The Children Are The Future- Cubs Minor League Update Sponsored by The Coast Guard

In Minor Leagues by Obstructed View Staff143 Comments

Iowa

Beef Castle was 1-3 with a BB and his 6th HR of the year. Vitters went 1-5 with a SB which is a rarity and Jay Jackson continues to suck in every single role possible giving up 3 ER in .1 IP to lose the game.

Smokies

No Game

Daytona

Ronald Torreyes has resurrected his prospect status. After a horrible start he has been his usual contact heavy self hitting over .300 in both June and July. Last night he hit 3-4 with a BB and is now batting .263/.326.382 on the year. Torreyes has a little bit of pop but will need to keep that batting average around .300 to maintain much value. Matt Loosen struggled a bit giving up 4 ER in 5 IP but K-State man AJ Morris came in and shut down the opposition to earn his 3rd save of the year. 

Peoria

Javier Baez was 1-3 with a BB and a pair of RBI's. After not walking in over a month Baez now has 2 in the last 3 games so let's hope he keeps it up. Pin Chieh Chen was 3-3 with two walks of his own. Chen would be interesting if he wasn't so damn small. He has zero power so utility is best you can hope for. Dustin Geiger went 2-4 with his 11th HR of the season. 

Boise

Gioskar Amaya is the best bat in Boise and that's saying something with this team. Yesterday Amaya hit his 5th HR of the year in addition to a walk & his 8th SB. Amaya is sporting a .939 OPS and will be a top 10 guy in our system heading into next season. Ian Dickson and Hunter Ackerman combined for a shutout. Dickson started and struck out 4 in 5 IP and Ackerman fanned 6 in his 4 IP and only gave up one hit. 

AZL

Jorge Soler hit 1-3 with a walk and Trevor Gretzky was 2-4. Gretzky hasn't done much a pro and with Rock Shoulders and Dan Vogelbach ahead of him at 1B he needs to move to the OF and start hitting to have much of a chance. Last night marked the long awaited debut of 2011 overslot pick Dillon Maples who has been out since spring with elbow issues. It started in typical Cub fashion

Walk

HBP

Double Steal

WP

Walk

Then Maples was able to get a strikeout and a double play to escape the jam. 2012 pick Paul Blackburn pitched 2.1 innings of scoreless ball and struck out 2 batters. 

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Comments

  1. andrew

    Even with that bad outing from Jay Jackson, he has a 2.91 ERA when relieving, so he hasnt been horrible in every role he plays in.

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    mb21

    It’s about a 3.8 FIP. I agree with DJ. D+ for now, but if he could somehow keep that up (more than 1 K per inning and a decent walk rate) that’s not too bad. Probably not an 8th or 9th inning type, but possibly a 7th.

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    mb21

    Sitemeter is currently down and has been having issues the last couple days so I got rid of the sitemeter icon at the bottom of the page for now. Page should finish loading now.

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  4. Author
    jtsunami

    I’ll tell you what, I do enjoy the Olympics. However, if it happened more than once every 4 years, I don’t think I’d watch.

    Not a big soccer fan or women’s sports fan, but I love watching the Women’s U.S. Soccer team.

    Speaking of women, where’s melissa been?

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  5. Berselius37

    In a COMPLETELY unrelated story, the Cubs front office is trying to gauge the odds of Dempster accepting a qualifying offer

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  6. Author
    GBTS

    I also propose that from this day forth, whenever a team is trying to unload a player somewhere when they have absolutely no leverage, it shall be termed that they are “trying to Demp him.”

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  7. Author
    WaLi

    @ GBTS:
    Can we also have a term for when someone tells someone one thing, then takes it back, even if it is within that person rights to offer refusal.

    Example:
    John: Hey, how much for anything I want?
    Pizza Hut Milf: $572
    John: Sweet.
    *later*
    John: WTF. You said anything.
    Pizza Hut Milf: NO BIG BOOBS ANAL
    John: Man, I just got Demp’d.

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  8. Perkins

    Has anyone else had issues with the mobile site? When I try to log in on my iPhone, the “Go” button doesn’t work.

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  9. andrew

    @ mb21:

    ERA i got from the blog cubs den. I looked it up myself and i got 38 SO/15 BB in 34 relief innings. thats not a failure at relieving when combined with the 2.91 ERA. He’s been bad his last 10 innings but the 24 innings prior to that he was excellent as a reliever. I’m not saying hes gonna be Eric Gagne from 2003 but he shows some promise as a reliever maybe a Shaun Camp from 2012. good relievers are still important to a winning baseball team and Jackson has shown he could be just that a good, not necesarily great, reliever.

