Posts tagged music

Rewind! The Cassette is Back. « Bandcamp Blog

There’s an ethos to cassette tapes that’s a little more Zen and a little less about obsessive collecting. Above all it seems to be about enjoying the music and remaining low-key.

A great post about cassettes. I’m loving cassettes at the moment. Tape tape tape. Yes.

guardianmusic:

BILL DRUMMOND ON SINGLES VERSUS ALBUMS

This has appeared on the KLF man’s website, www.penkilnburn.com. He’s still got it. CS

WE LOVE YOU DRUMMOND.

Happy viewing … if you can get your hands on the movie or TV show you want to watch.

So here’s the memo, though it all should go without saying at this late stage:

  • National boundaries have been eroding for decades, and haven’t existed for 15 years in the realm where most media consumers get their information. Don’t window by geography.
  • In-home viewing quality rivals that of theaters, so why not try selling first-run product into our homes much sooner? Charge us for timely access, not for sticky floors and toxic popcorn.
  • Don’t make us be detectives to find your show. Amazon vs. Netflix is their battle to fight. License everywhere. The most valuable asset is an addicted audience that can find its fix. Ubiquity is good.
  • Your product is infinitely replicable and shareable. Senseless windowing invites piracy. Piracy is not primarily about free content; it is about content living where the users live.

Editorial: Media ‘release windows’ are increasingly archaic, futile and hostile (via @matthewbbolton)

It’s funny that the US is finally on the receiving end of annoying international release schedules (Downton Abbey aired in the UK first, with ensuing #spoilers), but these closing points actually articulate the problems with regional restriction (for films, TV, music, ebooks) well.

Engadget

Ben by Garrettc on Flickr.Playing as the spaceship takes off.

Ben by Garrettc on Flickr.

Playing as the spaceship takes off.

Six reasons why "if you want to get paid for music you should play it live" is an idiotic argument.

maura:

Some bad-ass dude replied to Damon Krukowski’s breakdown of how much money he makes from streaming services with a sneer and a windy response that basically boiled down to “duh, quit yer bitching and make your money on the road, old man.” Which… are we really still having these arguments,…

So true. ;)

pitchfork

Gloriette by KARLA on Vimeo

Back when he was producing one of the Jont albums, the ever-intriguing Nigel of Bermondsey was always talking about this side project called KARLA. It’s great to see it finally appear.

Relive 1990 with this awesomely concrete-based music video.

vimeo.com

DARK FURS - Won’t See Me (by R&R)

I love this band. Their sound is just on the good side of the hipster dreamwave thing and the vocals are charming enough to get away with it. I’ve been listening to their EP a lot. I hope one day they sell it.

vimeo.com

Not surprisingly, there is a lot of resistance to overcome and it grows out of that typical committee mentality where everybody talks but nobody will make a decision. Record companies may resist the Web until the last minute before being forced into action. My record company isn’t exactly jumping on board, but I’m indifferent to it. You don’t have to stay with a record company forever. I get bored of those interminable situations.

David Bowie in 1999

Thirteen and a half rodding years ago!

The way our society constantly breaks down parameters has led to the disintegration of intellectual property. Whether that’’s a good thing or a bad thing is to an extent irrelevant, without a doubt things in the future are going to be different.

Ha ha ha ha ha if only…

Guardian

On Kickstarter and Dreams

In which Miranda nails it. Well, sort of. It’s not really something you can nail, but she nails the non-nailability of it.

This is the bit of DIY/crowdfunding culture that people don’t get. It’s not about buying the product. It’s about the idea of forming and nurturing a relationship with people, and it works both ways.

The “social graph” bit is key. I pay for stuff (the Dark Mountain books, the Kotki Dwa special edition album, I Am A Great Man, Anyone Can Play Guitar, the A Silent Film album and vinyl singles) because the people who make them are in my social graph (some very close, some miles away). I enjoy supporting their work and feeling involved. I enjoy sharing their stuff with people. I enjoy talking to them about what they’ve made. The products are secondary.

BUT in the end I really love all of the products. I don’t usually like spiky indie music, but I really enjoy the Kitki Dwa album because I’ve met the guys, I’ve seen the videos and it’s given me a deep context to listen to and appreciate their music. I don’t usually read books of poetry and short stories, but I’ve been bowled over by Dark Mountain since seeing Paul Kingsnorth speak at Hay, reading the blog, chatting on Twitter and funding the latest edition. With all of that context it’s almost impossible not to enjoy the book.

