収束ゾーンでのライフ: Life in the Convergence Zone

Can I offer you some Japanese cookie-monster jazz in these trying times?

(Link is to YouTube, band is Japanese, yes it’s jazz, yes the lyrics are occasionally cookie monster-style and it’s kind of amazing)

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

so yeah

out doing shows this past weekend and now I guess I can say I've played a venue where somebody got killed, so

that was different

(some people got hurt too, like, four, but really lightly) (and two at another event) (they were hurt pretty bad)

and also some jackass at an introduction to shieldfighting session decided that the right thing to do was berzerker charge me and when that didn't work do it again from behind

this was touch-and-out combat and the fucker broke his sword literally in half on my knee

(well, just above my knee, i guess he missed a little?)

and it wasn't even his sword, it was some other guy's sword, i'm like

what the fuck is wrong with you

and the guy running it was

"dude don't break my swords!" and i'm all

"he broke your sword on my leg thanks"

and i'm thinking mostly it's a good thing you didn't try that with a normal fragile person you might've fucked them up good you insoluable tryhard

and i didn't even get a photo of the broken sword, which is terrible, because posting that would've been badass even if it was just a wooden (1"x2" roughly) wooden practice sword

and all that's sorted and we get back and then SURPRISE

layoffs

(because fucking game industry honestly what)

so now my partner is looking for work

and this is quite the week so far and it's only tuesday? so i think i would like a do-over.

eta: yay! the car broke on the way to book club! so we got towed to the dealer instead of book club. ffffffffffffffff

lol, Spotify wants to become the new Muzak, apparently, and possibly also the new K-Tel - all they need to do is assemble some cover bands to make "tribute" covers of popular songs:

http://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/spotify-is-creating-its-own-recordings-and-putting-them-on-playlists/

Hey, the new song is up! There are actually several new songs in the pipeline but this is the one that’s finished right now. It’s called “Thirteen,” and it’s a free download, though you can always hit the tip jar if you like it.

I made it for Conflikt, where I was MCing as Toastmuppet this past weekend. It’s a filk convention – geek music goes back a while, this is a geek folk music (“filk”) con – so of course I made them some geek folk metal, a semi-cover of the Vixy & Tony track “Thirteen.”

Their original isn’t about Doctor Who contemplating his own mortality after running out of regenerations, though. That’s just my version. I was all, “What’s the filkiest thing I can do for this con? Oh, I know, take a well-known filk track and make it even geekier by making it about the Doctor.”

Their original is here, if you want a listen. It’s quite different.

More on Conflikt tomorrow. I shot parts of the con with a fisheye-lens film camera. YEAH I SAID FILM IT IS HILARIOUS I HAD TO STEAL IT FROM THE PRESIDENT ORDER IT FROM JAPAN. I also said fisheye, because the camera was a gift and it has a fisheye lens and you can’t turn it off. FULL-THROTTLE FISHINESS BEGINS TOMORROW!

Assuming the film comes out. I don’t even know. I sure hope it does, I’m not joking about it being imported from the home islands. It’s the last place you can buy ISO 1600 colour film as far as I know.

Okay that’s enough words. LESS TALK MORE FILK!

Mirrored from Crime and the Blog of Evil. Come check out our music at:
Bandcamp (full album streaming) | Videos | iTunes | Amazon | CD Baby

Okay, sure, I'm a solo act most of the time, but that's no reason not to start a song with an a cappella choral harmony, right?

I continue to be bemused by the ongoing return of vinyl LPs. Another year, another set of gains, in both units and revenue. Data from Statistica:



It matches what I was seeing in an RIAA PDF from earlier this year. Vinyl sales are doing very well, thanks, and are the only ownership segment that's actually rising. Streaming revenue is climbing too, but wow, not enough to make up for all the down segments.


Data again Statistica, this graph Forbes

I think there are a couple of things going on here.

First, the LP surge - yes, of course it's at least partly a fad. That's not durable, and the increase in rate of increase is most probably a warning sign.

But aside from that, I think the rise in LP sales may be related to the LP package being a physical/tangible object that's interesting to have for itself. Certainly, if you're going to pick a CD vs. a vinyl LP as an interesting physical object, the LP wins. Bigger covers, more interesting art possibilities - the whole drill. But...

I wrote a while ago about how the RIAA made music ownership a negative value. I think that's still pretty much true, for digital.

But I don't think that perception ever reached vinyl. Vinyl had been written off by the time the RIAA swung into self-destructive smashy smashy. And I'm wondering if vinyl still caries a weight of ownership that digital no longer does.

I mean, I just had a friend of mine who has never owned a turntable and is the opposite of a hipster say she's thinking of getting one. This shouldn't be ignored.

The downside for the artist, of course, is that LPs are a lot more expensive to make - particularly for indies. And smaller living spaces mean less space for storage of any kind of stuff, including LPs. That's a limiting factor, and while it might become less of one as housing stock rebalances, that rebalancing is a longer cycle, and probably won't come early enough to matter.


or somebody will find a way to make it their job

The second statement I take from these graphics is that the industry - as of 1st half 2014 - is still both sinking and on fire. That Forbes chart shows year-to-year revenue changes in stark numbers - down categories at $-394m (downloads, CS, synchronisation, others) vs. up categories at $+231m (streaming, vinyl) year-to-year.