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  10. Author
    WaLi

    @ josh:
    I “have to” wait a week to watch it. Wife’s flight finally got out of town, but she won’t return until next Sunday. I guess the good thing is we’ll be able to watch the next two back-to-back.

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  11. Author
    Urk

    GW wrote:

    seems to me, he don’t want to talk about it

    Love that song, will be playing air-power-trio version of the intro in my cube for the rest of the afternoon. Thanks!

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  12. Author
    Mucker

    @ josh:
    I try to watch it Sunday night but last night I was tired and I was draggin ass this morning getting up so I might go to the Monday evening time slot.

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  13. Author
    josh

    @ Mucker:
    Yeah, we have to do the Amazon pay per view thing. It’s cheaper than cable. We have to get it watched tonight, since we’re moving this week. Shit always gets crazy when the move date approaches.

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  14. Author
    Mucker

    @ josh:
    So you don’t have regular cable? You just do that Amazon thing when you want to watch a show? How much is that?

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  15. Author
    josh

    @ Mucker:
    We have basic cable, but only because it lowered our overall comcast bill to have basic cable + internet. The Amazon thing is like either $3/show or you can pay $7 for the first 2 episodes (plus a couple of bonus features) and $2 each additional. We went with that plan. So that’s like $27 for the series, but we have to wait until the day after they air to watch them. Still, that’s around the cost of 1 month of full cable, over what we currently pay. Seemed like a good deal. They also have the episodes on like iTunes and some other places.

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  16. Author
    josh

    @ Mucker:
    Well, we did have a computer hooked up to our TV for just such stuff (actually, mostly for the kid), but since we’re packing up and our TV is already stashed, we just watch it on my wife’s laptop.

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  17. Author
    mb21

    @ mb21:
    It’s going to be a 24 hour podcast, 5 days a week. I have a lot to say about cats and a lot of people really love them. You can look forward to lots and lots of guests.

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  18. Author
    dylanj

    George ofman ‏@georgeofman
    Chance one of the prospects in the Dempster to Dodgers deal is 21 year old right hander Garret Gould.
    Retweeted by John Arguello

    ahem……….

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  19. Author
    dylanj

    former meth dealer. WaLi wrote:

    @ dylanj:
    That’s like your friend or friend’s friend or father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate, right?

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  20. pinetar

    @ josh:

    The money you spend on shows ie. the $2 per episode won’t be what keeps the show on the air. I just got issues paying for something I should already be able to get for free if I have internet access.

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  21. pinetar

    @ Suburban kid:

    The RIAA thnks anyone with Internet access and external drives is killing the music industry. I wish the RIAA would die a quick painful death. Great pic by the way.

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  22. Author
    josh

    @ pinetar:
    I don’t really see the logic here. You pay company A for a product and so company B should give you their product free? Or are you saying company A and company B are the same company? Or just that you’re poor? Look, I don’t care. I don’t have the patience for those bullshit streaming sites and their 45 minute blackout bullshit and crappy quality. I’ll pay my two stupid dollars and watch it when I want.

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  23. Author
    josh

    @ pinetar:
    I don’t mind paying artists I like for their products. I like to buy from the artist when possible. Or from the author, more commonly. I don’t mind paying an author for a book, because I know authors are some poor slobs who need it, and I like to read.

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  24. pinetar

    @ josh:

    I refuse to give the RIAA a dime, hate the cooked SOB’s. I see 60-70 live shows a year and compensate the artist every chance I get.

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  25. Author
    josh

    Essentially, you’re right, $2 doesn’t make a difference. Neither does 1 plastic bottle. Or 1 vote. But, hey, shit adds up. I’m not the only person in existence.

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  26. pinetar

    josh wrote:

    I don’t mind paying an author for a book, because I know authors are some poor slobs who need it, and I like to read.

    My biggest gripe is why does a f’n ebook cost more than a paperback?

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  27. Author
    josh

    @ pinetar:
    RIAA is funded by labels, unless you’re seeing unsigned artists, you’re funneling money up. But I see your point and more power to you. But of course, if you heard of the artist by means other than personally knowing the bands or pure word of mouth, you probably saw them in advertising funded by the industry, and they were probably selected from among a pool of bands via industry execs (granted there are a lot of ways for that selection to occur), meaning you are listening to artists they have picked for you, and ignoring ones that they didn’t like.

