on the subject of importing records to countries with high import taxes, has anyone investigated the possibility of doing local manufacture in those countries? instead of pressing 2500 copies at one plant and trying to distribute them to the whole world, press 500 copies each in 5 countries? i know you would lose out on your volume discount for pressing, but would the reduced import tax and shipping costs make up for it or not?

and re: what dirty bass said about teaching the kids that techno has that rebelious counter culture thing going for it, i wonder about the negative impact of hippies. when i first got into the scene, i did so because of the counter culture, temporary autonomous zone, yadda yadd, more so than the music. at first it was being preached by solid people who knew what they were talking about. but eventually, those people got jaded and tired, and now the ones doing the preaching are unrealistic hippies who make fools of themsevles every time they open their mouths. (that's how it went were i live at least). so people hearing about rave culture for the first time are turned off and think it's stupid and childish. maybe we need to take control of our own PR more?