October 15, 2003
October 14, 2003
Aspen Mag
Aspen must have been the Visionaire of its day, except er... it was intelligent, you know with actual writing (by actual hippies no less). But yeah, it was a magazine in a box, with all sorts of goodies inside. Ubuweb has archived all 10 issues of the magazine extensively, enjoy the wander.
[via thingsmagazine.net: daily links, photos and new writing about objects]
October 13, 2003
October 12, 2003
Wind is the Backdoor
wind is the enemy is resting at them moment, perhaps it will return a new site. There is however a backdoor and rumors of remixes appearing on this very site...
October 11, 2003
Chicago Acid Trax
Don't call it a comeback. Chicago acid house is due in for a retrofit, no? 3 trax. For friend's archival use only of course. Limited time offer. Enjoy!
Pierre's Pfantasy Club Got the Bug
Mike Hitman Wilson Bango Acid
Lidell Townsell I'll Make You Dance
October 10, 2003
They Asked Me All These Questions
And last year they didn't bother to print any of the answers. This year I'll just put them here.
Btw anyone know when all the magazines shifted to the Jewish calendar? They seem to think the new year starts in October...
BEST MUSIC OF 2003:
Best Artist:
The DFA
cause they seem to be the only ones going forward with this looking backward thing.
Best Album:
Outkast Speakerboxx/The Love Below
P-funk on one side, Prince on the other, 2003 ice cold pimping in a dirty south manner all the fuck over the place.
Best Album To Get Busy To
Beyonce Dangerously in Love to get to the bedroom
Yeah Yeah Yeahs Fever to Tell to take it to the morning light
Best Music Label:
Soulseek - cause they seem to have everyone, good prices too...
Best Live Event/Festival:
The Rapture live
Best Alternative to Dealing Drugs:
Selling CD-Rs of the Rapture album at their show seven (or more?) months before it finally hits the shops.
Best Club or Venue:
The Hole, cause it was a dirty nasty year.
Best Music Trend:
Disco Punk / Rock n Roll with that dancefloor production, cause it can be live raw and well produced all at the same time. At least if the DFA touch it.
Worst Music Trend:
Motherfuckers sounding like Rod Stewart and shit. Extra bullet holes if they look like him too.
BEST ART, STYLE AND CULTURE OF 2003
Best Graphic Designer
Ryan McGinness cause he actually thinks, a lot.
Best Artist / Pimp / Con man
Miltos Manetas
Best T-shirt Line:
Fruit of the Loom, who else?
Best Media Item (book, movie, DVD):
Manuel DeLanda - Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy - because Delueze is dead but he's still smarter then the rest of us.
Best Video Game
September 12 [ http://www.newsgaming.com/newsgames.htm ] cause video games are powerful
Add your own Best of 2003:
Best Ecstasy Song that No One Realizes is an Ecstasy Song:
David Banner: Like a Pimp
Best Band Name:
Crack We Are Rock
Best way to capture the 80's revival in 5 inches and put it in your pocket:
Playgroup Party Mix
Best Funky Political Punk group everyone should have been listening to instead of the Gang of Four:
X-Ray Spex
Best Bootleg:
Beyonce 'In the Club'
Best Explanation of Why Electronic Music Sucked So Hard This Year:
Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music
http://www.di.fm/edmguide/edmguide.html
Best Cultural Trend:
The Black Bloc, cause politics is hipper then music now and it should be.
October 08, 2003
Pitaru: sonicWireSculptor
When I ran into Amit Pitaru a few weeks back at the Phunk Studio opening, he mentioned that he had a new project he was finishing up. As usual Amit is exploring the relationship between drawing and sound in highly innovative ways. This time its built in Java. sonicWireSculptor is up now, enjoy.
If you can't get the Java running, or just want to see more, make sure you dig around Amit's site for older work, including his collabs with James Patterson.
The picture below is from me playing with the whip tool, believe me the results are better when Amit uses it.
[thanks due tomoockblog for pointing out that is was up!]
October 05, 2003
Stamen
Stamen Design got a new site and its tasty. Take some Designer's Republic, a little Yugo Nakamura, mix it into a base of usable Flash content management and add a lot of home grown drawings and photography and maybe you sort of have a sense. Make sure to sample this client work too.
Enjoy.
October 04, 2003
Ice Cold Music
Ran into some magazine friends on the way to coffee, doing their little man on the street segment. One of the questions: what is your favorite album of 2003?
Er, um, yeah, um...
damn I actually ended up saying Outkast. Are things really like that? Don't get me wrong, the album is hot. But underneath all the dirty south heat and fuzz its also so... ice cold. I can't shake this feeling that Andre isn't really flying the freak flag high, he's just acting the part. And he's not quite sure if he want's to play Prince or play Iceberg Slim. Compared to this live D'angelo bootleg looked in my Winamp he's just faking the funk, and doing a damn good job. I'll take it for now, but damn...
What else is there, 50 Cent? too thug. Beyonce? too much filler and the two of her best songs are albumless bootlegs (the In the Club cover and Ghostface's Summertime). White Stripes? too much of the same thing. The Rapture? probably not going to actually come out till 2007, really should have followed their tour selling CD-Rs. Manu Chao? Same live set that's been on bootlegs for 2 years now. Sure one of the Swisha House CD's captures the skrewed and crunk perfectly, but there are too many to deal with... And no, I will not mention any of that wannabe hip hop out of east London. But Playgroup's Partymix captured the year's zeitgeist best, with a bunch of semi-obscure eightie's dance tracks...
3 months left...
October 03, 2003
Michael Wesely
the photos of Michael Wesely. Some excellent work, hidden inside some of the worst navigation I've ever encountered online.
October 02, 2003
Un Animation Du TechnoHouse Musique
In July 1993 I took a Techno Sound-system to West Africa and made a documentary.
dammmmnnnnn! read the whole jammy, you hear?
The film is available too, although it seems to be served off some 56k line or something. Can't wait to peep.
[via GUTTERBREAKZ]
September 30, 2003
Ancient Earthworks of Eastern North America
Ancient Earthworks of Eastern North America
Photographs by Don Burmeister
Opens Friday, reception 6-8pm
Safe-T-Gallery
134 Bayard St
Brooklyn NY 11222
September 29, 2003
Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music
Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music
Oh shit, this is both hilarious and actually useful. No idea who this Ishkur is but he's knowledgeable enough link up nearly every micro genre of electronic music pretty good accuracy and provide several examples of each. At the same time he's one funny mofo and is clearly taking the piss half the time. Check out "buttrock goa" (it exists!) and then finally hear some rio funk. No comment on the way the site looks though...
[via Move the Crowd]
September 19, 2003
Respect to the Tats Cru
WWW.TATSCRU.C0M
A couple of heads over on Wooster Collective have been showing there ignorance of the Bronx's Tats Cru, so here is a quick schooling.
Tats are a graf crew based out of the South Bronx that have made a successful business out of it. The mural kings. They make a real living out of painting, whether its an auto body shop door, a hip hop mural or a J.Lo. They also give a ton back to the community, from memorial walls to teaching art at the Point. They might not get the art world respect of a Skwirm or Twist, or the design world respect of a Futura 2000 or Kaws, but when you're actually in NY you'll probably see more of their work then anyone. Respect is due.
