With everybody on broadband these days and thanks to the live music archive, there’s not much live music trading going on anymore. Sure there are the hard core collectors out there that will always be trying to perfect their collections. But for most people there is so much live music available at the click of the mouse that there is no need to strike up a trade or BnP anymore.

The days of trading ftp server logins have been taken over by bittorrent and high quality streams. All the new technology is great and I love having a never ending supply of live music, but I miss the connections that I made as a trader. Something about the whole process of doing a good old fashion snail mail trade was a ton of fun. I’d sit there and burn the CDs and carefully label them and send them off to their happy new owner. I’d constantly be getting great shows in the mail, which is almost like getting a present! Not anymore. Now, all I have to do is point my browser over to the live music archive and queue it up. Way easier, but lacking some of the nostalgic qualities. Maybe I’m just getting old, but part of me misses the good old days when I had to actually work to listen to great live music.

If you are interested in starting up an old school snail trade, check out my list and let me know if you see anything you like!