Blog: Fortuna Pop Finale

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On Saturday afternoon in the Merch Tent at Indietracks I got chatting to Mr S Price of Fortuna Pop. "How's it going?" I asked. He looked surprised. "Haven't you heard? Fortuna Pop is ending - it's in the programme!"

I WAS surprised - why on earth would he think somebody would have actually read the programme at this stage? The only pages anyone reads on-site are the band times, the rest of it is for, SHALL WE SAY, the next morning when you have some "quiet time" to deal with the events of the night before. Or when you have a poo.

We had a brief chat about this news and I CONGRATULATED him on his 20 years in ROCK, as he has Done Really Well. All right, he may have BROKEN several rules along the way (e.g. making records people BUY by bands people LIKE - this is not The Indie Way!) but he's brought a lot of joy to a lot of people, done well by some pretty GRATE bands and HELPED a lot of us along the way too. The Fortuna Pop mailing list has been passed around from band to band and label to label so much along the years that it is probably not far off assuming SENTIENCE, and he's always been ready with ADVICE on how to do stuff. He has basiccaly been one of the tent poles that has held up the great big indiepop tent for the past couple of decades.

I was surprised AGANE though about people's reaction to this news, in that they all seem to be SAD about it. It's not SAD - when a mighty WARRIOR lays down his arms and retires from the battlefield it is a source of HAPPINESS, surely? He's CONCLUDING, not being stopped, and he's doing it at his time of choosing, on his terms, rather than being FORCED to do so by life/money events. Retiring, rather than Retreating, is something very few people in this KRAZY BUSINESS ever get to do!

So I say to one and all, congratulate, don't commiserate, and if you need to find a way to pay TRIBUTE to Sean and his work over the years, how about BUYING a TONNE of his stuff next time you see him? And not the acclaimed, popular stuff either - get some of the other records, lots of it is GOOD and I bet he's got LOADS of it left!

posted 3/8/2016 by MJ Hibbett

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