September 18, 2003
60x1
111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111.com
fucking brilliant, best net art I've seen in quite a while. Can't believe I haven't seen it before... Seems to play better with IE unfortunately.
September 14, 2003
Outkastin
The new Outkast, Speakerboxxx: Love Below is now playing. Hot. Buy it or something. Making me rethink my opinion of the Big Boi / Andre 3000 relation. Always looked at Big Boi as a talented but not brilliant MC of a pretty traditional mode who happened to pair up with an other freak in Dre. But clothing lies it seems. The Big Boi CD is fucking off the rigging, while the Dre one is just weird, at least on the first run. If anything The Big Boi is actually more out there then previous Outkast albums, but in direct lineage. Dre's seems to have more to do with the black post-rock styles of Cody Chestnutt. A hell of a lot better though, Chestnutt album is unlistenable in my book, while Dre's shit will be listened to further for sure.
Then there is Ghostface's Summertime remix, oh lord. Got me fiending big time. The Def Jam debut was due last spring, where the hell is it.... Odd bit is the song doesn't seem to be commercially available anywhere, wtf? Heard Beyonce was mad about the Ghost remix, but ever her version isn't on Amazon...
September 10, 2003
September 09, 2003
Coming Soon
So how many music artists have websites that read "coming soon"? Pretty much all I think. Well here are 3 from some rising superstars I ran into over the weekend:
Crack We Are Rock (aka Crack W.A.R.) have the best name and design sense of any young band around.
Mathematics are still blowing up what little remains of the world of drum n bass. Look for main man Roy Dank to start rocking a disco punk style behind the decks though...
Ghettotech legend Disco D is about to start dropping the straight hip hop, keep the late night mix shows pumping loud.
September 03, 2003
September 02, 2003
Beef
Never been a huge Mos Def fan, way to inconsistent with too many wack beats. And I'll never forgive him for thinking he could do a show with his Jack Johnson band without ever practicing together. A musical lowpoint of my life...
But when the mofo clicks he hits hard, and that new single "Beef" is straight daaaaammmn. Too hot. Heard an a cappella on the radio, shit, gots to get a hold of that.
Reglue
notes from somewhere bizzare leads us to the fabulous glue books of Feike Kloostra which leads to some off the cuff remixing, what a great 20 minute ride/distraction.
September 01, 2003
Noney
Noney is a new currency. Each Noney note is a hand drawn, hand printed and hand signed piece of art. Each note can also be traded for things. Like all money, Noney is for people to circulate. The result is a combination of public art, performance art and printmaking.
...
Each Noney note has the same denomination: zero. This doesn't mean each note has no value... just relative value. There's no fixed exchange rate or area of operation. Noney's worth as both art and currency is something to negotiate through each individual transaction - anywhere.
[via Boing Boing who also point out the obvious precedent set by JSG Boggs]
August 30, 2003
August 29, 2003
August 28, 2003
22 Greatest
Discovered Move the Crowd through my logs. Damn, nice to see someone is this weblog space likes hip hop. And if someone listing the22 Greatest MCs I'm going to join the fun, as Slick Rick said, here we go:
1 Biggie
2 Rakim
3 Nas
4 Tupac
5 KRS
6 Snoop
7 Scarface
8 Ghostface
9 Method Man
10 Milk D (Audio 2)
11 Andre 3000
12 Jay Z
13 Slick Rick
14 Ludacris
15 Big L
16 Lord Finesse
17 UGK
18 Eminem
19 DMX
20 Eightball & MJG
21 Melle Mel
22 MOP
Honorary mention:
Chuck D
Ice Cube
De La Soul
50 Cent
Few notes on the unconventional and the top.
Biggie takes it cause of staying power, a year back I'd say Rakim but Juicy still blows up a room like no other. What kills me though, was that it was his second single and first hit and he's speaking like he's already made it. Retarded confidence. Peep any freestyle footage you can get, absurd shit.
Rakim needs no explanation. Nas is the personal fav, Tupac probably deserves that 3 spot, but whatever this is my list. Plus Nas is still ripping it, but then maybe Pac is too...
KRS and Snoop round out the god level. The rest are ill, but not immortal. Milk D makes it on the strength of one song only, Top Billin is an absolute classic, never pauses, flows in and out of the choruses seemlessly, flawless. Ludacris gets no respect what's up with that, didn't get mentioned once in the Move the Crowd list or discussion. Scarface is crazy underrated too, same with Eightball & MJG and UGK. I'm from NY I'll admit the South reps hard.
Lord Finesse and Big L get the NY battle kings award. "I'm like Bevis I get nothing but head"... Finesse especially is criminally underrated, while L gets mad respect in certain limited circles. Aight gots to cut this off I got work to do.
August 26, 2003
Retro + Soul = Techno?
Shit I'll say it, maybe I already did, but somehow the best album of the year so far is Beyonce's. I was thinking that before I notice the hidden gem "Work it Out". On casual listen I must have marked it as quality filler, a Houston girl paying homage to Archie Bell and the Drells. What I didn't notice though was underneath Beyonce's retro beltings was a slamming Thomas Brinkmann track.
Well actually its a Neptunes beat, yeah another Neptunes beat, but it may as well be Brinkmann. An angular soul guitar looped with minimalist precision, so fucking tight. And Be cuts lose like she feels pain like Mary J, damn so hot. Can someone hook Brinkmann up with a real singer please?
August 24, 2003
A Blossoming
Its been a long time coming and its so close I smell it. Creative doldrums have dominated the past few years in music and style. These are dark economic times and creativity has been nursing a major hangover after partying like 1999 for most of a decade. But I see buds breaking, rhizomes reemerging above the ground. A new mutant aesthetic is on its rise. Imagine it as a building. It has history, 100 years back it was a tenement. 2 years ago it was crumbling husk of shattered brick wall. Weeds growing everywhere, graffiti covering all smooth surfaces. Today you enter through a side door, black painted steel covered in tags, stickers and stencil. You are in the back, you are in a garden. Bamboo shoots and white orchids. A small stream wanders through. The walls are covered with the original graf, throw-ups mixed with fantastic wild style pieces. You turn and head up the stairs, clear plastic meets plate glass, you are back in a dream of the future. Hi tech form and function. You reach the landing and pause, the wall is a shifting plastic, the latest of tech you presume. But the door is almost floating in it. The doorway has moldings, left over from a past life perhaps? Layers of paint are peeling of the door like a beach shack, the knob is dented copper.
You enter to a space of pure light, projections dance around you all walls, floors and ceiling, this is pure information transformed in pure beauty. Needless to say the sound system is slamming. Your eyes shift to the corner, an space between the walls you missed on the first scan, you head into it. Another staircase, heading up. The walls are covered with drawings, their are hundreds of stories on these walls, dozens of artists intertwined as they tell their tales. Perhaps you spend years deciphering them, but more likely you reach the landing and a door slides upon for you. Now the floors are hardwood. Large windows cut into exposed brick on three walls give you a view back into the street, you are still in your city. The back wall is bookshelves, the collection is of course flawless, there are comfortable chairs, you'll need to return to read. Display cases filled with scientific curiosities are scattered through the space, their is much to learn. But first you push forward rooms splattered with paint, rooms that make you think you are pac man, a fireplace someplace, a rec room, low ceilings for intimacy, high ceilings to uplift the soul. Intricate carvings contrasted with minimal simplicity. This is a meshwork, a space of cross breeding. At first perhaps you attempt to localize everything, give it a name, a place, a time. But this doesn't last long, the handcrafted weaves back and forth with the digital, the historical melds seamlessly with the hi tech.
