Re: The value of music
Although Grayson Currin’s recent article “Ignorant boxes of used bliss” [June 27] saddened me, I can’t help but see the truth in most of it. I’m a musician who performs in two local bands (Raw Dog and Dead to Society). And what Emily White, the NPR intern who wrote the essay about not paying for music, fails to realize is that it actually costs money to make music: recording, manufacturing, equipment, gas, food, hotel, etc., etc. Some of the people who get hurt the most by the current musical situation are underground musicians like us.
Because of lower revenues, record labels are less likely to offer us a deal and help us get the kind of promotion, airplay, booking and distribution that we need to get ahead. On Friday, my bandmates in Dead to Society and I traveled to Myrtle Beach, S.C., to play at a benefit show. We made $15, from a tip jar. But we did it because we love punk rock. I’ve been doing the D.I.Y. thing for six years now and I’ve probably lost close to $7,000. I don’t regret it at all … but it would be nice to at least break even.
Manning Kimmel
Raleigh
Re: The skinny on wine
The entire tone of Amber Nimocks’ article titled “When wine is sexist” [June 27] is that of an embittered women with little self-esteem and even less level-headedness. She could scarcely conceal her contempt for the image of a thin woman on a wine label. I resent her implication that I, being a skinny woman who enjoys the occasional glass of wine, am a stereotype. In rebuttal, Ms. Nimocks, don’t get your feministic panties in a bunch over a skinny female silhouette on a wine label.
Sarah Shook
Pittsboro
