I’ve never done anything on the web before – well, precious little (I recently put together a “dozens” for eMusic, which hasn’t gone up yet – so I thought that my first entry here should be something web-related.

Lately I have been dealing a lot with a new dealie called “La La.” (www.lala.com) It’s a way of trading CDs through the net. Basically, I keep every CD anybody sends me, but for some reason or another I often wind up with two copies of something.

Basically, what you do is make a list of CDs you have that you are willing to trade away, then you make another list of CDs that you want to acquire. La La tells me that they are currently “approaching 100,000 members.” Chances are, someone has a CD you want, and you have a CD that someone else wants. So far I’ve officially made 40 different trades. I have mostly accumulated rare imports and things from labels that I don’t otherwise get.

La La describes itself as an alternative to downloading and it also seems similar to Netflix – when someone requests a CD, you put it in a little prepaid envelope and drop it in the mail. The company charges you a dollar a trade, which is an excellent deal, since you can’t trade one-for-one at any of the used CD shops I have ever been to. Of that one dollar per trade, 20% goes back to the artists – or rather, into a foundation designed to support emerging musicians and performers. It’s all completely legal – you are trading actual physical CDs that you own – no one is downloading sound files (legally or otherwise) or burning copies.

So far, I have been very happy – have received a whole bunch of out of print Elvis soundtrack albums and a lot of odds and ends that I was otherwise looking for, a Jimmy Rushing on Vanguard, a British Vic Damone twofer, a Ted Heath, Sam Cooke – supposedly there are almost two million titles in their online “catalogue,” though not all of them are available all the time (obviously). Am muchly pleased with the service – am hoping to do a story on it someday – and would highly recommend it. Especially if anybody has a copy of “The Inflated Tear” by Roland Kirk that they would be willing to trade.

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