David Gerard

A questionable timeline of the evolution of Western dance music.

21 October, 20137 January, 2017 Dance, Writing 0

Thomson Package Holidays have a blog in which they attempted to tell people about music. Despite having perpetuated the stuff myself, I find myself

“Twitter had a music app?”

21 October, 20137 January, 2017 Industry 0

Is the universal refrain of those hearing that Twitter is killing its music app. I live on Twitter and I hadn’t heard of this

A review of the DSM-5 as a dystopian novel.

20 October, 20137 January, 2017 Writing 0

Nothing to do with music, but this review of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition pushed my Ballard buttons. “If

BandHub: The Internet recording studio.

9 October, 201310 September, 2017 Musician 49

Remember Res Rocket Surfer and Google Jam? This one is a new thing to collaborate with people over the Internet. (If you sell your

DistroKid to get your music into the chart stores.

9 October, 201320 October, 2016 Industry 2

If you want to get your stuff onto the chart stores (iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and Google), you can spend a pile of cash (around $40/album) with TuneCore or CDBaby — or rather less cash ($20/year unlimited) with DistroKid. Endorsed by the founders of TuneCore and CDBaby, no less (the latter of whom just uploaded everything he’s ever recorded through DistroKid).

Beethoven’s 9th on Russian doll theremin.

30 September, 201318 September, 2016 Classical, Esoterica 0

From NPR: So here’s Beethoven’s 9th played on 167 theremins built inside Russian dolls. Oh, and wait for the boogie, about 1:20. HT Liam

Slashdot, ha! Reddit, however.

15 September, 20134 September, 2016 Rocknerd 8

So Rocknerd’s latest article is a hit. Slashdot got it a few thousand hits, which my small but clever setup based on WP-Super-Cache coped

Culture is not about aesthetics. Punk rock is now enforced by law.

13 September, 20133 May, 2017 Industry, Musician, Opinion 73

Record companies complain the Internet will destroy music. Musicians complain that they can’t make a living any more. The unsympathetic public, feeling the squeeze themselves, tell them to get a proper job.

The problem isn’t piracy — it’s competition.

Five years of The Quietus.

11 September, 20136 May, 2017 Writing 0

John Doran of The Quietus reminsces about five years of running the site. “I drank so much coffee I felt like I could control

Talk to your children about their shitty taste in music.

8 September, 201320 March, 2017 Writing 6

The whiny emo brat subculture seems to have gotten into Nirvana big time. I cured the older teen of playing In Utero all day

Obscure post-punk good times on Wikipedia.

24 August, 20136 May, 2017 Post-Punk 0

A small amount of fun this week writing up obscurities for Wikipedia: Operation Twilight (UK branch of Les Disques du Crépuscule) and Factory Benelux

The function of music in the workplace.

20 August, 20136 May, 2017 Drugs 0

The Quietus’ first interview with a Professor of Sociology of Work. We spend 40-45 hours at work a week, but if you look at

Also I really like the jangly guitar music used to promote touch screen technology with a mid-range price point.

7 August, 20136 May, 2017 Record 0

Daily Mash: “THE unlimited availability of free music means that an album will not change how you see the world for more than a

The Manual, Hollywood edition.

19 July, 201312 April, 2017 Film 0

There is a Manual for film that sets out precisely what is to happen as closely as The Manual did for pop music. But

The Adventures of Ford Fairlane.

15 July, 20136 May, 2017 Film 0

Must be movie week at Rocknerd. So I was reminded of The Adventures of Ford Fairlane (1990), a thoroughly enjoyable piece of cheese starring

Nick Cave’s ridiculously over-the-top rejected script for Gladiator 2, for your reading pleasure.

12 July, 20136 May, 2017 Film 0

Russell Crowe wanted a followup to Gladiator. So, of course, he called Nick Cave. ‘Cos that’s obviously the first thing you do.

How the B-movie industry works these days.

12 July, 201326 January, 2017 Film 0

A look into Asylum, assembly-line producers of such instant classics as 2-Headed Shark Attack. This century, the market for B-movies is Netflix and the

Nostalgia’s another word for brain rot.

10 July, 201318 September, 2016 Rocknerd 0

I dug through archive.org again and dredged up some more prime Rocknerd. TISM, the crippled CD database (remember when music came on CDs? Hah!),

Dogs In Space by the Quietus.

9 July, 20139 May, 2018 Film 0

Someone outside Australia notices Dogs In Space, specifically Anthony Nield at the Quietus. And of course, you can get the soundtrack album for less

The bowl, the laserbat and how Schoenberg won the twentieth century.

5 July, 20134 September, 2016 Classical 3

The redoubtable Vi Hart produces a brilliant half-hour video on how Schoenberg‘s twelve-tone technique works, and a few examples that demonstrate just where half the background music of the twentieth century came from. Includes discourses on the nature of art, the nature of musical shapes and the reprehensibility of present copyright laws.

Reflections on Rowland S. Howard.

3 July, 20136 May, 2017 Post-Punk 0

Reflections on Rowland from Swamplandzine. I was one of those people going to every Rowland Howard gig I could in Melbourne in the late

Go read Equalizer.

21 June, 20136 May, 2017 Media 0

I have no snappy phrase here, you should just go read shiny new music site Equalizer. Hat-tip to Andrew Bulhak, who brought it to

The Twinkle Variations.

23 May, 20136 May, 2017 Esoterica 0

Scott Bradlee takes you through the history of recorded music, as expressed via “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”.

A Good Friday tale of crucifixion and resurrection. Yes, it’s Tupac Shakur.

29 March, 20136 May, 2017 R'n'B 0

Over on the RationalWiki blog, I’ve got a rundown of Tupac Shakur conspiracy theories. Ironic-as-Alanis given that Shakur hated stupid conspiracy bullshit, and thought

Monty explains how digitising signals actually works.

3 March, 201318 December, 2016 Audio 4

As a followup to his detailed explanation of why 24/192 downloads are complete and utter snake oil, Chris “Monty” Montgomery of Xiph.org has produced

Perfect sound forever! Probably.

21 February, 20136 May, 2017 Audio 3

I’m trying to get a skeptical blog going, in the name of RationalWiki. Yesterday and today I have posted rants about audiophiles: part 1

Memetic archaeology and Nickelback.

16 February, 20131 December, 2016 Media 0

Where did hating Nickelback as a meme come from?

Factory Benelux is alive and well.

17 January, 201329 March, 2017 Post-Punk 0

Old post-punks, raise your walkers in the air and cheer! James Nice of LTM has revived the Factory Benelux label for the ongoing LTM

An evil mob princess with really good hair.

14 January, 20136 May, 2017 Pop 0

Meet Gulnara Karimova, daughter of Uzbekistan president Islam Karimov, attempting to make a name for herself as aspiring pop diva Googoosha. Ex-Soviet dictatorships and

A Lord Horror timeline.

3 January, 201331 March, 2017 Esoterica, Post-Punk 0

Well, that was certainly a thing. I was a teenage Joy Division/New Order obsessive, and for many years I’ve found covers of them inherently