I own almost every Vincent Price movie on DVD but aside from that and movies with Christopher Lee or Barbara Steele I think most movies and TV shows suck balls.......

Downloading 700mb-1.5gb is probably different to most people than downloading a 40mb album.

Also, dvd's usually have hours and hours of content. CD's... well, CD's are way shorter.

Not taking sides either way, just sayin'.

I would have thought Kenneth Goldsmith would have showed at least some amount of empathy for the artists affected by illegal downloading, especially because i always thought ubuweb wouldn't offer any material without the artists' and copyright holders' consent. Maybe i've had a wrong impression? Anyway, i agree completely with Henry Cow's point of view expressed in this article. That's a crystal-clear, well-thought piece, and as far as i can see, is full of truth. I wouldn't know what to think of someone who could think such an explicit communication of his ideas qualifies as an act of bitching. Thanks for posting this.


I haven't read this yet, but certainly will in a moment. He talked a bit about the subject, plus other shenanigans, in an interview he gave when the Melvins recently visited Mexico:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNLkS...ature=youtu.be

There was internet drama with UbuWeb and copyrights recently:
http://www.frieze.com/comment/articl...eth-goldsmith/
https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com...er/001493.html (you can follow this entire thread to see how it played out)

So i've been having my head stuck in my asshole. I'll read that too, for the sake of knowing what the hey. Thanks.

As hard-drives get 'bigger' in capacity, will the film industry collapse? Why hasn't film compression caught on in the way that mp3s did? Is music the first arts industry of many to die?

I just saved a very large Jackson Pollock image as my desktop......

I used to download a lot in like 00-05, then I started buy tons of records like a maniac.

These days, I download a lot, but I buy more, and I often buy everything I download, I just want to listen to em while I don't own em.

Ofcourse I download if the record is expensive as shit or impossible to get.

If you can make enough money through gigs, I suppose albums or anything like it shouldn't exist anymore. PFFT!

But the records are what draw people to the gigs.

Precisely. Try giving all yours away for free, and see if that draws a bigger crowd to your gigs.
Bands being forced to play for free: another side effect of this culture.

It just seems that nowadays because of the internet the wealth has been spread apart and no one is really making substantial money out of their ventures anymore because it's such an even playing field. It almost feels like communism to me.

This is a slightly different thing, to me - in as far as you're talking about the general live experience. People who go to gigs expecting the record will be disappointed. That the recording - the endlessly-repeatable, so-say perfect artefact - is given aesthetic primacy, is taken as the sine qua non of 'what music is' is part of the reason for the live scene not being as healthy as it could be.

What's a reasonable night out for the average person? A few pints, a meal, the cinema - but try and get people to a gig by a band they don't know is fucking impossible. How many people here nip out to see a band just because it's on? Few, I expect.

What I'd like to see is a return to the live show, if the record is to dissolve into incoherence or irrelevance. There's no reason that people won't want to support local, non-famous bands, and it's only really been in the last 30 years that culture's changed (as far as I can see). What we need in this country is a change in the licencing laws, to make it easier to put bands on, to encourage people away from the TV and into the pubs.

The problem is we're in a transitory phase - the record is pretty much irrelevant, but so is the live show except for a hardy few. The devaluation of the record is one thing, but the devaluation of music in general is very worrying.

[These are some thoughts in an order that is apparently arbitrary]

Good point. If we lived in a communist society, it wouldn't be a problem manufacturing a record and giving it away for free. But we don't, so in order to produce something more sophisticated than a digital download, thus allowing to fulfill your vision accurately, money remains a necessary evil.

I wasn't really taking a stance on it or anything.
In my experience, most local bands are terrible and there's a reason why no one cares for them. That's just in my experience though, I'm well aware there will always be hidden gems away in the live scene. I agree with the licensing thing and I also would like it if venues didn't put on strictly 18+ shows. I've missed many of my favourite bands due to this.

Your experience is wrong. I can understand people not being interested in local bands in middle-of-nowhere, public transport-less provinces, but Glasgow is not such a place. If you don't like the drone scene, try the folk scene; if you don't like the folk scene, try the jazz scene; if you don't like the jazz scene, try the classical scene; if you don't like the classical scene, try the noise scene; if you don't like the noise scene, try the sound-art scene; if you don't like the sound-art scene, try the shit pseudo-klezmer bollocks or jazz-funk scenes.

That should keep you busy for two years, by which time you'll be a lot less attached to 'a great performance' and more interested in just watching for the sake of it.

I'm not picking on you per se, by the way - I was a complete Nazi for all of my teens and much of my 20s. I know plenty of people simply aren't that arsed by live music - and that's fair enough - but in any given city (this doesn't apply to towns so much) there's always a shitload going on. Get out there and see it rather than assuming it's all shit.

Edit: but yeah, 18+ thing is utter bollocks. Though I've never actually seen anyone turned away for not being of age at a gig. Maybe laws are tighter now.

I've been turned away many a time.

But yeah, you're right.

No offence Derek, but I'm confused by your views on downloading and now gigs. If most of the bands that play in your area are crap, according to your taste, does it mean that they shouldn't expect a paying audience? Did I get this right?

Unless it's Iron Maiden, I have pretty much zero interest in live gigs anymore..... in my teens, forget it, I was going to three shows a week. These days, it'd be amazing if I went to three a year........ sweaty people, obnoxious drunks, poor sound, overpriced beers........ forget it. When I got married and hit my thirties that was great. Fuck loud bars too.........

I suppose in some cases paying for attending a gig should be avoided at all cost. What if the musicians are racist, like in Hakarl's case?

I mean terrible by anyone's taste.

You're forgetting what age I am and the age of the bands here.

If I'm "stealing" an artists musics, then the least I can do is see 'em live.

I have to say, I can only go to so many gigs with rock amplification. Annoys the fuck out of me when you have jangly c86 bollocks at Napalm Death volumes. But there's plenty of stuff about that's not offensively loud. Plenty. Oh yes.

We need to meet

Very randomly i came across this:

“A record is a concert without halls and a museum whose curator is the owner."
-Glenn Gould

It makes sense, doesn't it?

It does indeed.

My consciousness is far too fuzzy at this hour to address points from both Derek and Glice, so I will do so at a later time, but I will say that the concept of an album only seems cheap or stylized because of inaccurate perception and/or expectations, not because of the concept itself or the album as an object. A recording is meant for repetitive enjoyment, and "stylized" studio recordings are meant to serve the same purpose as a live recording - a product of the band capturing its sound that can be listened to as often as desired. It is no fault of the album (or its concept) that many end up defining the band's sound by a recording and come to expect a precise reproduction of that sound. Those that do so and are disappointed by the variations in a live show are listening for all the wrong reasons, and fail to truly appreciate all the band has to offer.

Unless of course, the band performs terribly live, which happens on occasion. That band/artist likely ought to be decimated. I equate it to chicks who wear too much makeup.

Did you know glenn Gould was once arrested in Florida for vagrancy because he was sitting in a park in the middle of summer in a coat and mittens........

I admire him even more because of that, now.

Yeah he's great. I love reading stories about him......