Who created this space, a graf artist? media mogul? perhaps a woodworker, but then maybe it was a plastics designer. You look for the cracks separating the spaces, and they are not there. There must be a point where one craftsman transitions to another, but you can not put your finger on it. Could it be that this space was not created but grew instead? I suppose that means its still growing.
Black Ecstasy
Sort of sad that Simon Reynolds is talking about nadirs so much lately, cause its looking increasingly like the best music critic of the 90's is dangerously close to his own nadir. Dizee Rascal? please Simon, how long before you realize that the British just can't make hip hop. Like all British hip hop the beats are solid. And like the best of the bunch the content of the lyrics is pretty intelligent. But fuck he could have wrote a book or something cause it ain't hip hop unless the shit flows. And Rascal's flow is about as forced as the case for the invasion of Iraq...
Now lets get to the irony. Not sure what's up with Mr. Reynolds, but he claims not know whether David Banner's Like a Pimp is hip hop's nadir or the start of something entirely new. Truth is its a manifestation of something Reynolds predicted a few years back in more astute times, black American ecstasy music. A song of pure E stabs, makes my skin tingle just listening to it. Who needs a groove when the beat keeps lifting that E higher and higher? Bone Crusher goes one better with an E rushing voice, who needs Mentasm when you can just use your lungs?
I'm beginning to think much of the British Rave Explosion E was laced with major amounts of speed. Would certainly explain the constantly escalating BPMs of the early 90's. Its not a property of the E at all, and the dirty south is showing just how effective the slowed down E sound can be. Finally, been waiting for this music for a while now. This is the sound of ecstasy plus soul, lets hear it multiply.
One last thought, could it be that Timbaland, in all his genius, might have actually slowed down this development? Don't think he actually eats the pills, but his excellent ear has been offering up audio close enough for the crowd. Fake black ecstasy for the club. And being on top of his game and commercial gold equals soundwave domination. But now the homegrown producers have found the space to emerge; the real black ecstasy sound is stepping forth. Tellingly their models seem to be DJ Screw and Manny Fresh, not Timbaland and Dre. This is music for the mixtape economy not the major label economy.
August 20, 2003
August 16, 2003
antics and gang rape
hallucinations & antics . tobias c. van Veen .. ./ /. . ./ .. /. /. /. . .. . ./ ./ . /. .. . .. / /. has been playing fast and loose with its text size and now has the best looking weblog around.
On a more serious note tobias also brings ill news: 'Polish artist DOROTA NIEZNALSKA was sentenced to 6 months of confinement in her community for "violence to religious feelings."'
Among the suggested punishments *GANG RAPE*. An ill world indeed. Damn.
August 10, 2003
Ragga Fashion + Dance
BBC - Reggae - Fashion and Dance
Check the videos, wish their was more. Good intro though.
August 01, 2003
July 31, 2003
music.weblog
music.journalism.blogsphere - -- - -- . .- - . .- - -- tobias c. van Veen - -- - -
good piece covering the quite small (as far as I can tell) music journalism blogsphere. I would really like the see this realm grow, but I have to say I'm really frustrated with the lack of RSS feeds in this world. Makes it damn hard to keep up with a weblog if they don't have a feed. Perhaps if the pioneers had feeds things might grow a bit faster?
So I'm making an offer to anyone currently music weblogging without an RSS feed or who would like to start one, I'll set you up with a free moveable type site on my server. Ad free and what not. Only caveat (for tech reasons) is that it needs to be on one of my current domains, preferably stateofemergence.com. Oh and of course you'll need to convince me that you have reasonably good taste in music. But I'm open. Just shoot an email to me if you are interested. Feel free to spread the word. Over is open ended until I decide to stop it.
July 28, 2003
Barnstormers Bass Storm
So I was lucky enough to be at the Barnstormers warehouse as they fired up their latest piece(s). A massive sound system of hand built and hand painted speakers. A calm barbeque transformed into a just won the world series style celebration as the hundreds of speakers all pumped noise together for the first time. A premium moment for sure.
The piece itself is fucking out of control. The post graffiti art world seems to be overrun with gimmick group shows lately, paint a gas tank, paint an Eames chair, paint some adidas. This is not a gimmick. The sound system is real, the speakers work and its seriously impressive visually. 20 artists I think. Don't want to show too much, you need to see this for yourself. The show opens in North Carolina the end of this week. NY in the fall, and hopefully the Punch Gallery in SF in the spring.
And yeah, some Barnstormers history can be found here.
July 20, 2003
Flags (DJ Spooky Tour Visuals)
47 [for this project just me and [sic]] is finishing up some new DJ Spooky, if you catch him on tour, keep your eyes open for them. The new ones are all about deterritorializing flags. Not sure if they'll be any web release or not.
July 08, 2003
Semes
tobias c. van Veen's Hearing Difference: The Seme is now online. Good stuff from the space where culture and sound intertwine.
more too on the "vicious speed of the blogworld".
With the introduction of AOL, I think we're going to see... well: let's think. While maybe this will spurn the same online energy that propelled the "everybody should have a homepage era" (which led to such increased dot-com speculation, for one thing), I also think the speed at which the massive accumulation of blogs will slow down the whole operation will be increased. Thus the entire blog phenomenon will crash & burn much faster than even the dot-bomb. Which is too bad--because for years I've been toiling away on the Net without feeling much response anymore. Netnumbness. Mailing lists are still the best bet, but "online communities" like Rhizome.org have failed to create a cohesive connectability--in part because the digerati have been somewhat resistant to such attempts (perhaps the bitterness over previous online communal failures still rings to close). But blogging is reversing that trend. In only just under two weeks of getting my feet wet in the blogworld, the response has been exponential. I guess the responsibility now lies on me to keep up with the pace.
And yes its true the blogsphere does seem to reward the frequent posters (hence the success of the odious Instapundit). But quality gets rewarded far more. Like in music, "faster!, faster!" can only go so far before some slows it down and concentrates on making it good. One quality post a week should keep any blog alive.
As for AOL introducing blogs. Gets a shrug from me. Don't think it will change a thing. Its another isolated live journal world. Blogs will outlast most failed online communities because they don't try and be communities. All it takes is one person to make a blog. More then that though, blogs allow for a far greater degree of subtly and nuance to develop then say mailing lists or bulletin boards. That's why you don't see the rapid acceleration of disagreements into shouting matches that plagues email lists. Well its part of the reason.
and yeah, reading tobias' site has got me back to listening to electronic music for the first time in months. An old mix of his from 2000 fills my headphones right now, premium techno styles. [warning RealAudio].
Also in rotation, a downtempo mix from by an old friend dijon. The problem with many ambient mixes is they try really hard to sound like they were recorded on a train following the silk road. Dijon's mix actually was done on his laptop as he crossed China, a far better proposition.
Finally to make it three, Andy Weatherhall's Hypercity is quite possibly my favorite mix of all time. I usually not one for smooth, but this one I can taste in my mouth, sublime.