That's a $163m revenue loss. I certainly don't see how vinyl can staunch that much bleeding. And the streaming revenue gains - while obviously more substantial, and where the industry is betting its future - don't even make up for the drop in paid downloads. They're just cannibalising their own revenue streams.

We're still living in a post-scarcity environment. And there's no rearrangement of desk chairs that can change that fact. Delay the repercussions a little, sure; stop them, no.

Me, I want to release something on Edison cylinder. It can in fact be done; there's a company in the UK doing it. And wow, it's expensive. But if, you know, 20 people want to go in at $50/each for cylinders, I will do it. I will do it in a heartbeat.

No? Yeah, I didn't think so either. XD

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This is Part 11 of Music in the Post-Scarcity Environment, a series of essays about, well, what it says on the tin. In the digital era, duplication is essentially free and there are no natural supply constraints which support scarcity, and therefore, prices. What the hell does a recording musician do then?

Last call for the Secret Blog Discount sale! All pay things on Bandcamp - meaning all music, and both Free Court of Seattle novels in paperback - are 25% off with this checkout code which expires TODAY!

     happybird2015

But! There's a surprise sale on Amazon for author Angela Highland's other books. Carina Press didn't notify her, they just did it. So if you're interested in her other series - the Rebels of Adalonia novels - Valor of the Healer is a staggering 99¢ right now. G'wan, get it - at 99¢, it's not even really splurging.

Echoed from Crime and the Blog of Evil

I’ve been thinking more about Google/YouTube’s new music streaming service terms – the ones that require your whole library, that require 320bps source, that require five year terms, and so on. I wrote about it last week, talking about how Google is letting the old labels dictate away crowdfunding rewards and the like.

But I’ve been doing more thinking since that. It’s been churning in my brain. And I’ve realised the five-year term, the 320bps requirement, and whole library thing have a combined intent.

And that intent is to take away literally every last music sale you might make. As in, every last music sale.

It’s not presented as such, of course. I think they want artists to think of it as radio that pays. But two of the big streaming service problems have been 1. quality (smaller concern) and 2. stability of material (huge concern). All the television streaming services, for example, have been plagued by shows getting yanked on and off and moving around. Customers find that annoying.

Meanwhile, you have the label involvement, discussed before. They were, from all reports, pretty tightly into this new set of terms. And one of the big problems for the labels the last several years has been the rise of indie artists. The crowdfunding/long-tail model has given indie artists something more to live on, ways to make money outside of the label ecosystem.

This solves both sets of “problems.” Think about it:

Google will have everything you do for five years, listen-anytime, at functionally CD quality. They’ll have everything, and they’ll have it first, at optimal quality. What’s that mean?

It means Google/YouTube Music service members will have no reason to buy any goddamn thing from any artist which is on the service. No more early-access advantages to entice crowdfunding backers. No more deep tracks on albums to discover. No more alt-takes, no more remixes, no more mailing-list exclusives – Google will have it all. Not exclusively, of course! But they’ll have it.

If I’m reading this right, then even if you hold out on them – you don’t upload some tracks, in violation of the agreement – if and when somebody else does, and they identify it as yours, they’ll add it to the service automatically. Tell me I’m wrong (even though I’m not) because that’s what this sounds like:

So even if you don’t explicitly deliver us every single song in your catalog if we have assets and they are fingerprinted by content ID to contain that music then it will be included to the subscription service…
        — Zoë Keating’s Google rep., in conversation with Zoë

Which means there’s no more reason to buy anything from you. No reason for anyone to deal with you at all.

Five years is a long time. There will be no long tail – at least, not for you. It’s all going to them. Five years is also plenty long enough to keep you locked in once you figure all this out. And five years is more than long enough to try to make this the new standard.

That’s the point of this whole contract. To take everything else away, and thereby, to reinstate a kind of 1971, one managed by making both unlimited internet distribution and piracy completely irrelevant.

I have to say – it’s brilliant. It end-runs around the post-scarcity environment entirely, by co-opting it. The pirates and illegal uploaders will make sure your entire catalogue is up there, even if you hold out, and it’ll be included whether you like it or not – it’s genius!

Meanwhile, they’re “giving the music away” so you can’t make any money on it, stopping you from being able to reward patrons and backers so you can’t make any money there either, and tossing you a sharecropper’s pittance in ad revenue as a reward. And even that is a pittance you can never hope to make on your own. You don’t – and can’t – have the numbers.

It’s a plan that takes away the entire internet/indie route as they understand it. It’s to make them – both the old labels and Google, in alliance – the only viable path. It’s a plan to make it so that once again, you have to go through them.

And we all know what that has always meant, don’t we?

Run. Run like hell.
 
