yeah, as an aside, there’s a young hipster kid in his mid 20’s who tends bar at a microbrewery around the corner from me- really nice guy and I’ve had a lot of conversations with him about music, guitars, bands and records- I run into him frequently when digging the crates at record stores in my neighborhood and we share a lot of musical affinities. A few months ago, I’d mentioned that I’d just completed a pair of Klipsch Super Heresy clones and put together a really “sweet low-budget hi-fi system around them.” His response was almost dripping with disdain, which so caught me by surprise that I didn’t press him on what seemed to be a negative reaction to my comment. I’m not sure if it was my anachronistic use of the term “hi-fi,” which I’ve used ironically since the late 80’s, or if his reaction wat either generational or class-based- I live in a gentrified, formerly working class neighborhood in Philadelphia where $800k townhouses are replacing the 125 year old brick row homes and old warehouses and factories are being converted into pricey lofts. Im guessing that it was all of the above, that he views component systems as not only an unhip remnant of a bygone age, but also laden with bourgeois pretentiousness, as if I was one of the yuppies who’ve made living in the neighborhood unsustainable for young creatives like him. Meanwhile, I was just stoked about something that I’d made and put together on the cheap, but he’d shown less than no interest in it, as if it was a wholly foreign concept. Granted, a sample of one is far from representative of a generation, but apart from an interest in vinyl, I’m not convinced that youths have any interest in reproduction beyond blowing their eardrums on over the ear headphones and AirPods.