July 01, 2003
June 30, 2003
I'll Trade you Two Pinochets for One Franco
Remember the Friendly Dictators? Well America want's you to forget them. But way back in the day (1990) one of my favorite comic artists Bill Sienkiewicz illustrated a set of Friendly Dictator trading cards. Beautiful in that twisted dictator sort of way. Not sure if I used to own them, or just got to rub my grubby hands on them at some point, but they seem subtly pertinent in this day and age. How? Well, now we don't need to hire freelance friendly dictators in other countries, we just keep them in house. You know, the white one... Anyway enjoy em you sick mofos.
[via Social Design Notes]
and since we brought up Franco, lets make it positive by mentioning the other Franco, aka the Rumba Giant of Zaire. A true master musician. Hopefully he's remembered far longer by history.
June 26, 2003
June 24, 2003
On the Web Art Roll...
GDU Brian Wood version six. writer . designer . illustrator . artist. and good at it too from the looks of it. Via the jzellis on IM.
June 23, 2003
Insert Silence (latest version)
InsertSilence 2003 not sure how long this beauty from Amit Pitaru and James Paterson has been up, but its as sublimely beautiful as the rest of their work. So nice to be diving back into the design world a bit.
June 21, 2003
The Evolving Front Door
(no I didn't put my name there, although I may be guilty of a layer or two...)
Breakdancing with Scissors in Your Pocket
Just got back from my friend Brion Nuda Rosch's opening. He's one of the most talented young artists in the bay area, watch out for his work. A touch of Basquiat post graffiti , a bit of superflat and ton of originality.
Show is at Mimi Barr, 3153 16th St in San Francisco and it runs till August 20th.
Look out for a big group show (I Dart SF) on July 12th as well, Brion is in it, and its co-produced by Oliver Halsman Rosenberg, another talented young painter on the rise.
June 13, 2003
Dali v. Disney
...two bizarre figures, humanoid heads deformed by "persuasive and triumphant madness" dali quotemounted upon the backs of tortoises. As they converge, the space between them takes on the shape of a bell that turns into a ballerina. In the last moment, her head abruptly becomes a baseball that disappears into the bleak, mountainous Catalonian landscape.
This 53-year-old snippet of nitrate film is all that remains from a forgotten animation project called Destino, a curious collaboration between Salvador Dali and Walt Disney that was never completed.
...As for the plot, it varied considerably, depending on which of the two men was doing the telling. "A magical exposition of the problem of life in the labyrinth of time," Dali expounded in his own publication, "Dali News."
"Just a simple story about a young girl in search of true love," Disney modestly described it.
[via the excellent fUSION Anaomalog]
Hacking the Art World
Bunch of art links:
www.francescobonami.com is the new project from art world hacker supreme Miltos Manetas aka the mofo behind Neen and Telic.
Carbonated Jazz that does an excellent job ripping off/paying homage to Fischli and Weiss
and of course:
June 11, 2003
Music Going Backwards Nowhere
Listening to I-F's
Mixed Up In the Hague vol 1 right now. Strange as it may seem 3 years ago this exploration of obscure 80's electro seemed fresh and new. It predated the electrocrash fad by a year and change. What's scary is that its better then anything the electroclash movement has produced, including any dj set I've heard. And it a movement can't make a single moment as good as its immediate predecessors something is wrong. Are all the young musical punks really choosing the Black Bloc over music?
June 10, 2003
Break For the New Music (Critics)
Sometime in the past year or so my favorite music critic Simon Reynolds has gotten miswired and now somehow thinks UK Garage is the only music that matters. Perhaps its an overdose of the post 9-11 patriotic air that's got him thinking only of his country? I don't know, hopefully he recovers soon and realizes that UK Garage is a crap imitation of hip hop on a similar level to say greek or russian hip hop. Lets face it every nation in the world has a bunch fools fusing their native music with bad rhymes, and it all sucks universally.
Thankfully we have Sasha Frere-Jones and now he's got a weblog, 2, 3, BREAK. Good stuff although his epic review of the new live Led Zeppelin album has disappeared somehow. Its good shit though, enjoy.
May 25, 2003
Musical Clean Up
Super exciting Saturday night catching up on shit work, got to happen sometimes... Using the opportunity to listen to some albums that have been sitting on my harddrive far too long without being properly listened to. The reviews:
[va] red hot and riot:
The latest in the Red Hot series is a tribute to the late great Fela Kuti. Well tribute is stretching it, more like a pale imitation. Most of it sounds like over produced and smoothed over Fela. A waste of great talent. Like the albums of Fela's son Femi, this would have been much better if it was recorded live. Sounds like the producers spent hours stripping out all the raw soul from the sessions.
[yeah yeah yeahs] fever to tell
Hot, hot, hot. Not sure what's happening to me, along with the White Stripes and the Rapture, this is the third contemporary rock band I actually enjoy. Third in a decade. Had only browsed through this album, yet it sounded intimately familiar. Catchy, yet raw, with real emotion bleeding through the tracks. Good stuff.
[baby] birdman
Shit I can't imagine how out of control it would be if Manny Fresh actually made a record with a super talented MC. As always his beats shine. And Baby is a decently talented MC, a bit of New Orleans freak shines through in his birdcalls and flow. But like all Cash Money MCs he doesn't have jack shit to say. I have a pretty big tolerance for bling bling and gangsta talk, but how many times can you rhyme about the size of your tires? Yet another collection of 4-5 star Manny Fresh beats marred by 3 star rhymes. There is an Cash Money instrumental album I saw once and have never tracked down since. If you see it grab it quick.
[johnny cash] the essential johnny cash 1955 - 1983 (3 discs)
The name says it all. This is the shit, extra premium.
[ginuwine] the senior
The nastiest. I love this mofo, he's dirtier then both R. Kelly and Prince at least for the moment. Who else has the balls to sing "Is there any more room for me in those jeans"? As always this album is hit or miss. But the hits hit so sweet. Pick hits, Hell Yeah, Get Ready, In Those Jeans, Sex, and the Hell Yeah remix featuring a very drunk R. Kelly.
[lil kim] la bella mafia
Speaking of nasty, Lil Kim is the queen bee of course. And this album has her on some ridiculously raw beats. Hot shit. When it hits of course, like every 16 track hip hop CD there is a lot of filler here.
May 23, 2003
May 21, 2003
May 19, 2003
Once Again We Present the Architecture of Tomorrow
Almost missed the NYT Magazine's architecture issue.
May 16, 2003
Crib Notes From the Rapture
The Rapture were designed for stardom from the moment they were named. It just makes great headlines. Tried to actually moblog a post titled "Live from the Rapture" but the software failed. The problem with moblogging is ifs its an experience worth logging then the act of logging it is going to take you out of the experience.
The experience? Yeah, the Rapture put on a damn good show. Start out a bit too close to their indie rock roots for my comfort, but all the soul and funk that the DFA whipped into them shows up soon enough. Are the Rapture here to finally kill rock and roll or are they here to save it by making it danceable again? Give me a year or two to get that answer.
Had way more to say but I think the failed moblogging killed it. Noticed this effect before, if I try to moblog but don't get the fully info into that attempt then its really hard to motivate to re-blog the whole story. Oh well, go see the Rapture. And yeah if you are smart burn a ton of CDs of the album. Its not out till August and most of the crowd did not seem to have heard it. Its pretty strange to be recognize a song and watch a crowd that doesn't btw. Anyway I could have made serious cash selling advance burns of that album to the mass of fans starving for its release. Not that I would ever advocate anything illegal of course, so check with your friendly RIAA rep before proceeding on that plan.
