In the grand scheme of things you're asked to pay for, a band fan club membership ranks as slightly less contemptable than a public toilet, slightly more than the New Jersey turnpike. Unless you're my kid, there's simply no way I'm using gifts of money to prove my love for you. Or at least, not any more money on top of what I've already spent on CDs, concert tickets, scalped concert tickets, posters, t-shirts, scalped t-shirts, and assorted E-Bay obscurities. In his younger days, SkinnySlim forked over a few bucks to join the Sonic Youth fan cub, which, from what I understand, resulted in several posters, a monthlly "zine", and occaisional trial samples of Kim Gordon's short-lived, literary-themed cosmetics line. Seems like a suspect value to me, though Slim's hands have never been as silky smooth or adept at solving mysteries as they were in 1995. Perhaps a more compelling argument can be made for the Franz Ferdinand fan club, whose members recently received a password for advance pre-sale tickets to tonight's Bowery Ballroom blow-out, while the rest of us were left to join in the mad TicketWeb dash the next day. Unless you were one of the lucky few (and the 'Stamps boys, as usual, were), that £19 might not seem like such a bad investment, especially in light of the present alternatives. And really, when you're talking about a band that's going to rock you as hard as Kapranos & Co. always do, what's a little money between Franz?
Download: Sonic Youth - "Kim Gordon And The Arthur Doyle Hand Cream"
Download: Little Barrie - "Pay To Join"
Download: The Embassy - "It Pays To Belong"
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