"When supply and demand meet at an equilibrium point; at this point there is no tendency for price to change, quantity supplied is exactly quantity demanded. When demand curves shift, the equilibrium price and quantity will change." This quote is copied from a textbook in economics. In real life, supply doesn't always respond to demand. Resurrected vinyl industry is a good example. Supply has always been lagging behind demand. The pandemic made things go from bad to worse. It caused a huge disruption to manufacturing and supply chains. Lead times for getting a record pressed increased and are at the moment ridiculously long. There are several interacting factors. There are few pressing plants in the world, the production process is pretty much the same as in the haydays which means high maintenance costs, the supply chain is complicated and sensitive, raw material cost has risen and there's a shortage of people who know the craftsmanship. Adding to this, the big labels are reissuing old vinyls in larger quantities at the expense of new vinyls in smaller quantities. Guess who find themselves at the back of the queue; small and independent record labels. Vinylmania is a serious disease. In particular, it seems to infect people who were either not born or too young the first time vinyl were around. The gothic country genre isn't spared. It's quite a strange experience when a band or an artist that you have been following for years suddenly announces a new album, but vinyl-only for the first time. CDs are cheap to manufacture, even a minimum pressing of 300 copies, in comparion so vinyl is more of a statement that an economic issue. For me vinyl is just an unwieldy keepsake. It seems that the old standard black vinyl isn't good enough anymore. The vast majority of vinyls that have been pressed in the 20th century weigh between 120 and 140 grams. 180 gram is a heavier grade of vinyl that many believe means better sound. The heavier vinyls ride more smoothly on a turntable because of their weight. However, the quality of the sound derives from the vinyl compound, as opposed to the weight. Not to mention all the extravaganza; splatter vinyl, gatefold, limited editions and the most pretentious feature of them all: the rare and expensive test pressings. People are drawn to vinyl for seemingly (not self-experienced) nostalgic reasons. It's obviously not for practical reasons or for the perceived sound quality. And certainly not for the price. To be fair, the price of vinyl is pretty much the same in real terms compared with the 1970s. In any other industry supply and demand would push technological change forward. But this is not an ordinary industry. It's gadget industry. Supply and demand doesn't apply. 

The artist is always right even when its wrong. On the other hand, there's a fine line between right or wrong. In some cases, it's more a matter of aesthetic values and preferences. I think the latter is the case here. The two shifting album covers represents the used and unused artwork for Sons of Perdition’s album, "Gathered Blood". The unused artwork superimposes the French painter and lithographer Théodore Géricault’s "The Severed Heads" with a photo Zebulon Whatley took of a rusty railroad sign in the Arizona desert. You can check out the original painting here (opens in a new window). Ultimately, the German artist Karmazid was commissioned to do an original drawing for the album cover instead, which Zebulon Whatley colorized. The album covers are both macabre. However, I prefer the "severed heads" version. This is the alternate album cover that should have been the original. An album cover should correspond with the theme and the music and hereby constitute an indivisible whole. I hope my assessment is unpartial. "The Severed Heads" painting (oil on canvas) belongs to Nationalmuseum, Stockholm and was a gift from a consortium in 1918. The museum curator hit the head of the nail: "The realism of Géricault’s study of severed heads is almost unbearable. The artist painted a number of similar images, sometimes of amputated arms and legs. There is presumably a connection with his masterpiece The Raft of the Medusa (Louvre), which shows the dying victims of a shipwreck. These paintings can be seen as studies, a way of getting close to death, with the ultimate aim of being able to depict it as convincingly as possible."

