he was 4 years old when that album came out. What standard is Metallica being held to that isn't purely academic (or just pure spite) after all these years?

Regardless of how "old" or "new" school the new album sounds, it's good. It's their best work since the black album. (I'm fond of Garage Inc during that time, but that's a minor record in their catalog.)

Scott Hardie | October 19, 2008
Anybody holding Motorhead or Bon Jovi willing to part with them for Doobie Brothers, Bob Seger, or Buffalo Springfield?

Aaron Shurtleff | October 19, 2008
Scott, you know my feelings on Bon Jovi. Sorry. :(

Maybe I need to hear more of the Metallica album, then. I thought it had moments of old school sound, but the one song I hear on the radio just sounded too disjointed. Like they were playing several different songs, and trying to fit them all together into a single coherent song, and not achieving that lofty goal. I liked Garage Days Re-revisited...does that count for anything? :)

Also, since I have nowhere else to put this, I really wish we could get one band from the 1970's into the R10 list. Another 1960's band just got promoted. Was music really that dead for the whole decade, or is it more that the 60's bands just kept rocking to long it made the 70's bands seem less in comparison... I wonder.

Amy Austin | October 19, 2008
Well, if you haven't noticed, there are two up for the choosing right now.

Scott Hardie | October 19, 2008
The next few R10s are very likely to come from the 70s. Yesterday's promotion was the last original R9 (aka everybody's least favorite R9) to make it into the top rank, and it's been the longest card without a promotion.

Russ Wilhelm | October 19, 2008
Scott, Bon Jovi is is at the exchange for you for Buffalo Springfield.

Steve West | October 19, 2008
The Who was never my least favorite R9 but it may turn out to be my least favorite R10. (Still happy to have it, though)

Russ Wilhelm | October 19, 2008
Neither was it my least favorite R9, and musically speaking, it is not my least favorite R10.

Tony Peters | October 19, 2008
Kid Rock anyone????

Tony Peters | November 6, 2008
I really want Dandy Warhols who wants to trade?

Tony Peters | November 7, 2008
Thank you chris...