From the bowels of time, Vortex, Perth, December 1986.
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Category: Writing
The way it’s done in books.
Music journalism: still dead, thank goodness.
“Can music journalism exist at all?” “Do Music Journalists Matter Anymore?” I mean, if you have to ask …
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All these streams will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
There is no “cloud”, there’s just someone else’s computer. Will we find a listener who cares?
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1986-87 Perth fanzine Vortex scanned and up on the Party Fears page.
From the bowels of time, we bring you Vortex magazine, Perth 1986-1987.
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Links: World’s dumbest terrorist, procedural music, bogus DMCAs, the editorial dictator.
“First he put the bomb under the ramp instead of the truck, and the other truck was the one with most of the stuff inside.”
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Essays by Post(Graduate)Punk: Crass, Sisters of Mercy, Psychic TV.
Essays, pointers and rambling opinionation on UK punk and post-punk.
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The political event of the day: the Ithaca Psychogeographic Liberation Front issues Articles of Secession.
We secede from irony. Sincerity will pervade even our lies, and especially our lies.
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Links: Storytelling, the rump hi-res streaming consortium, the end of newspaper critics, Jim Bob.
Also, Wikipedia started sixteen years ago today.
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I urge you to back “Monkee Music”, 2nd Edition, by Andrew Hickey. Hurry, hurry!
You should definitely put some money into this Kickstarter.
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Links: Side-Line goes full Nazi, CDDB bought by Nielsen, 23 random Naked Lunch quotes.
Side-Line indulges a straight-up Nazi, Nielsen buys Gracenote metadata, random Burroughs readings from The Naked Lunch.
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Links: Stoner metal, Stevie Wonder, Bill Drummond on punk.
Essays on aesthetics.
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Links: Bandcamp for New Zealand charts, EFF versus the music industry, the productivity of silence.
The important thing is to wear a fetching Skullcandy hat like the one up there.
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Links: Spotify without SoundCloud, 808 classics, the Legendary Pink Dots, millennials.
Spotify rejects SoundCloud again, ten 808 greats, the Legendary Pink Dots and you awful millennials.
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Links: Independent music earnings, Pakistan’s music industry, answering recruiters, Spray.
How much money one musician actually makes striking out as an independent, the Pakistani music industry, responding to recruiters and Ricardo Autobahn and Spray.
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Links: Jon Langford and the Sisters of Mercy, J. G. Ballard’s house, your headphones are listening.
Jon Langford’s time as a part-time g*th, J. G. Ballard’s house is for sale again and your headphones can be used to spy on you.
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Attack of the 50 foot blockchain!
I have finished the raw first draft of the Bitcoin/blockchain book. Current word count 30,410 (or 35,546 if you include the footnotes). This was supposed to be a 15,000 word rant before lunchtime …
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The time has come to listen to Ethernet cables.
The sound with the Pearl becomes lighter and has less impact and detail compared to the Supra. Stereo image shrinks, but more obvious is a reduction in detail. Changing to Cinnamon with only one switch in my network produces a surprising result.
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Links: Burroughs on the presidency, American Pie, Blood on the Tracks.
A beautiful and apposite William S. