Great men and women blaze trails – it’s a sad but true reality that most of us have little choice in how history will remember our names and actions, and the mark of a great man or woman is that they write their own history through the things that they do, things so significant or important that they will in the end have created not only a life but a legacy. As for myself, I fear that I will go down in the hearts and minds of the people as “that guy who spilled all the coffee at the record fair.”

Seriously, though, it was a lot of coffee.

Nevertheless, I think I can say with conviction that the inaugural “Ye Olde Record Label Faire” was a great success. And not only because I got to eat a delicious everything bagel, or because I got to cut said bagel with one of those little bagel guillotines. No, it was a success because everyone who came got to meet and have a good time with other like-minded music lovers, and on top of that there was some seriously awesome music going at ridiculous bargains. Plus, food! What more could you want? (Besides “massages”, which isn’t fair, because you always want those.)

I’ve only been working at Absolutely Kosher for a few weeks now, but in these few weeks I’ve developed a relationship with the AK bands’ music that I hadn’t expected. Not a motherly, “these-records-are-my-babies” relationship; it feels more like these records are awesome little secrets and I really want to tell everybody about them. Seeing someone buying a Chris Garneau record at the fair made me genuinely excited. It made me think about the beautifully, wrenchingly sad first song, the eerie strings in “Dirty Night Clowns” and the quiet sighs of his piano arrangements. I thought about all of these things that I loved and how someone else was going to get to experience them for the first time, and how I was glad to be working in a place where I could help, even if only in some small way, and even if I spilled a buttload of coffee, to bring somebody else some really good music. It’s like when you find out your old friend from school has never seen Jurassic Park so you start watching it with them and you keep thinking “ohhhhhhh, you’re sooo gonna dig the part where that little gila monster dude kills Newman!”

My only real regret with Ye Olde Record Label Faire was that it had to end before I could possibly check out all of the records that looked interesting or talk to all the really awesome label people, musicians, and music lovers. I looked at the stacks of CDs and the LPs on display and I saw a thousand more gila monster moments just waiting to happen. I felt a swell of strange jealousy for future generations who will grow up to find an untold bounty of really good old music out there, more than they could ever really listen to and appreciate – and realized that we’re already at that point, but as the years go on there will only be more and more awesome music, as long as there are people who care enough to release it and people who care enough to listen.

And as of last Sunday, there definitely are.

posted by Michael Frauenhofer, summer intern dynamo