May 07, 2003
Flight Risk: the Blog as Future Fiction
Intriguing. Visited a few times, never been able to dig deep enough into it. I like what I see though. May be real. Probably not.
I'm all for blogs a medium (or part of a medium!) for fiction. Wrote about it a bunch in an altsense thread a while back. Good discussion. My comments are under the name abe1x or a variant thereof.
May 06, 2003
Musical Frictions and Breakthroughs
Is the musical stagnation of the past few years finally about to break?
A hour ago I watched the new Rapture album explode across the network. Its not due to August but in the course of an hour I watched the number of copies available on soulseek go from 0 to 10. Should be permanently available only by tomorrow.
The second listen is just starting, but the first round lived up to the hype. Electroclash and indie rock fused into a form that moves forward rather then looks back. Rock hasn't been so danceable since the Talking Heads. Have the dancefloors finally moved beyond the faceless DJ era? The DJ is here to stay, but lets hope the faceless music is over.
Over on the other side of the dial things are getting interesting too. The rhythmic frenzy of Nas' "Made You Look" is all over the new Lil Kim record. Like nearly all 70 minute CDs its a bit spotted, but when it hits its hot. "The Jump Off" is Timbaland besting himself once more. "Hold It Now" gets raw to the "Paul Revere" beat. "Thug Luv", "Magic Stick", "This is a Warning", hot shit. 50 Cent guests on "Magic Stick" and drops yet another ridiculous pop hook, he'll be reigning hip hop for a while, if he can stay alive...
Finally something really strange seems to be happening on hip hop radio, check Anil Dash and friends on hip hop + bhangra. Gives me hope for some soon to be born musical mutations.
May 05, 2003
Photography of Edward Burtynsky
Big thanks to Anne Galloway for highlighting the photos of Edward Burtynsky. Really nice images from a variety of man made landscapes. Sort of like an inverse of Gursky. All of Burtynsky's work focuses on marginal industrial spaces that few people ever see, while Gursky takes a very similar eye to areas right in the core population areas.
May 04, 2003
Pynchon + 1984 = 2003?
The road to 1984, a Thomas Pynchon introduction to Orwell's suddenly timely classic. ...and while on the subject of newspeak, I'll be posting some thoughts on the first Democratic Presidential Debate in a few.
[via v-2]
April 25, 2003
Prate
Actually I'm slow on the uptake/disengaged from the graphic design world. Been back for a bit it seems. Nice stuff Jemma. As always. Of course.
April 11, 2003
That Strange Home of Mine
Chris Bishop - Fine Art has a bunch of photos from the last openning at my current (for a day more) home in San Francisco, the Culture Cache Gallery. Yep I get to wake up to all that art. Nope I don't curate the shows (this last one was guest curated by the excellent Jeff Soto). Be there 12-5 tomorrow, Saturday, if you want to check out the show. Packing off for NY right after that. Not sure if or when I'll be living in the gallery again, but its been and interesting experience.
And for those that don't know I'm in the midst of nomadic experiment. When I leave town my life fits in one carry-on bag. Expands to about one closet + one desk when I settle down for more then a week or so. Going on two years living this way. Is it normal? Not in this day and age, but you know what William Gibson said about the future being unevenly distributed...
[via the Reverse Cowgirl]
April 09, 2003
Topic: New Media Art
Channel 'new_media_art' is a new topic at Topic Exchange. Set up by the one Ethan Eismann. Be interesting to see how it develops.
Personally I have some reservations on Topic Exchange. Too impersonal. No editing. People want their information served up in a friendly manner, and the best way to do that is customize the design to the topic. Templates seem to be in the works for Topic Exchange, but I'm not sure that's enough. I think the concept is cool, but it needs to be decentralized so that people can fully customize their topic channels or whatever they will be called. And they need to be able to edit who can post. Otherwise the signal to noise will destroy all topics as soon as the spammers discover the concept. Plus editing equals vastly higher quality.
All coming soon I think, but I'm not sure Topic Exchange will be the enabler.
April 06, 2003
Invade Tile Space
The Space Invader comes from France. Graffiti continues to evolve and this maybe my favorite manifestation. Mosiac tiles as graf. Hot shit. Worldwide.
I'm going to take a wild guess say that at least half the painters and illustrators under 30 in America were involved in graffiti to some extent. I'm sitting in Culture Cache right now, looking at Robots Have Feelings Too. Great show, and the graffiti influence pulses throughout it. It'll pulse even stronger in a few days at the Barnstormers opening at Punch Gallery. Creativity grows on the street.
March 24, 2003
As the World Gets Darker Does the Music Follow?
Dark nasty drum and bass (the kind that made me stop liking the style) seems to be creaping back into the corners of my life. Haven't heard any of that stuff in years. Saturday night found me in a warehouse/squat with a seriously tight intstrumental punk band playing. Reflections of the war? Probably
I'm hoping its short term. I'm hoping music can lead the way, and bring back some hope and positivity to our world. Guess we'll find out soon enough.
March 18, 2003
In Times of War We Need More Art
More art links today, guess its to combat those violent vibes from the Washington to Middle East Axis. Reading this interview with Takashi Murakami you'd have no idea he's a PhD art scholar who runs a Warhol style art factory in Brooklyn, Japan and China and whose work sells for more then any other living artist. Not all that was true when the interview was done of course, but its still a very odd look into a very different world then I know of. I guess Murakami calling himself a failed otaku is a bit like George Soros calling himself a failed philosopher. If you succeed the way they do who cares what you failed at?
Tiffany Bozic may have left San Francisco, but she seems to be gaining some well deserved hype from the design community. Don't think I've linked to her before, watch out cause she's one of the most talented young painters out there.
Fuck Copyright
Not sure how much has changed over the past couple years but copyright davis is still a great site. Lofi drawings meets javascript tricks, cooler then it sounds.
March 13, 2003
Drinking Green Art (and Politics)
Had drinks with Sam Bower director of the excellent Green Museum last night. Talked about the way that art movements don't take off unless there is a portion of the establishment that finds the philosophy of the art useful. Modernism for instance was a tool for the US government to push American ideals onto the world after World War II. A artistic complement to the Marshall Plan. The book to read apparently is How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art. Its now on the top of my wish list.
Interesting to see how our new school imperialists in the Bush administration just don't get it. They push with raw power, without understanding that the war can't be won without a cultural victory. Of course winning a cultural war is just as distasteful to me as winning a military one. A cultural marriage on the other hand is quite intriguing. What happens when Islamic and Western culture mix? Could such a cross breed (if allowed to exist) lead us closer to a political movement of unity and peace?
March 11, 2003
No Bul
Lee Bul Korea artist of note at the moment. Text section doesn't see to work for me though, be interested in knowing more.
March 10, 2003
Back Back Y'all
Saw Wild Style director Charlie Ahearn do a talk with DJ Shadow last night. The occasion, promoting his new book Yes Yes Y'all over at the Punch Gallery (which just happens to also be my office when in SF). An interesting dive into the history of Hip-Hop from an unlikely first hand observer. The show of photos is up at Punch for a while well worth checking out.