 

Additional Reading:

• We Believe the Cellist: Google’s Smear Campaign against Zoë Keating and All Independent Artists
• Zoë Keating Fights YouTube to Control Her Music and Reputation

#WeBelieveTheCellist

 

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This is Part Eleven of Music in the Post-Scarcity Environment, a series of essays about, well, what it says on the tin. In the digital era, duplication is essentially free and there are no natural supply constraints which support scarcity, and therefore, prices. What the hell does a recording musician do then?

Mirrored from Crime and the Blog of Evil. Come check out our music at:
Bandcamp (full album streaming) | Videos | iTunes | Amazon | CD Baby

Since it’s been announced, I can confirm: I have accepted an invitation to be Toastmaster at Conflikt 9, January 29-31, 2016. It’s my first GoH position at any convention, and as I’ve been saying, I am confused but honoured to have been selected and I will do my best to be a good one.

Conflikt Chair Jen Kilmer asked me to pick my personal Toast title, as is tradition; previous officeholders have been Toastmistresses, Toastmaster both standard and burnt, and Toastmonsters; I have chosen Toastmuppet. Expect inordinate amounts of Kermitflail, starting right now:

The release concert on Sunday was pretty much amazing, at least from our end. We never did manage to have a rehearsal with everyone at once, but it didn’t seem to hurt us too badly on stage. A lot of people stayed through Sunday afternoon to hear us, and I cannot thank all of you enough for that.

And hoo, I will never complain about setup time for other bands again. Okay, well, I will. But not as much. We took over an hour, and that was as simplified as I could make it, and with all the advance material I could hand over handed over, and nobody screwing around.

And, of course, once again, thanks to everyone: Alexander James Adams (drums, vocals, backing fiddle), Paul Campbell (hammer dulcimer), Jeri Lynn Cornish (cello, bones, chorus), Angela Korra’ti (flute, readings), Leannan Sidhe (vocals), Skellington (lead fiddle), Betsy Tinney (drums), and S.J. Tucker (bass, chorus). It would quite literally have been impossible without you.

OH at #Conflikt8 "was everyone on stage either a Pixie or a Criminal?" @solarbirdy @ConfliktFrog @TrickyPixieBand

— SJ Tucker (@s00j) February 2, 2015

Highlights of the convention – hoo, I dunno, it’s hard to pick. Alec’s show was great, and not in that “as always” way, there was something extra in the energy that night. Having the rest of Tricky Pixie on for a few songs probably didn’t hurt anything. The PDX Broadsides won Saturday’s concert set, no doubt – they’re much better live than in their older recordings. (I haven’t heard the new album yet tho’ – I only heard old demos.) I’m so glad I’m having them in for nwcMUSIC this year. Oh wait, that’s still technically embargoed, lol. Regardless, they’re really good live. And Stringapalooza’s set on Sunday was the tightest thing I’ve ever heard at a convention, they were amazing.

I stayed through the near-very-end of the dead dog/smoked salmon; I like leaving while there are one or two holdouts still holding out, so I don’t feel like it’s really over even though it is. And there were two, and a couple of others who were just there to listen, at around 1am Monday morning, so I packed out before they could change their minds. Sunday night is particularly good as far as I’m concerned, because I’ll do any damn thing, and that includes the relevant-for-20-minutes-thanks-a-lot-guys Doctor Who song I wrote in 2013* and have performed live never, a cappella DEVO tracks, and pretty much anything anyone asks me for, rehearsed or not. I will just do the thing. And it’s great.

Also, this happened – thanks Tom!

S00j wrote a really relevant post about Conflikt and Filk in general, particularly as its position in the geek hierarchy, and you should go read it. She touches quite directly on some of the things I’m trying to address indirectly through the way I feature filk as the founding pillar of geekmusic, and the way I talk about the punk nature of their hands-on/DIY aesthetic, and the participatory culture foundation underlying all of that.

Definitely worth reading. Give it a little thought.

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*: it was pretty good, too.

Mirrored from Crime and the Blog of Evil. Come check out our music at:
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So Bone Walker is genuinely ready to go in download form. We’re holding the full release (iTunes, CD Baby, all that) until the book is ready too, closer to the CD release show at Conflikt.

HOWEVER! We realised over the weekend that since we are ready, it’s unfair to keep it back from the Kickstarter backers who have been waiting so long. And since the easiest way to get that sorted was to hand it out through Bandcamp, we’re gone ahead and made the Bandcamp edition LIVE.

Final Wraparound Cover

Yep, THE BANDCAMP VERSION OF BONE WALKER IS COMPLETE AND DOWNLOADABLE NOW. You can also still pre-order CDs, and one of you who pre-order the physical CD will get the little bonus we mentioned before. If you pre-ordered the CD already, you should have mail and download codes in your inboxes.

We aren’t ramping this monster up through the roof yet – the big event will be the book and album at the same time, and all that, and there’ll be the show and it will be awesome, like y’do. But the Kickstarter people have been incredibly patient, and sitting on it another couple of weeks just seemed rude.

It would be really nice if you post a review or comments if you let us know. That would be really excellent of you.

Mirrored from Crime and the Blog of Evil. Come check out our music at:
Bandcamp (full album streaming) | Videos | iTunes | Amazon | CD Baby