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  28. Author
    josh

    @ pinetar:
    If it’s a new release, they are priced higher to take advantage of the anticipation of a new work, same as hard covers are priced higher and released first. Most ebooks are priced less than their paper counterparts after a certain initial time period has passed. But you’re not just paying the artist, you’re also paying the guy who found the artist from among hundreds of thousands of authors trying to get published, for the artist who designed the cover and the art, and the typesetter who designed the text, the book designer who laid the book out, the programmer who converted the book to electronic format (or wrote the program), and so on. It’s an industry. You’re paying for an expert’s pick of what is good among the artists that are out there. If you don’t believe there’s value in that, try going to a self-published site and look for just one good book in that mess. Just one.

    Almost every book picked up by a traditional publisher is at least readable, even if it’s not up your alley in terms of content.

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  29. pinetar

    @ josh:

    I’ve found more artists downloading music than I’d never hope to hear via advertising and the radio since most of what I hear is not what you’d call mainstream outside of a handful of artists. Would never have bought anything by any of them but they have received handfuls of money from me because of luck. I spoke with an artist awhile back and told him I found him via the internet and drove 160 miles to see him. The guy was astounded and signed crap left and right for us. That’s how it should be.

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  30. Author
    Mish

    You guys have somehow stumbled upon a topic I am not interested in discussing. An OV first! (dying laughing)

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  31. pinetar

    @ josh:

    That’s what I have issue with though. I could eliminate 90% of piracy if I had the opportunity. The RIAA just needs to price their product different is the problem. No delivery costs other than the internet pipe, no material cost other than storage space and no production costs with digital music, yet they want to charge you the same price as what a CD costs and the artists get pennies on the dollar.

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  32. GW

    The RIAA’s (and the publishing industry, to a lesser extent) model has essentially disappeared. They used to handle expensive and difficult tasks like recording, distribution, and advertising. The cost for those has fallen off a cliff and they are left trying to push the government and the courts for protection to maintain their profits.

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  33. GW

    Hitting and pitching coaches get fired all the time for shitty performances, but I can’t remember a bullpen coach being fired before, as happened with the Brewers yesterday.

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  34. Author
    josh

    @ pinetar:
    How are there no production costs? Even recording a live show costs an enormous sum of money (in fact, live shows are much harder to record). My friend used to produce music and do sound on movies for a living, it’s incredibly time consuming and expensive to produce anything of value. If you want it to be consumable via the internet, it has to be recorded,which is expensive. I would agree they drive up prices artificially to some degree, though. Especially with new releases. You’re paying for immediacy there. If you can wait, you get it cheaper. video games do the same thing. I disagree the business model is totally irrelevant. I have no time to sift through millions of web pages of shitty artists to find those diamonds in the rough. I don’t mind paying a few industry pros of my choosing to deliver good music. There are lots of good labels out there.

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  35. Author
    josh

    I have no love for the RIAA or the big music houses. I prefer smaller labels, indy labels and things like that. They don’t always have the music I like, though. Find artists you like isn’t easy or quick.

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  36. GW

    @ josh:

    Pandora is a big one. Also just websites in general, forums where people can recommend stuff. You don’t have to spend hours on those headphones at CD stores anymore.

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  37. Author
    josh

    And artists take pennies on the dollar from studios because they know they will reach more people going through those channels. It’s simple math. If you can get 1% of the population to like you, you’re a raging success and a millionaire, but if you have to do all your own promotion, pay for advertising and recording out of pocket, and then just hope that someone finds you on the internet, you’re going to die poor and with rotten teeth.

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  38. pinetar

    @ josh:

    Josh, How long does it take to rip a CD? That would more or less be your production costs once the album had been recorded. The productions costs I was alluding to were the back end ones ie. CD production costs.

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  39. Author
    josh

    @ GW:
    To produce a quality product still takes time though. If you think in terms of publishing a book, you can essentially cut all the costs of paper and printing and storing and shipping, but the book still takes time to write and time to edit well. What you see in publishing is that for years they cut back on editing and put the burden of editing on the writer, in order to subsidize the physical books. Then when publishers went digital, they had to invest lots of money up front to get those systems in place, so they didn’t want to drop costs. I don’t know much about the music industry, but I expect the overall cost of books to come down as ebooks become more popular.