The most interesting aspect of the talk was the real sense of the flow of history. Charlie got to see and document hip hop go from an obscure ghetto party style to an international phenomena. Almost more interesting was the way the old school was shoved aside and ignored before the culture matured enough to respect its history. A bit of a dark ages for the originators in the late 80's as the young thoughts claimed their territory.
What really opened my eyes up though was a conversation I had with him the day before where he described the scene in 1973 when he moved to New York City. The world he entered was of long haired tail end hippies, shooting dope while carrying on an anti society stance. A diametrical opposite of the world of hip hop. And no one could have possibly predicted the rise hip hop culture. When Wild Style first played in Germany they thought it was science fiction. A strong reminder of just how quickly the world can change. Wonder where the next hip hop is coming from, can't wait.
March 08, 2003
Bring Back the Ecstasy
Standing in the back of SF's Arrow bar listening to the electroclash/sub 80's retro trash, all I could hope for was the early 90's revival. How much nicer is it to be in a big warehouse with people on E instead of a dark cramped club filled with cokeheads? tobias c. van Veen captures it better with warehouse . space : rave culture, selling-out, and sonic revolution.
And on a related tip, I've always wondered what fashion subgenre will magnified into a 90's revival? Candy raver brightness, grunge grime, Prada minimalism? The funniest I think would have to be guido take on the minimal, what a fitting way to piss on modernism...
March 06, 2003
March 05, 2003
Uncensored Data
DATA DIARIES is a trip through the real cyberspace. Raw data turned into raw visualization. Information has never looked so good.
February 28, 2003
Mix it Back to the Street
MTV isn't a name usually associated with good journalism but Mixtapes: The Other Music Industry is damn good piece. In the attention based economy music is advertising. As in a song is an advertisement for the artist. And as usual the streets understand first. Wish they got deeper into the shady economics of bootleg distribution. Black market economics, anyone know of a good study or book?
February 23, 2003
White Out
The new White Stripes album, Elephant is loose on the web. What can I say, they are the only brilliant rock and roll artist out there making new music.
First time I heard them was in the Verb cafe in Williamsburg. "Pretty Good Looking (For a Girl)". It was almost a shock, first time in years I heard a new rock song I wanted (needed) to know more about. Thought that change was in the air, rock was not dead. Wrong. The White Stripes are rocks last gasp of brilliance, they blow away the rest of the competition by 20 years. And the new album is as good the previous ones. The cleverist lyrics, the masterful electric guitar, no bass. Stripped down raw rock. They mix it up a touch on this one, piano and an occasional bassline. But the essence is the same. "There's No Home For You Here" is the early favorite.
Of course you can't buy it in any stores for more then a month, and thats with a new pushed up release date. The record labels minds must be rotting even further. I couldn't buy this thing if I tried, file sharing is my only recourse. Perhaps the labels are begging us to kill them and put them out of their suffering. Its one thing to have a competitor with better prices and a quicker delivery system, but when the same competitor is beating you to the market by 2 months you know you are in trouble.
February 20, 2003
What's Going On???
A year and change ago an all star cover of Marvin Gaye's classic What's Going On was released. It featured the biggest names in American pop music, Britney Spears, Ja Rule, Jennifer Lopez, Nelly, Christena Aguilera, etc, etc. Huge stars. Lots of them. All to benifit an AIDS charity. How often have you heard it on the radio?
Marvin's masterpiece happens to be one of the best antiwar songs ever made. "You see war is not the answer / For only love can conquer hate" (sung by the Backstreet Boys in the new version). Is that too risky of a message be played on the radio? The song peaked at #27 on the Billboard charts. Not awful, but at the same time completely out of line with where a record like that could go if marketed correctly and given proper airplay? Guess the music execs are just too busy whining about file sharing and avoiding thinking of new business models to stand up and properly market what they've got.
February 13, 2003
Movin Forward
Pazz & Jop 2002 is out. Damn what a bad year for music. Singles list is ok though. 2003 has to be better, 50 cent maybe over hyped but his album is still better then almost anything to drop in 2002...
As for me the album list is here and the singles here.
On a related note, there is a good interview with the CEO of Big Champagne. They're a P2P research company with the task of convincing the majors that music belongs online.
February 10, 2003
Street Art Salvation
Wooster Collective is a great NYC street art blog, well worth a visit (daily?). No 47 stickers up there yet though...
February 06, 2003
One Step Closer to New World Trade Order
So the contest is down to two. Two plans left for the rebuilding of the world trade center site. Libeskind vs. THINK. Herbert Muschamp puts for a forceful argument for THINK in the NYT. The core of his argument? That Libeskind's design is violent and hawkish. An argument that I've seen put forth a few times. And an argument that completely mistifies me.
Just how can a building, a static object (on a landscape scale), is not a weapon of war. The thing doesn't move, its got a vertical garden growing in it, how is it violent? Edgy and sharp, yes. But to compare a building to armed combat means taking architecture a bit too seriously. A skyscraper is an environment, not an action.
I'm not a huge fan of Libeskind's proposal, but its certainly not an attrocious act of war the way Muschamp wants to frame it. It's sharp, with a crystalline beauty. Its main flaw to me is the sunken monument, which cuts much of the structure off from the street. It is dark and overwealmed by the weight of concrete, a sharp contrast to the lightness of the thin tower above it.
A far better binary between Libeskind and THINK's projects is inner vs outer beauty. Libeskind is all about looking good in reality. THINK's beauty is conceptual. Its a beautiful theory of a building. A dream of a structure. You can play with it in your head endless, reshaping it into wonderous configurations. With Libeskind you get what you see. Sounds a bit shallow, except when you factor in that wonderous concept of reality. Theory like THINK's building rarely translates well into the real world of concrete, steel and glass.
It is reality that makes this binary different then the classic "style vs. substance". Libeskind has the style, but it also has the physical substance. This a building that can be built sucessfully. I will look similar to its final plans. THINK's theory is strong, but can it be built right? My bet is no? Not after the government, contractors, leaseholders and taxpayers are through with it. Yes if the dice fall perfectly, repeatedly, it could be fantastic. But I think reality will show us its a lot more fun to talk about the concept then actually create and live with it.
February 03, 2003
As the Musical Oil Runs Dry...
Bruce Sterling does one of his classic dissections of the news for his Viridian pseudo cult/ mailing list. This time its a Fortune article on how oil has actually ruined Venezuela. Apparently discovering a large abundance of a valuable natural resource actually tends to harm countries economies in the long run. When one product is producing all the wealth the net result is that proper economic development is ignored as everyone takes the path of easy money.
Why work hard developing a strong product when you can just siphon off some of the massive cash flow from the oil wells? Its the classic putting all your eggs in one basket deal. And history shows it to be a path towards failure. Venezuela is just the latest example. Saudi Arabia could be next...
Even more interesting to me though is the parallels it draws with the music industry. For the past 50 years or so record labels have been making all their money from one resource: their control over the distribution of records and cds. What gets overlooked is the fact that the record labels are basically running a handful of business, only one of which, distribution, directly makes money.
The first business the labels are in is filtering, or as they call it A&R. There are thousands upon thousands of musicians out there. Many of them just plain suck. Most are decent but nothing special. A few are amazing, the ones that make you cry, the ones that write songs that get you through lifes worst moments, the ones that make the party go out of control. The labels are out there looking for those artists. They don't bat 1000 that's for sure, but they do a much better job then many give them credit for. You certainly don't have the time to listen to every band in the country do you?