So yes, it’s about the experience and the relationship. But in the end the product (the social object) seals the deal, and it’s the combination of the process and the product that gives you something exciting to talk about.

Staycations (Album July 2012) | Kotki Dwa I just posted this album on the Bandcamp staff picks which appear on the home page. It’s by a band I’ve met a couple of times (like me, they spend their Christmas Eve in the Crewe Arms in the sleepy Northamptonshire village of Hinton-in-the-Hedges, where I grew up), and I’ve been waiting to see the finished product for over a year. In the true spirit of DIY and bands finding their own unique way of recording and releasing music, they asked the National Trust to sponsor their record. They spent months travelling to stately homes around the country and recording the album in wine cellars, bedrooms, attics and other random nooks and crannies of these historic buildings. The National Trust is an unlikely indie record label, but I think it’s a genius idea. Their album (which is packaged as a cloth-bound book with the lyrics on a set of National Trust postcards) is now stocked in the gift shops of these houses, presumably alongside Alan Titchmarsh audio books and Classic FM compilations. They made a few videos of the project, which show just how bizarre and amusing the whole idea is. Check this out: National Trust supports Kotki Dwa’s new album ‘Staycations’ from Kotki Dwa on Vimeo.

Staycations (Album July 2012) | Kotki Dwa

I just posted this album on the Bandcamp staff picks which appear on the home page. It’s by a band I’ve met a couple of times (like me, they spend their Christmas Eve in the Crewe Arms in the sleepy Northamptonshire village of Hinton-in-the-Hedges, where I grew up), and I’ve been waiting to see the finished product for over a year.

In the true spirit of DIY and bands finding their own unique way of recording and releasing music, they asked the National Trust to sponsor their record. They spent months travelling to stately homes around the country and recording the album in wine cellars, bedrooms, attics and other random nooks and crannies of these historic buildings.

The National Trust is an unlikely indie record label, but I think it’s a genius idea. Their album (which is packaged as a cloth-bound book with the lyrics on a set of National Trust postcards) is now stocked in the gift shops of these houses, presumably alongside Alan Titchmarsh audio books and Classic FM compilations.

They made a few videos of the project, which show just how bizarre and amusing the whole idea is. Check this out:

National Trust supports Kotki Dwa’s new album ‘Staycations’ from Kotki Dwa on Vimeo.

kotkidwa.bandcamp.com

We are in the last years of a huge empire, one that was beholden to a myth woven around the miracle of amateurs becoming icons. At some point all the jesters suddenly expected to be kings. But the primordial soup that spat out the rockstar phenomenon was originally cooked up in the music hall – jobbing entertainers with their props and patter playing for a wage. There were big names and little names, there were hierarchies and egos and ambition but everyone in the end got paid for their act.
Musicians Exposing Themselves In Public « Louis Barabbas

louisbarabbas.com

Unexpected success: how to deal with it badly.

In which Nick explains exactly STEP BY STEP how to get 23,806 listens on Soundcloud.

My dreadful career in music

And I can’t read music. I’m mainly a guitarist when it comes to playing live, so it’s rare that someone writes something in standard notation. If they have, I just have to ask for chord symbols and a rhythm chart, and then pretend that I can read the rhythm chart. I’m living a lie. I should probably learn, but it feels a bit late, now. There are so many other things that I’m failing at, that it seems a low priority.

I’m loving Nick’s new blog. ;)

gordon withers :: cello rock: Reflections on White/Lowery and a Way Forward

gordonwithers:

Like every other musician and/or music consumer on the internet, reading the fallout from the Emily White/David Lowery exchange has made me consider my own ~~IMPORTANT OPINIONS ON THINGS~~ and try to come to grips with conflicting views on the topics of music sharing, piracy, and intellectual…

A very intelligent and reasonable post. It’s all about stepping back and having a conversation, not engaging in a shouting match.

Emily and David – Jonathan Coulton

I believe this is the long-term future of all things, not just music. Here is where I will lose a large percentage of my audience, because I’m now going to get a little science fictiony and start talking about the future of nanotechnology and 3D scanners and printers, and the eden of abundance that awaits us in a glorious future of machine saviors. Stay with me though, because I’m going to bring this back to the David Lowery post in a bit.

Brilliant. Read it.