    I think costs are coming down on music to some degree. You can pay $15/month for iTunes and listen to as much as you want of basically whatever you want. I listen to more music now than I ever did when CDs were king.

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  40. pinetar

    @ josh:

    Who wants to pay $10-15 for an album by an artist you’d never heard before? I know I sure don’t nor will I ever. If a digital album cost $3-4 there goes 90% of piracy and people all over the world would be inclined to try something by someone they’d never heard before.

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  41. Author
    mb21

    Does anyone know how much production costs have been cut? We know it’s a lot, but I’m curious if anyone actually knows by how much. What does a CD cost these days? Obviously that question alone tells you how I get my music and it’s not buying CDs, but I’m also not listening to much of anything produced after 1990. Much of what I’m listening to isn’t even available on iTunes or in a store.

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  42. Author
    josh

    @ pinetar:
    That’s kind of what iTunes et al does, though. Even cheaper than that, really. I think subscriptions are the new business model. I’d rather pay Rhapsody $15 a month and listen to whatever I want than buy 5 random albums a month at $3 a pop. I listen to way more than 5 new albums a month with Rhapsody, most of which I don’t like.

    @ pinetar:
    True, you have to be willing to be discerning, which goes back to why I don’t mind paying for Breaking Bad. I want to send a clear signal that I prefer quality shows to shit.

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  43. Author
    mb21

    @ pinetar:
    FWIW, I don’t think piracy is going anywhere unless the cost is reduced to free, which won’t happen. I tend to agree with you here, but if someone wants to pay for something it definitely doesn’t bother me. As far as I’m concerned, I’d rather just keep doing what I’ve been doing for the last many years than pay even $3-4 for something, but again, I’m not getting shit that can be found too easily in a store.

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  44. pinetar

    @ mb21:

    No idea, I know for a book I would think the costs have been cut by more than half. I would think that all new books are in some electronic form as it is and all editing more and likely is performed via software. Once completed it’s just a conversion to multiple formats and it’s ready for sale unlike when millions of copies had to be printed.

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  45. Author
    josh

    @ mb21:
    I’d be curious to know this too. It seems to me that the initial investment is more, even if the day to day operating costs are cheaper. You still need a quality space and trained pros to run the equipment.

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  46. pinetar

    @ josh:

    My issue is I want to own my copies of music and be able to take them where I want to. Subscriptions have a place, they just don’t cover all the bases and for me don’t really fit.

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  47. Author
    josh

    @ pinetar:
    It’s a catch-22. The band you find on the internet and go to their show probably can’t afford to lower the price of their CD, because they don’t sell enough to get costs down.

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  48. pinetar

    @ mb21:

    It will never go away completely, but they could put a huge dent in it by lowering costs. 10cents a song and people would be flocking to them in droves that now they get for free but may be a crap copy or worse yet some infected piece of crap either the file or it’s received while looking for the free copy.

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  49. Author
    josh

    Take the T-shirts I was trying to sell for example. If I buy 200 T-shirts, I can get them for $7 apiece and sell them to you for $9, but I have to know I will sell 100 T-shirts, or I take a loss. If I buy a smaller quantity, like 25, I have to sell them for $17 to make the same profit, but there’s less risk to me, because I’m more confident I can break even. It’s even harder for a musician, because studio time is expensive and musicians are broke and need to recoup those costs as quickly as possible.

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  50. Author
    josh

    @ pinetar:
    I totally agree with supporting local artists and unsigned artists and buying from the artist by the way, and that the industry could easily charge less. I just don’t think it’s as easy as “artist charges less and makes more.”

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  51. Author
    WenningtonsGorillaCock

    Why do you need new bands? Everyone knows rock attained perfection in 1974. It’s a scientific fact.

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  52. pinetar

    @ josh:

    Shop around I don’t think studio costs are that bad. Sure some you’ll leave your 1st born child and an arm and a leg. I did some poking around and northern cal. rates ran $100-150/hr.

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  53. pinetar

    @ josh:

    I do if you eliminate 90% of piracy and of that 90% say 50% purchases from you. Each instance would be it’s own case though. Who knows other than until somebody runs with it we’ll never know.

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  54. Author
    josh

    You know, as a writer, I could theoretically produce an entire product on my own (using an open source layout program, for example) and offer it for $3 on my web site. An entire book for $3. That’s a good bargain. Who would I get to read it though? Hell, I can’t get people to read the fiction I give away for free. And how do I know when I’ve broken even on something I spent 3 years of my life producing? I’d need to make, say $60K to make it worth my while (or to produce the next one, however you want to look at it) That means 20,000 readers at $3 a pop. That puts me in best seller territory. If a publisher instead offered me $20K right now to produce to the book, even knowing they were going to charge $7 a pop for it, I’d do it in a heartbeat.

