[Savage Clone]

Ann ashtray,
Every tried to "make your coin touring" a huge country like the USA with gas at $4.00/gallon?


Right.
Moving on.

[The Watcher]

And what of all the depressing one man bands out there? They are too grim to even exist on our ethereal plane, yet those tascam 4 tracks aren't going to pay for themselves......

[jonathan]

Not really sure what you mean by that, Genteel.

Yes, one man bands are totally depressing, but it's their own fault for failing. It's a cut-throat world out there, you know. Fortunately, tascam four tracks are available to anyone with $25 and access to craigslist: the strong can survive and the rest can whither away into obscurity.

[Savage Clone]

Originally Posted by kinnikpasswordforgetter

none of you seem to consider the idea that your music, or the music of those that you are defending, is not worth paying for. it is not that people no longer wish to pay for it, it is that there is no need to pay for it. And if you really believed in the notion of the transcendence of art over material concerns, you'd be pursuing your music expecting no remuneration, releasing it free of charge online and becoming overjoyed at the opportunity to dessiminate it so widely and with such ease.

Oh, you mean like what I have been doing for longer than you have been on this planet?

Jesus, you are a fucking self-righteous windbag.

[jonathan]

One day Kinnik, I hope you find the meaning you are so desperately searching for.

Have you thought about gardening?

[Savage Clone]

I try and make something that is a beautiful physical object that someone would want to pay for at a time when no one wants to pay for anything, but to say that I somehow owe society something is simply ridiclous. By that logic, anyone pursuing any kind of business venture owes society something for the opportunity to try that venture out.

People buy enough of my records to make the next batch, which is fine by me. But saying "go find a patron" is incredibly laughable and simplistic.
I have sunk many tens of thousands of dollars into this for decades, and gotten back maybe a little less than one half of one percent. I don't think there is anything wrong with aspiring to a somehwat higher return, especially if I try and make it worth the consumer's while.

[Savage Clone]

I wasn't whining about anything. I was calling you out for being a condescending prick in your state-sponsored ivory tower.

[atsonicpark]

Originally Posted by hipster_bebop_junkie

I'd consider that a really odd statement. Fuck it. It wouldn't matter if the biggest genius making music today would hypothetically say that, it still sounds to me as if they are lowering an album to pretty much the same level a flyer has in the scheme of things. I can't agree with that. If that were the one and only function of a record, then it would have sense to just release it exclusively on the towns they're touring or fucking forcing bands to tour the whole world over in order to get exposure, which sounds nuts. The contrary (touring to promote the record) seems more reasonable. Since the vast majority of bands i love have never visited my town, and likely never will, i think it's obvious to me, especially considering the globalization, that a consequence of a tour is the spawning of a possibility that your music will get to some ears in far away places somehow, considering that no band can take their act to everywhere in the globe. Agreeing with that concept of what a record is and living in accordance with it, would limit my experience of listening to music to Los Tigres Del Monte, El Grupo Ronco, and all that horrible crock of shit that passes as música popular mexicana these days. Oh my god, that would be so grim.

It's not something I necessarily agree with, but I think what the artists who have said that are actually saying: We don't make money from record sells, we make money from the live show, so the record -- in a monetary sense -- becomes the "Advertisement" for the live show.

[jonathan]

Naw. Gardening is awesome.

It sure beats the shit out of wasting the whole day lambasting people for something they feel passionate on a message board.

[jonathan]

You're just jealous.

[Genteel Death]

Originally Posted by jonathan

Not really sure what you mean by that, Genteel.

Yes, one man bands are totally depressing, but it's their own fault for failing. It's a cut-throat world out there, you know. Fortunately, tascam four tracks are available to anyone with $25 and access to craigslist: the strong can survive and the rest can whither away into obscurity.

Yes, you're right, I was being sarcastic. I'm gathering from yours and some others' posts that having the decency of trying to keep the standards high is an obsolete mindset. A lot of rubbish, basically. You might settle for accepting the existence of a finished product only in the form of download, but to myself, and tons of other people, artwork, packaging and format are important facets that give an indication of how seriously you take your craft. Things that cost a lot money in themselves, if you are aiming to use quality materials. This without mentioning several other things that you'll need to find funds for in order to get you going.

[Genteel Death]

Unless your ''oh so rebellious'' posting-style (from home, mother of all ironies) wipes
off the commerce this society still relies onto get the wheel moving, things don't create themselves for free. Punk or not punk.

[jonathan]

I feel like there has always been a plethora of shit. Just because you make it to record doesn't make it good. Consult any $.99 bin at a record shop for proof.

