New musical project! Saraswati Trading Company

https://saraswatitradingcompany.bandcamp.com/

I am beyond ecstatic to announce my new project, Saraswati Trading Company! It’s been a long time coming, starting with a germ of an idea in December 2018 in Chennai, leading to a hunt for the perfect musicians for the project, and finally recording right before the lockdown forced us to our respective homes!

Official bio: The concept for Saraswati Trading Company was born when Indofunk Satish visited his hometown of Chennai, India, in December 2018 for its annual South Indian classical music festival. A fan of South Indian classical (Carnatic/Karnatik) music, Satish wondered how it would sound with a modern industrial electro-technical substratum. Fast forward to early 2020 when he assembled the various components (Chris Cortier – analog modual synthesizer; Arun Ramamurthy – Karnatik violin; Bala Skandan – mridhangam), and Saraswati Trading Company is born. Acting as a central trading post for Bob Moog-era 1960s modular synthesizers and 16th century South Indian classical music, STC slides effortlessly between the two extremes and relaxes comfortably in the middle. Karnatik, electronic music, jazz, and avant garde afficionados alike will find common ground in STC’s syncretic sounds.

Random thoughts on the economy as it pertains to music…

All year, I have been fond of saying that 2014 has been the best year for me, gig-wise and musical income-wise, since the recession in 2008. Part of the reason, I believe, is because although music (especially live music) and arts in general are the first things to take a hit when the economy tanks, they are also the slowest to recover. So I’m officially declaring this recession over 🙂

An interesting thing I just noticed, that may or may not have anything to do with this, is that instrument prices have dropped. As previously noted, the “Firebird bubble” is definitely over. In addition, ebay prices for Conn Connstellations had been steadily rising over the past few years, from the $600 I purchased mine for in 1996, to well up over $1000 (a few years ago it wasn’t uncommon to pay $1200 for a mint-condition 1960’s vintage Connstellation). But a brief survey of recent completed ebay auctions shows that we’re back down to 1996(!) prices, between $550 and $750. This seems counter-intuitive if the economy has “recovered” AND musicians are making more money (so they should be able to afford higher prices), but maybe it’s just the economy saying “ok, let’s be realistic here…”

A Firebird trumpet finally sold!

I’ve been scouring ebay for Firebird trumpets ever since I purchased mine from the great Ray Vega in 2001. I saw 3 Firebirds sell for ridiculous prices in what I now call “the Firebird bubble” of 2005, all within a month or two of each other. One went for $9,000, another for $9,500, and the third and final one (which looked a lot like a scam to me, but I never confirmed it) for a whopping $10,000!

Since then, many Firebirds have been listed with extremely high BINs and have gone unsold. In 2014, I saw 2 listed (one at $9,100, and another at $4,700), not sell, and then relisted for a few hundred less (if at all), and eventually the seller gave up/did not want to come down to an actual reasonable price. Finally, a third horn was listed on Nov 9th, 2014 as an auction, not a BIN, but with a high reserve. The bidding got to $2,851 without hitting the reserve. The seller, now knowing approximately what the market would support, relisted the horn with a BIN of $3,500. After 6 tense days, someone scooped it up!

2020 Updates:

A listing popped up on 4/25/2020 with a BIN of $7,500. Due to the high BIN (and the state of the economy), I’d be very surprised if it sold. I’d also predict that the 2014 price of $3,500 would be about the highest the market will support. 

On 6/10/2020, the above listing was dropped to $6,499 after not selling at $7,500. Good luck, guy!

On 8/1/2020, a different Firebird was listed for $9,800! Apparently people don’t know how to do market research. These people will eventually learn to live with owning a Firebird, or will eventually part with it for the market value of $3,500 😉