Who Gets angry about free music?

Ok,
  So now that we have established that I am in fact a DC native… (Person born at a DC general Hospital)… I have been returning to my roots and going to the 930 club and handing out free CDs to folks after big shows. I have been really surprised by people's reaction to free music. There are about three consistent reactions:
1) Walk past no reaction (25%)
2) "Yeah I'd love a free CD" *takes CD (65%)
3) Getting angry (10%)

The third reaction boggles my mind. Does anyone every get angry when somone is trying to give them free music? Plz tell me the rational here!

I would get angry only if it's a Rocknocerous cd.

For the life of me, I can't understand the "kids music" phenomenon. I mean the Ramones are simple enough for any five year old to "get". So where's the need for "kids music"?

my take is that they're seeing your offer as an invasion of privacy - they didn't ask to talk to you, would be happier without your interruption, you're invading their space, etc.  these people probably have the same reaction to someone handing them a flyer - "f*ck off, i don't want one!!!".  

maybe they've got some form of social dysfunction (mild Asperger's, for example) and just don't know how to deal with strangers?

i don't get it either, this is all that i can come up with.  i don't understand what's so hard about saying "no thanks".

Lol,
  Thanks for the insight. I guess I'm the type of person who always like indie style music where people were trading demo tapes and mixes. Call me old fashioned, but in this crazy age of mp3 downloads I could just hand out thumb drives with an mp3 on it and say, "free memory anyone?"

I think it is a DC thing.  I find crowds at the 930 club to be the rudest in the country.  To many transitive people who feel they dont' know any of the people around them and can be as rude as possible.  Of course the crowds at the old 930 club were friendly enough.

If you don't want a CD take it and give it to someone else or throw it in a trash can.  Or you could just listen to it when you get a chance.  I usually listen to the CD's people give outside of shows on the way home.

I've had people (not at the club) hand me a CD and then run after me looking for a "donation". Maybe you are being mistaken for one of those.

Maybe it's that this area has that whole "self importance" kind of vibe to it. What with politics and all the rich ppl that live here… It could feed a bit into a sense of self entitlement and lack of caring for your fellow man. Idk, I've also been to some pretty awesome rock shows where the ppl were awesome in DC… so maybe it's show specific…

jdd_204 wrote:
I've had people (not at the club) hand me a CD and then run after me looking for a "donation". Maybe you are being mistaken for one of those.

No I don't ask for anything, just say, "Free cd?"

there are those people who feel "free" and "music" in any sort of sentence together, automatically means to them:  fucking people like you stealing every fucking thing off the internet have destroyed the fucking music industry that i used to fucking love.  now get the fuck out my way.  and when you try to them that this is not the case, they think you are trying to rob them or even worse they think you want an extra cigarette, so they tell you to fuck off.  or maybe they are too tired to deal, and just want to get to the pizza by the slice place before it closes.

I only get mad that you hand out CD's.  Tangible media is dead.

Hand me a slip of paper where I can download it or give me a flash drive with your tracks on it that I can reuse.

walkonby wrote:
there are those people who feel "free" and "music" in any sort of sentence together, automatically means to them:  fucking people like you stealing every fucking thing off the internet have destroyed the fucking music industry that i used to fucking love.  now get the fuck out my way. 

Ok, so this is what is strange to me. Everyone knows that it's always the folks that are working for the label or promotion company that have the hottest and newest music years before it ever hits mainstream… It seems like it's the contradiction between "Everyone wants to find the next big thing," but "No one wants to listen to a nobody." I don't think you can have your cake and eat it to.

vansmack wrote:
I only get mad that you hand out CD's.  Tangible media is dead.

Hand me a slip of paper where I can download it or give me a flash drive with your tracks on it that I can reuse.

See This I believe in, but then everyone litters those paper things all over the street and I feel bad cuz I'm f&*^ing up the environment…. the memory stick idea is something I have yet to try. I wonder if ppl would dig that?! Or would it just wind up in the trash? How many ppl these days use those things?

i was handed one of those card free download things at raleigh when i went to see widespread . . . and i had to sign up on this site, go through all this hoopla, and agree to try the site for a "free" period of time.  all for one music download.  i'll take the cd please, and use it to cut my pizza by the slice if the music is crap.

rocknocerous wrote:
See This I believe in, but then everyone litters those paper things all over the street and I feel bad cuz I'm f&*^ing up the environment….