Some movie scenes are etched on my mind. One such scene is when Carrie settles the score in the 1976 American horror film directed by Brian De Palma, adapted from Stephen King's 1974 novel of the same name. As always, Stephen King is phenomenal in portraying outcasts, vulnerable children and teenagers. Evidently, I am not the only one who got scared out of my wits. The prom scene has had a major influence on popular culture and was ranked eighth on Bravo's 2004 program The 100 Scariest Movie Moments. Sissy Spacek (Carrie) received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. In short: Carrie lives with her fanatic religious mother. When Carrie gets her first period her mother cries out: "Oh, Lord! Help this sinning woman see the sin of her days and ways. Show her that if she had remained sinless, this curse of blood would never have come down on her!" Carrie has no friends and is bullied at school. However, she has strong psychic powers. Carrie thinks it’s a prank when Tommy, the boyfriend of Sue, asks her to go to prom. Sue had, out of remorse and the goodness of her heart, asked him to do this. Carrie hesitates, but reluctantly accepts to go to the prom. She puts on a nice dress, fixes her hair and wears a corsage. Carrie is a natural beauty. This could have turned out to be a rememberable evening for Carrie and helped her gaining some self-esteem and well-deserved respect. However, evil forces lurking everywhere and in everything. The ghastly inner circle ringleader and chief bullier Chris rig the election for the Prom Queen title and pour a bucket of pig blood over her. This humiliation will come at a price. Carrie is shocked. Her mother's predictive and scornful words "They're all going to laugh at you" are echoing in her ears. Carrie hallucinates that everyone is mocking her. After the initial shock Carrie regains control. In a sudden outburst, Carrie telekinetically seals the exits and sets it on fire, killing most of the teachers and students. All documented in a long protracted scene. Some people are electrocuted, others are crushed by falling rigs and backboards. It's water, blood, panic and chaos everywhere. Carrie proceeds lightly down from the prom stage and leaves the building. In style, if I might add.  

A popular opinion is that "once it's on the internet it's there forever". This opinion needs to be qualified. Internet is crammed with unreachable websites and dead links. Information is lost on a daily basis. Sometimes it ends with a bang (like Myspace, read more here, opens in a new window), but in most cases it ends with a whimper. The main cause of death is usually that hosting fees were not paid or domain names were not renewed. But, the site is not irreversible dead until someone picks up the domain name. For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together. There are marketplaces for expired domains. When I started this website in 2014 there were still quite many websites up and running, although many artists and bands had switched over to other social media. Today, there are not many websites in the gothic country genre left. Unfortunately, a permanent loss of information have occured with serious consequences for our cultural heritage. If I ever decide to put this website to rest the content will be saved in some form or other. In the early days of internet my father bought himself a computer and got himself an internet connection. He didn't behave according to the precautionary principle. In fact, he was totally reckless in his internet behavior. But in one respect he exercised excessive caution. He used to print out the things he found interesting. When I told him that this wasn't necessary he said: "You never know". Obviously, he was way before his time. All is not lost. There are ways to access information from nonexistent websites, like Wayback Machine run by the non-profit Internet Archive. Their aim is to build a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form, read more here, opens in a new window). However, these artifacts are snaphots of the website at a certain time. The full content in its entirity isn't available. I have found some bits and pieces there to assemble. I have gathered a lot of information about the gothic country genre in printed form. I don't know if this is because of old habits or if I subconsciously followed the example of my father. I don't trust cloud solutions. I trust paper in binders separated by index dividers. 

"He that seeketh findeth" (Matthew 7:8, King James version). Well, most likely my faith hasn't been strong enough, because I have seeked. There were (at least) four missing albums in my cd collection seven years ago, read more here (opens in a new window). Today, these four albums are still missing.     

Missing 1 July 2014 and 5 September 2021, respectively

 
Collecting falls within the second and anal stage in Sigmund Freud's theory of psychosexual development. In short, an obscure activity. And collecting cd albums in extremely small editions, self-released or released on small record labels that no longer exist is even more obscure. Collecting is hard and not suitable for the inveterate pessimist. First, the difficulty level should be considerable. Second, your collection isn't going to be complete. Hard facts. There are few new additions in my cd collection. Of course, this is expected when the difficulty level rises and there's only a few missing albums out there that eludes you. I practise several search methods. Systematic and random trawling is one of them. Monitoring through wantlists, wishlists and saved searches is another. Contacting, stalking and harassing people is a third method. I have never seen any of the albums above for sale online. I didn't even know how the Podunk album cover looked like until recently when someone made a submission on Discogs. This is some success. The album cover is now public knowledge. There's a imminent risk that these albums will be "the four missing albums". A true collector is a person who has realized the meaninglessness of life, but is still pursuing his (it's always a he) mission.