Business #1 = filtering
Once the A&R cats have found the talent, the next step is artist development. This involves two businesses in itself. One is providing a unique form of high risk loan, in the form of an advance on royalties. These advances are often criticized because of the way they can be used to manipulate artists. And they often are misleading and exploitative. But what is forgotten is just how risky these advances are. Would you lend a band $400,000 to record an album, higher stylists and party like rap stars? And in the off chance you would lend that money, would you agree that they only need to pay you back if they produce a hit record? If you were stupid or bold enough to lend that money, odds are your terms would be pretty exploitive too...
Business #2 = high risk loans for artists
The other side of artist development is management. Guiding the band to making good decisions, writing good music and winning fans. This role is usually played by a person or group outside of the record label. Too much work for the lazy mofos high off of cd sales... But the labels do manage to a degree, helping pick producers, studios, music videos, etc. And they are in pole position to do more.
Business #3 = artist management
Once the artists are developed enough (maybe) its time to present them to the public. Here is where the labels excel. Marketing. Lifestyle manufacture. Selling the concept. Inside any record label is a world class marketing company. One that could charge big time dollars for their services. They sell artists, trends and fashions to the world. And are damn good at it. And they don't charge for it. Instead they take their cash from the CD sales. How nice. Worked great for decades. But now its just retarded. CD sales are going to hit 0 in the next 10 years. But the demand for high quality lifestyle marketing is just going to increase. This is the record industries parachute, perhaps they'll wake up soon enough to use it...
Business # 4 = marketing
The final stage of record industries current business model is the selling of physical product, at the present CDs. It's been enormously profitable for years. But it only worked because it required an extensive and expensive manufacturing and distribution network. And that network is no longer needed. MP3's and internet have made the whole process practically frictionless, and free. It costs $0 to make a copy of an MP3, and to try and make money selling a product that costs nothing is plain idiotic. That doesn't seem to stop the record industry... The distribution business is over. Dead. But the music industry is not. They have skills that are in demand.
Its time the record companies wake up and reformulate their business plans. The MP3 is the start of a new era, a new way of making music. And there is plenty of money to be made. The longer the current market leaders cling to their old ways the closer they get to death. They can make money in the new system or die in the old. Some one will step up and take their place. Get rich or die trying to cling to old traditions. Which do you prefer? There is a future to build, I know which way I'm heading.
January 31, 2003
The Twenty Two Towers
So the finalists for the new World Trade Center plan get picked some time next week. Time to pitch my 50 cents.
Gawker sums up the popular opinion the best:
"The Leftists love Libeskind; the Artists want THINK. From SUVs to bank accounts, bigger is better for the Wall Streeters, so they're going with the Foster Plan. The structural engineers like United because it works mathematically and confuses the hell out of everyone else, and we're not sure anyone likes Peterson/Littenberg."
Libeskind has emerged as the favorite horse. Its not much of a surprise. His ideas translate to paper and web the best. His design is indeed striking, and bold. And he wrote up his thoughts the best. Perfect for a newspaper pitch. He was my first favorite, but seeing the models and plans up close changed that. There is a gloominess to his work. His sunken memorial looks like a pit of dispair, hidden from the street, surrounded by concrete. Correct me if I'm wrong but he's from Berlin, no? And I'm not so sure NY needs some Berlin style concrete oppresiveness. Not that I've ever been to Berlin...
THINK, are true to there name. Their design works best as a concept. Its fun to play with in the mind. Its open, its flexible, its creative. A perfect thought experiment. Two towers as an open framework in which various structures can be built. An architects wet dream.
But how good is open in architecture? On a work place level its great, as Stewart Brand has argued well. But on a building level. Already the THINK plan suffers by letting team members other then Shiguru Ban design structures in the towers. Whose CAD program took a dump up on the 80th floor? Sure computers make it easy to make turd shapes, but do we really need to build them? Guess its better then the potential reality of the THINK plan, an open framework filled with structures designed by the Board of Ed, cheap real estate developers and the city government. It won't be too artistic then...
Foster's design suffers from the opposite, its too well thought out. Too rational, too well designed, makes to much sense. In other words its so boring you'd think he was Dutch. You know the people who made sex and drugs a bland part of the urban fabric. It gets a royal yawn, although it probably get the least complaints from the future tenents...
My suggestion, skip all this WTC crap and spend the money on Gehry's Guggenhiem Downtown. A brilliant surrealist example of what happens when a CAD program gives birth to a love child with an alien graffiti writer. In other words a whole world better then the shit Gehry's imitators pump out. And a true masterwork for Manhattan's downtown.
24 Hour Subway People
1/9 uptown 2am Just saw 24 hour party people. Great flick, gives me hope. Hope that creative vision (madness?) can exist on a large scale. That it moves beyond the individual and the small group and into society. Hope that creativity can be manifested in economic structures, in firms, corporations and governments.
Of course I shouldn't need a movie to that. Our current US government is infested by a creative energy of the worst sort. Bloodthirsty oil men and military officers high off power, partying with war like its 1999. But for every evil there is at least potential for good. These are troubled times, but perhaps they will birth a positive reaction...
January 27, 2003
Soundtracks from Future Marketing Campaigns
At 01:59 PM 1/27/2003, someone on the Pho list wrote:
"With the dismantling of the big labels, will people still be as interested in music? Why should they? If the demand was engineered as part of a 'lifestyle' on sale, what happens when there's no longer someone to engineer it?"
Well its painfully obvious that the music isn't going disappear anytime soon. Maybe all the dirty details haven't been finalized, but musicians will be doing just fine without the labels. There will always be a supply and demand for music, it core to human nature. That's been discussed ad nauseam. What hasn't really been discussed is the opposite, the fact that if cd sales went to zero tomorrow, there would still be a tremendous demand for "lifestyle". And who better to supply that demand then major label marketing departments?
If this were the 80's the majors would prime targets for a leveraged buyout. A hostile takeover of struggling companies by businessmen who realize that the parts are worth more then the whole. The car might only be worth $1,000 but the engine is worth $800, the wheels and tires $200 and the steel frame $200. Record labels as tools for making that dying technology called Cds? They ain't worth too much. But their marketing departments as tools for manufacturing lifestyle. That's commercial gold. And those A+R departments for filtering talent are worth at least a few bucks too. Course the labels themselves are so hung up on monetizing their assets by monopolizing distribution that they can't figure it out for themselves. And if they can't figure it out they'll be bankrupt soon enough...
How much are you willing to bet that Britney Spears made a large amount of money even without her revenue from CD sales. Between the tour, the merchandise and those Pepsi ads we are talking big time dollars. I'd take that sort of cash any day. And while she might have been constructed with record sales in mind, her counterpart 5 years down the line will be built by other means. And make no mistake there will be a new Britney Spears in 5 years or so. The Pepsi's of the world demand it, and they'll pay for it. The harder it is to make a new teen star the more they'll pay to be associated with the one that emerges. Supply and demand, real basic.
