I like to think I have a pretty good relationship with Repertoire Records. They don’t know it or anything — that is, I don’t talk to or otherwise have contact with anyone over there — but if I pick up a record and it’s a version on Repertoire, I can feel relatively safe that at very least, I’m going to get a quality product. That’s not something you can always say about people selling albums.

And I was taking it as a given about two weeks ago that when I put in my purchase through Amazon for the self-titled Fuzzy Duck album, which Repertoire released on CD in 2007, I’d be getting their usual digipak-type release. I prefer jewel cases to digipaks for the sturdiness, but with the acknowledgment that Fuzzy Duck isn’t exactly selling a million copies and that these things cost money to press, I’ll take what I can get. Certainly Repertoire reissues by Warhorse, Black Widow and others have been gorgeous in digipak form, and with cover art as classic as Fuzzy Duck‘s Fuzzy Duck, I decided I could do worse.

My order placed, I went about my business, and a couple nights ago, when I got in from work and found the package waiting for me, there was Fuzzy Duck — in a sleeve! Seriously? A sleeve? How can you claim to have any reverence for the product you’re selling and put it in a sleeve? I paid $15 bucks for that fucking thing, and looking back at the product page, it’s clearly marked as “Dig,” which I took to mean a legitimate digipak.

It’s not until I opened the package that I read further down the product info, where it says, “Original vinyl artwork in square CD digi-sleeve format (card wallet – no plastic) plus inserted fold-out poster.” Come on, man. “Digi-sleeve format?” “Card wallet?” You know you’re selling a sleeve, why not just come out and say it? If it’s that god damn embarrassing to you, make it a gatefold. I’ll pay for that. But $15 for a sleeve, man. That’s just sad.

These are dark enough times for those of us loyal to the CD format. I was out at that Premonition 13 show last night, and I asked the Mount Olympus drummer if they had any CDs for sale in addition to the vinyl, and he looked at me like I was from another planet. What could I ever want with such a thing? Every time someone tells me how outdated CDs are and how it’s a “dead format,” I want to laugh in their face for the same amount of times I heard people say that shit about LPs. Dead format? People are still making tapes! 78s are a dead format. Edison cylinders. I don’t care how convenient your download card is, I want a physical product I can play in my car, and that’s either a tape (which I buy, gladly, because they’re cheap as hell) or a CD.

I’m getting off track. The point is that with people maligning and proclaiming the death of the CD as a format anyway, it feels that much worse to buy Fuzzy Duck‘s Fuzzy Duck and essentially get screwed out of what I thought I was going to get with it. Of course the record rules — even the bonus tracks; “Double Dealing Woman” is super-Deep Purple — but after a while that’s not even the point. The point is I have a separate space on my shelf for sleeves, because they suck, and now I have to put this album there.

Because even with an eight-panel foldout liner and a sleeve within the sleeve (as you can see in the picture above), a sleeve is still a sleeve, and a sleeve is most definitely NOT a digipak.

Any other suckers out there who still buy physical media want to back me up on this, or should I just give up and go digital?

If you want to be technical about it, we’re about 10 minutes into Saturday as I start this post, but screw it, still Friday as far as I’m concerned. Frydee till I’m done with the day, which I’m not yet, though probably should have been some time ago.

I did the decent and human thing tonight and went out for steak and blue cheese/bacon mashed potatoes with The Patient Mrs. at the local townie instead of buckling down and doing homework all night as was the original plan. Baseball was on. I needed some time not staring at a monitor. Sadly, I didn’t win the promo copy of Unida‘s Coping with the Urban Coyote that I’d been watching and eventually bid on on eBay, but there will be others. I wouldn’t go higher than $38, and that was my undoing. Such is Mango.

But the bar, yes, and the homework — well, I got enough of it done and have continued with home-bound beers since starting that process, so I don’t feel like I blew off the entire evening’s worth of responsibility. I got enough of what needed to get done done, and that’s more than I’ve been able to come out of some recent Friday nights saying, so I’ll take it. Not that I have a choice.

The plan is for a podcast this weekend, but I wouldn’t necessarily count on it. I’m in Connecticut tomorrow night for family stuff and coming back Sunday, but there’s more homework and other real-life concerns to handle, so we shall see what kind of time I’m afforded. If it’s not going to be this weekend at all, I might just hold off and do an April podcast in a couple weeks. I don’t know yet. I’ll let you know what I decide.

But enough rambling for now. Enjoy the weekend. I’ll be ducking out on familial obligations to check in on the forums every chance I get. Hope to see you there.