Compare the biodegration time of that slip of paper versus the biodegration time of that CD you just burnt and tell me again which is better for the environment…

Littering?  Now that's the problem you face with the paper idea.  Just sweep up the area around you when you're done.

As for the Flash drives, a quick search led me to find nothing cheaper than $4 each, so that's probably still prohibitively expensive, though that does come with a free Rocknocerous logo on it!

Well - how about start with the obvious. Maybe the show they came outta sucked/crowd sucked/people wouldnt stfu - and they spent a huge amount of money on it - and the last thing they want to deal with is someone trying to hand them shit.

on occasion - we all want to be left alone.

which leads me to…. it was so nice when kevin drew told some people near me to STFU or he'd have security yank them. They were so loud that you couldnt even hear him. If they hadnt quieted down - I quite possibly would have been one of those people.

the last free cd i received at a show was one of the vita ruins, and i found it to be pretty good…

Ive found that most of the free cds handed to me outside of shows were garbage.  They usually dont even have anything remotely to do with the kind of music the band that the crowd paid to see does.  For example, if I am coming out of a LCD Soundsystem show, what would make one think that I would want or be interested in a country band?  That usually doesnt happen, since everyone claims to be indie and alternative.  Maybe that night at the club was the wrong crowd for your cd pushing. 

I agree with not handing cds out.  Paper with a download code is way better for everyone involved.  I honestly cant think of the last cd I bought… I usually do digital, or vinyl with download card when i get music.  Change your business model to better fit in.  This is the 21st century, we need to watch our consumption. 

I always take'em, but I end up losing them in my car or someone throws it out.

Sorry!

That's what the internet is for.

And heed walkonby's warning - don't make it extremely difficult to get the D/L.

I know no marketing major would ever tell you to not collect information before the D/L, but there's no way I'm jumping through hoops to get a free D/L I know nothing about.  I get so much spam now that I rarely even add my email address for a free D/L from a band I've never heard of unless it was a recommendation from a trusted source.

Trust me, if I like your music, I'll go back and add my email to your list.

Years ago, a freebie CD was a treat but we've moved on. Promotional CDs in plain packages may now seem tossed off, unprofessional and desparate. They're like windshield spam, immediately crumbled up and tossed, often in the parking lot. Nowadays, a leaflet with a download address is probably better, but reluctant recipients may still feel put upon and bothered. Any physical item, including leaflets, passed onto another person becomes that person's problem to deal with. No, I don't want 1,000 signs for $99 or to listen to someone's DMB-meets-Jay-Z jam band. Many people don't have enough time and/or money to listen to the music they're already interested in; they don't want to be imposed to consider something else that is, more often than not, of no interest. They've developed their own filtering systems to find music they may like; forcing something else on them clogs those filters.

And enough with the MP3s. The MP3 is dead. Average download speeds are hundreds of times faster than when Napster started. Hard drives are now measured in terabytes. I no longer download lossy files (with occasional exceptions). ALAC or FLAC, please, or move along.

I still prefer physical media as the final finished product, although I'm starting to move to lossless files for singles and EPs.

Wow, this is great insight. Honestly, people who like music are who I strive to appeal to. I figure that if I goto a "like minded" band's concert, the person there will find my music in a somewhat similar vein and dig it. And you would be surprised how difficult it is to ascertain what they want in "free music". Do they want a disk? Thumb drive? Free download? I ask myself these sorts of questions a lot before I give anything away. The way I have thought of it is something like this: If someone is driving to 930, they got a cd player in their car… I hand them a Cd and a lovefest ensues… or so I hope. On the flip side, it's funny because some people simply want to be spoon fed everything from a label. To those I have no answer, but I'm hoping that there remain an open minded few that are willing to try new things that aren't highly corporatized.