I hear what you're saying though. I think these types of things are important, but they are by no means how I judge the quality of the music. At the same time, I've never been one for aesthetics in this field. In bands, I'm never the guy that makes the fliers, or the album covers or t-shirts. I put all my focus on the music and I tend to take it pretty seriously. I guess this is part of the reason why I find the way music is going to be liberating. At the end of he day, I get to focus on what I enjoy doing, which is making music and I don't have to worry about all the other stuff that comes with it.

Kinnik. You're jealous of other people and the meaning they are able to attribute to their lives. No matter how vapid, or "false", their identities might be, I think you prove to everyone that it is certainly better than nothing.

[jonathan]

HAAAHA! Also, I like your dog picture.

[jonathan]

Oh Come On! Put It Back Up!

[Decayed Rhapsody]

As if on cue, The Wire has this interview with Chris Cutler (of Henry Cow) about downloading and its effects:

http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/6715/

I should point out that Cutler is responding to pomo princess Kenneth Goldsmith's article about filesharing: http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/6445/, where he states that:

Epiphany No 6: It’s all about quantity. Just like you, I’m drowning in my riches. I’ve got more music on my drives than I’ll ever be able to listen to in the next ten lifetimes. As a matter of fact, records that I’ve been craving for years (such as the complete recordings of Jean Cocteau, which we just posted on Ubu) are languishing unlistened-to. I’ll never get to them either, because I’m more interested in the hunt than I am in the prey. The minute I get something, I just crave more. And so something has really changed – and I think this is the real epiphany: the ways in which culture is distributed have become profoundly more intriguing than the cultural artifact itself. What we’ve experienced is an inversion of consumption, one in which we’ve come to prefer the acts of acquisition over that which we are acquiring, the bottles over the wine.

How boring!

[Genteel Death]

Originally Posted by jonathan

I feel like there has always been a plethora of shit. Just because you make it to record doesn't make it good. Consult any $.99 bin at a record shop for proof.

I hear what you're saying though. I think these types of things are important, but they are by no means how I judge the quality of the music. At the same time, I've never been one for aesthetics in this field. In bands, I'm never the guy that makes the fliers, or the album covers or t-shirts. I put all my focus on the music and I tend to take it pretty seriously. I guess this is part of the reason why I find the way music is going to be liberating. At the end of he day, I get to focus on what I enjoy doing, which is making music and I don't have to worry about all the other stuff that comes with it.

Kinnik. You're jealous of other people and the meaning they are able to attribute to their lives. No matter how vapid, or "false", their identities might be, I think you prove to everyone that it is certainly better than nothing.

I respect that, and I agree that not everyone makes music with an aesthetical view on how it should be presented, but that attitude contrasted with others, artistically, even before the music industry itself existed. My point is that as bad or good a musician you are, if you make your music commercially available, you should expect revenue if people are downloading
it. It doesn't matter if your music is crap or not. If you're not being given something for free, but you still decide to take it, you are stealing it, thus contributing to a culture unable to help out those whose artistic merit really deserve further investigation and support. I feel ambiguous towards the idea that someone shouldn't expect to make a career out of it. That seems to ignore the fact that playing music to some is a vocation. You deny that to peoplewhose main purpose in life is to produce music, and end up with the mindset of a fascist. Sure, in the current economical climate it's easy to think that being a musician isn't hard graft, but then why should we expect music to exist if we refuse to help out with its development?

[Decayed Rhapsody]

Originally Posted by kinnikpasswordforgetter

yes, but why do them then, for any other reason than showing to others you have done them and thus care about your craft.

in other words, pointless formalism, doing so for the sake of itself. the puffed up vacuity of a stale establishment, impressing only in the depths of solipsistic redundancy those involved must have to go in order to summon the energy to convince themselves it's almost worth doing in the first place.

Err, what if one enjoys the process of creating those things? Based on your ramblings, you don't seem like a creative type at all. And isn't a rejection of "pointless formalism" one of the cornerstones of pomo ideology that you so adamantly reject?

[Glice]

Wow. This thread took a turn for the insipid troll.

[Genteel Death]

Originally Posted by Decayed Rhapsody

As if on cue, The Wire has this interview with Chris Cutler (of Henry Cow) about downloading and its effects:

http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/6715/

I should point out that Cutler is responding to pomo princess Kenneth Goldsmith's article about filesharing: http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/6445/, where he states that:

How boring!

Cutler couldn't be more spot on if he tried to.