So a lot happened this week.
I got new headphones, but they kind of suck (or maybe I'm just biased to my old Grado's). I'm still working on recording with them anyway. Come hell or high water and other such things.
My therapist and I are trying to figure out why I have this weird discomfort with gay culture and resisting gay stereotypes. I'm trying to wrap my brain around why myself. Fun times.
I'm going to be playing a new song. Like a song I finally finished this night. I forgot my camera, so you won't see it, unless you are here. Which you are not. Unless you are.
I have a bunch of call backs that I'm nervous about, which is par for the course. I also have papers that are choking me to death. That's also nice.
On second thought, maybe I won't play the new song.
I don't know.
This got very weird very quickly.
I've restarted work on Someone's Dreaming (the song, not the EP. I mean, the EP as well, but the song in it specifically titled Someone's Dreaming). I have a drum track that's ghetto as shit. That's fun. I may use it. I'm not walking away from that. u
That u was Becky9
As was the 9.
No video today, because I'm a boring man.
Okay, blog over, return to life as planned.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
On Amanda Palmer, the New Yorker, Communism, and the Oompa-Loompa Defense
If you haven't read the article, please do so here: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2012/10/amanda-palmers-kickstarter-scandal.html
Now, I'm not going to deny a level of personal bias: Amanda Palmer is an inspiration to me as a musician and as a person. I have been a fan of hers since high school, and I will continue to support her work, despite the most recent backlash on her.
That being said, the amount of ignorance and pandering involved in this article is astounding. Joshua Clover handles explaining how a Kickstarter project works as if it were this insidious, bizarre tool used to swindle innocent, and apparently stupid fans into giving her money. He goes on to describe the backlash as Palmer struggling to capitalize on her fans devotion by having them play for free, painting her as this "moustache-twirling boss," apparently out to get rich quick off of her art, citing her using a rather suspiciously titled "Oompa-Loompa Defense," in which, according to her, "If my fans are happy and my audience is happy and the musicians on stage are happy, where’s the problem?”
There is a necessary level of oppression involved for the "happy worker" mindset to work. The Oompa-Loompas themselves were unable to effectively voice their opinions with their work, which is why Wonka was able to assert that they liked it. Her fans are not all living in caves, on in some strange island, and we all speak coherent, modern languages. We have access to the internet, her blog, Facebook, Twitter, and we are all more than happy to voice our opinions of her work. She isn't paying us off to lie, and tell people we're happy "working" for her, so I would just trust that Palmer made that claim in confidence.
This would be a different argument if she was crowdsourcing touring accompaniment. She is asking for local musicians, her fans specifically, to participate in her music. Every action that she has made with this project has been towards lessening the gap between musicians and their audience, and I don't see how paying them to do one show helps that. If anything, it creates a formality, a sense that Palmer isn't interested in the people. Paying them puts her fans in the category of convenient studio musicians, rather than people invested in her work, who want to be on stage with her, who want to play and share this music.
As I said in the beginning, I come from personal bias, and perhaps I am a slack-jawed toady, jumping at cruel Madame Palmer's beck and call, but structurally speaking, nothing in Palmer's behavior has ever suggested an insidious motive, much less one for financial gain. Also, we are talking about music, not accounting or engineering, or construction. I would like to believe that there is a level of joy involved in this act: these musicians are doing what they love, after all.
Now, I'm not going to deny a level of personal bias: Amanda Palmer is an inspiration to me as a musician and as a person. I have been a fan of hers since high school, and I will continue to support her work, despite the most recent backlash on her.
That being said, the amount of ignorance and pandering involved in this article is astounding. Joshua Clover handles explaining how a Kickstarter project works as if it were this insidious, bizarre tool used to swindle innocent, and apparently stupid fans into giving her money. He goes on to describe the backlash as Palmer struggling to capitalize on her fans devotion by having them play for free, painting her as this "moustache-twirling boss," apparently out to get rich quick off of her art, citing her using a rather suspiciously titled "Oompa-Loompa Defense," in which, according to her, "If my fans are happy and my audience is happy and the musicians on stage are happy, where’s the problem?”
There is a necessary level of oppression involved for the "happy worker" mindset to work. The Oompa-Loompas themselves were unable to effectively voice their opinions with their work, which is why Wonka was able to assert that they liked it. Her fans are not all living in caves, on in some strange island, and we all speak coherent, modern languages. We have access to the internet, her blog, Facebook, Twitter, and we are all more than happy to voice our opinions of her work. She isn't paying us off to lie, and tell people we're happy "working" for her, so I would just trust that Palmer made that claim in confidence.
This would be a different argument if she was crowdsourcing touring accompaniment. She is asking for local musicians, her fans specifically, to participate in her music. Every action that she has made with this project has been towards lessening the gap between musicians and their audience, and I don't see how paying them to do one show helps that. If anything, it creates a formality, a sense that Palmer isn't interested in the people. Paying them puts her fans in the category of convenient studio musicians, rather than people invested in her work, who want to be on stage with her, who want to play and share this music.
As I said in the beginning, I come from personal bias, and perhaps I am a slack-jawed toady, jumping at cruel Madame Palmer's beck and call, but structurally speaking, nothing in Palmer's behavior has ever suggested an insidious motive, much less one for financial gain. Also, we are talking about music, not accounting or engineering, or construction. I would like to believe that there is a level of joy involved in this act: these musicians are doing what they love, after all.
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