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  55. Author
    mb21

    @ josh:
    Few authors make all that much money. The authors of The Book have made little money and they’ve had to fight the publisher to even get paid.

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  56. Author
    WaLi

    josh wrote:

    Even recording a live show costs an enormous sum of money (in fact, live shows are much harder to record).

    I call BS. Bring a mic stand and/or hook up to the soundboard. Quality recording for your base set up + ticket price.

    Grateful Dead fans have been doing it since the beginning of of the band. And trading tapes for free. Look how many fans they have.

    Archive.org (the link above) has plenty of bands that allow live recording at shows. That’s how I find all my new music, plus it’s legal and supported by the artists.

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  57. Author
    josh

    @ josh:
    Truth of the matter is that as an artist, it’s tough to get people to take you seriously until you are published. That’s been my experience.

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  58. Author
    josh

    @ WaLi:
    Yeah, but there’s a certain whimsical quality to those kind of recordings not everyone tolerates. It’s not like they sound like studio recordings. That comes down to buyer expectation. GD fans love that, but a lot of other fans would hate it. And let’s face it, some bands suck live.

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  59. Author
    josh

    If you guys are arguing that sound can be physically recorded for cheap, then yes, that’s inarguable. But quality productions still cost money and require time and expertise. Like it or not, a lot of people want that, or have come to expect it. Personally, I hate going to concerts. People act like jackasses.

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  60. Author
    WaLi

    josh wrote:

    And let’s face it, some bands not worth seeing suck live.

    You’re right though, not all bands would sound good like that. But there are a lot of studio quality versions of those recordings too, especially if someone hooks up to the soundboard.

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  61. Author
    mb21

    josh wrote:

    Personally, I hate going to concerts. People act like jackasses.

    I generally agree with this, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the few Furthur ones I’ve been to as well as when I was younger and attended a few Dead concerts though it was all a shock to me at that point in my life. One of the best shows I’ve ever seen live was Rat Dog in Tempe, Arizona.

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  62. Author
    WaLi

    josh wrote:

    But quality productions still cost money and require time and expertise

    True. And there are people who will see a 10 cent song and a 99 cent song and due to the price, assume the 99 cent song is better.
    josh wrote:

    Personally, I hate going to concerts. People act like jackasses.

    Very true (dying laughing) No matter the show, there will be a jackass there. I think that’s anywhere though that people congregate at and has alcohol available. See: Wrigley Field

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  63. Author
    Suburban kid

    For you guys interested in this topic from the perspective of the industry actually trying to figure out a new model (not from the perspective of consumers wanting to never pay), there is some interesting commentary at the Music Industry Blog.

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  64. Author
    mb21

    @ GW:
    21 hours to go until the deadline. I’m sure they’ll do something, but I don’t think it’s going to be on the scale that you’re hoping for.

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  65. Author
    Mercurial Outfielder

    @ mb21:

    Phillies want to deal Pence and Lee

    BoSox want to deal Beckett

    Cubs want to deal Dempster

    Rangers want pitching

    Dodgers want pitching and a bat

    Mariners want an OF bat

    Those are about the extent of possibilities for anything “big”

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  66. GW

    @ Mercurial Outfielder:

    I once saw him vault off the shoulders of some big stiff, grab an offensive rebound, and windmill dunk it. It was at a summer league game in Minneapolis right after he was drafted. He was called for an offensive foul, but it was the most amazing dunk I have ever seen. Somehow it never showed up on youtube.

    cool story out, fuckfaces.

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  67. Author
    josh

    @ GW:
    I can buy a decent computer for $200. That doesn’t make me a writer.

    Ah fuck it. I do think 10c a song would be agood idea, and doable. I also think there are a lot of people with $1,000 studios who are terrible and I don’t want to listen to their music, even if it is more authentic.

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  68. pinetar

    @ josh:

    I agree, but there are others who sound almost exactly the same live as does their recordings. One in particular doesn’t even do remixes they lay it down and go with it. If you like Blues/Blues Rock check out Tab Benoit if you’ve never heard of him before. Joe Bonamassa is another some of the best live shows I’ve seen have been his.

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