The Skateboarding industry offers a telling example of what might come. Skateboarders are giving away their "music" for free already. Doesn't cost a dime to watch the pros execute tricks down at the Brooklyn Banks in NY, 3rd and Army in SF or the local skate park. They don't get paid to do interviews in the skate mags or appear in skate videos. But they get paid to where brand X shoes, brand Y shirts and ride brand Z boards with brand whatever trucks. And if they are good they get their own board a then the all stars get their own shoes. Sponsorship through and through. And the skate kids eat it up.
This is lifestyle marketing at it essence. Different teams have different styles. Hesher, punk, pure athlete, hip hop, etc. You don't get sponsored unless you have a marketable style. You need enough raw skills to fake it, but pure skills will only get you as far as Joe Satriani, pure niche market stuff. But cop a fresh attitude, a new twist in the style department, say the right things in the interviews and pull off some decent handrails and you have a money machine. A kid who sells mad product, skates a bit and parties like rock stars used to. Its a formula dying to sold back to music industry, and I'll bet good money it will be...
The hip hop artists are halfway there already. Mixtapes and bootlegs are seen as promotional materials, just as MP3s will soon be. And can you name a major rap star without their own clothing line? Not to mention that fact that a hit album is more of a short cut to an acting career then a step towards a music career.
That's the pop/lifestyle way of doing it. The "pure" musicians will have their own paths. Live shows, session recordings, music for movies and tv, etc. Free MP3s will ensure they have a bigger audience they ever could have in other eras. And with more fans comes more support, better touring opportunities and so on. Not always the road to a mansion and a private jet, but a good life none the less.
The only losers in this whole process are the stubborn execs who stand against the wind as it turns into a hurricane. The industry is changing, and those that change with it will do just fine. Try and stand against the forces of history? History will just stomp all over them, or worse yet forget...
January 23, 2003
Does the Beat Go On?
Well we all know the music industry is the midst of a trauma. Convulsions with the strong risk of death. Technology vs. Tradition. The future business models are up in the air, or if we are lucky getting cultivated in some low rent basement somewhere.
But what good is the new model if their is no new music left? Make no mistake 2002 was a bad year in music. Got to see it in action as I made a hipster hopping tour of NYC.
Started off with the Manhattan upscale crowd at the Tribeca Grand, with James Murphy of the DFA on the decks. DFA is the production team of the minute, and a record label to boot. They are strength behind two of few 2002's songs worthy of being called anthems: The Rapture's "House of Jealous Lovers" and LCD Soundsystem's "Losing My Edge".
If any songs sums up the state of boredom that infects todays music its "Losing My Edge" a flat voice music nerd talking about all the good old obscure music. Like we need to be reminded. The DFA get buzz by making dance-rock mutations that rip off Gang of Four endlessly. The Rapture is as close to enjoyable as it gets. But its not even close to those early Gang of Four records... Needless to say no one paid attention to the music as Mr Murphy spun. Not worth the time. The crossbreeding of indie rock and electronic music is a stop gap, there is no music salvation in this.
Shot off to Williamsburg for the boho hipster scene. The Stinger Club gets raw no doubt. Kill Whitey is the night and music is booty. 5 year old music made in Detroit by taking 10 year old Miami Bass records and mixing them with Techno. It was innovative once, and its damn good party music. But its more house keeping then anything. Hipsters running out of music so they mine the interesting corners of recent history. Only genre left is the slowed down DJ Screw sound of Houston. At least they know how to have fun, the party was as live as the music uneven.
Musical highlight of the night was Avenue D, two girls rapping sex like Too Short over electro beats. Post Electroclash is already hear, and ready to die too. There are only a finite number genre's left to recombine, and after a year in which hip hop featured a handful of hits sampling Indian film scores we are getting damn close. The "bootleg" or "mash-up" scene takes it to the limit recombining the most diverse music is the name of the game. And the game is almost over.
The excellent Simon Reynolds places his hope in "gangsta garage" coming out of the darkside of London. A repeat of the birth of Drum n Bass. Sadlly its not happening. What's missing from the formula is the technological revolution that paralleled the creation of Darkside, the proto Drum n Bass music that Reynolds sees being mirrored in current UK garage. There are surface similarities in the darkness and ghettoized nature of both genre's. But the innovation in the Darkside music didn't come from the evil vibes, it came from Cubase, a program that revolutionized the use of sampled breakbeats.
Reynold's points out the constant use of the words ice and snow in UK Garage song titles, but doesn't connect them to their source, Cocaine. And Cocaine just doesn't make for good music. Good vocals yes, so there is hope on the MC tip. But the crappy Timbaland meets Dancehall tracks that underscore the music aren't taking us anywhere. Nope sorry Mr. Reynolds musical serendipity doesn't strike twice in the same place.
Back in New York the future is just as grim. Hip hop's king of the streets 50 Cent is about the only live thing out there. And he's nothing new, another MC claiming to be the realest of them all. "Me, I'm no mobsta/ me, I'm no gangsta/
Me, I'm no hitman/ (yea) me/ I'm just me/
Me, I'm not wanksta/ me, I'm no actor/
But it's me you see/ on your tv/ cause I hustle baby". No doubt he's got skills, but he not advancing the music either, look for more of the same from hip hop in 2003.
So where is the future music? The live shit that grabs you by the eardrums and into otherworldly states? If I knew I'd be listening not writing, but there are some hints around. Retro trends are rushing through the 80's and simmering on the edges of grunge. As always retro season tells a lot about what's wrong with the current music.
The 80's trend screams of a need for character to return to the music. A need for narrative, drama and straight up fun. DJ culture is bland and faceless, and laptop even more so. And people aren't having it anymore. The next wave needs singers with personality and flair. It needs humor and stories, and once again straight up fun. And it needs to be liver then electronic music, the return to rock is a call for a return to the band. The sampler and computer are instruments, not the end all be all.
If there is a model for the next wave, perhaps its Barcelona's Manu Chao. In a musical world filled with pastiche, Chao is about the only artist who effortlessly blends genres and styles, but at the same time makes it sound unique. Before Chao and his band Radio Bemba Soundsystem, only hip hop artists were able wield samples without sounding overly referential. Rock, reggae, ska, hardcore, hip hop, flamenco and more all get drawn into is world, and the flavors meld flawlessly into a unique, polylingual Manu Chao flavor.
More then that, Chao is a real star, something missing from "serious" music for quite sometime. His personality shines through the music, his anarchist politics bite hard at the establishment, and his nomadic lifestyle a sharp break from the norm. Pull in sample artist and or DJ and the result might look a lot like the future of "serious: western pop music.
While writing this, I started reflecting on how many people I've met recently have mentioned being into jam bands. And it struck me how similar Chao is these bands. Now I avoid listening to jam bands the way I avoid sleeping with HIV positive lepers, but they just might be a model for the future. Reynolds has commented on how innovative music often comes out of the most overlook backwaters of the music world. And jam bands fly way south of both the mass media and the trend media's radar.
More telling is the way these bands present an alternative to the dying major label system. Tour endlessly, encourage file trading, and sell a lot of merchandise. Tighten up the sound with a dose of electronics, reduce the self indulgent jamming, add a flamboyant hip hop punk singer and things get interesting. Get a multinational to sponsor the tour for big bucks, film a slick music video, sell live streams of each show and make merchandise like the band is Yu Gi Oh, and its a highly profitable enterprise.
Right or wrong this musical stagnation can't last much longer...
