Fun time of year to be a music geek.

As the near comes towards a close many bands send out some pretty cool stuff.

The hitch, you need to be a member of the bands fan club usually.

I know, I know..you are thinking "fan club"? What are you 12? Actually no I am not.

Long before the Internet came along most bands had mailing addresses inside their cds/albums. Simple "Write us" written above. I got in to a habit of doing that and for a lot of years I was getting a LOT of really fun stuff in the mail.

To "better" my mailing experience there were lots of offers to join "fan clubs" and the perks of those were glossy mailings a few times a year, some fan club exclusive stuff (stickers, shirts etc) and in some cases music that was limited to just the fan club members.

Granted this still goes on today, in some cases and often for 40+ dollars per year. Nowadays you get access to "fan only" message forums, and some of the usual stuff or even the chance to buy tickets before others.

I've been in the R.E.M fan club for a good number of years. One of the big perks with them has always been the "Christmas single".

Well, mine arrived yesterday.



This year we got the usual stuff, but its always cool to look at. The cd is limited to fan club members and there are two tracks. The paper thing towards the top is a calendar. To the left is a sticker promoting their recent live album release. To the right is the Christmas Card.

Just makes the holidays even cooler, and my geekdom even more justified.

I miss the old days of taking a real effort to connect to a band, but this is pretty darn cool.

Oh, REM keeps it cheap as well. $10 USD per year.