Yes my friends, it is "letters" time yet again. We have two letters, one complimentary and one angry. First, I'll feature the "nice" letter and then the "angry" one.

As for the "angry" letter - Who decided to spew their angry venom at EAR CANDY this time? A disgruntled musician? An annoyed fan? Nope, it was a RECORD COMPANY this time! Bobby Richert of Gulcher Records evidently has the time to scan e-bay for records (Man, I wish I had that kind of free time! I guess ‘sales’ must be down…) and found that one of my reviewers was selling some of his discs after he reviewed them.

At first I kept a level head…then seeing the humor in the whole situation, I responded with a tongue-in-cheek satirical letter. This only prompted more fury on Bobby’s part.

Anyway, sit back and enjoy our latest little 'fan letters' saga...

overnightmusic@earthlink.net
Date: Tue, 31 May 2005
Subject: "Out of Warranty" Review
To: earcandy_magazine@yahoo.com

I would just like to thank you guys in the extreme, especially needles to say, Ronnie. It is the greatest feeling to have nice things said about your work. And I am most humbled by your even mentioning that John would be happy with my cover of LSD. That makes me happier than all the Wild Cherry stuff combined, and makes it all worth the effort.

Thanks again, and my warmest regards to you all.

Allen Wentz
Overnight Music

GulcherRecords@aol.com
Date: Tue, 24 May 2005
Subject: Gulcher Promo CDs
To: earcandy_magazine@yahoo.com

Ear Candy--

We are quite annoyed to see your reviewer selling Gulcher promos we sent you on eBay!!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=46499&item=4732520657&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

Regards,

Bob Richert
Gulcher Records

MY RESPONSE:

This letter kind of caught me off guard. I never actually put that much thought in what my reviewers actually do with their discs once they review them.

Anyway, I quickly responded saying that I will look into the matter. I got no response from Gulcher. But then I began thinking and actually started to get a little pissed, "How dare these 'record suits' tell me how to do things!" EAR CANDY is a total "labor of love", only scraping a few advertising dollars to pay for the domain name, etc. We certainly can't pay the writers! Then I remembered our about section, where we tell exactly what EAR CANDY is all about. Evidently Bobby didn't take the time to read this. So, I decided to have a little fun and send a satirical letter...

earcandy_magazine@yahoo.com
Date: Tue, 24 May 2005
Subject: Gulcher Promo CDs
To: GulcherRecords@aol.com

Mr. Richert

Although I haven't been able to reach the 'criminal reviewer' that supposedly did this - you are completely right in your anger if he is indeed selling these valuable commodities!

If he is guilty, then he should be publicly flogged for trying to supplement his writing income at EAR CANDY (which yearly averages about $0.0 per annum) with the huge, astronomical sum that he can get from selling unpopular CD's! Try as I might, I can't seem to convey the bottom line to them: "promotion by any record label should be totally one sided and they are to make nothing for supplying any work that helps in the promotion of their product. In fact they should feel priveledged to be allowed to do so!"

Also, I keep telling my reviewers to destroy all CD's in a bonfire when they are done with them, but you know these damn kids these days...they expect something in return for their work!

In the future, on all reviews, I will get a signed affadavit from all of my reviewers in which they agree to destroy the said review CD's and return the crushed, mutilated or burned CD's to me - which I will in turn ship to you. I think that will solve this conspiracy!

Regards,

EAR CANDY

P.S. Thank you for monitoring e-bay. With my busy schedule I don't have time to do such monumental research, that is so vital to my everyday life.

BOBBY'S SECOND LETTER:

GulcherRecords@aol.com
Date: Tue, 24 May 2005
Subject: Re: Gulcher Promo CDs
To: earcandy_magazine@yahoo.com

Actually Ear Candy has always struck me as a rather marginal publication, with extremely annoying graphics, and your reviews have never been anything to get excited about. Your petty attempt at humor only convinces me that my first impression was the correct one. You're clearly only in it for the freebies, and it was my bad judgment in agreeing to send you review copies in the first place. Shame on me--I assure you it won't happen again!

MY ANALYSIS:

Hmmm...Says a lot for his judgment doesn't it? If we are such a 'marginal publication' - then I guess that makes him a 'marginal' for sending us CD's from his 'marginal' company in the first place! Bobby Richert comes off sounding like a Donald Trump wannabe of the record business.

And sorry Bobby, we aren't in this to get you "excited" either.

Annoying graphics? Oh well, to each his own. It doesn't seem to bother our readership one bit. And I seriously doubt that the absence of any future Gulcher records will affect our readership as well.

And Bobby's claim that we're "clearly only in it for the freebies" is laughable at best. Unless someone at the record companies (or book, DVD, publicists, etc) was happy with our output - then they would STOP sending them! Pure and simple.

I guess I should put a disclaimer to all record companies:

To avoid the possibility of ANY submission being sold by the reviewer, the record company will please:
a) Enclose the proper dollar amount to have the said article mailed back to you.
b) Enclose a 'storage' fee to cover the storage of the said article.
or
c) Shut yer trap!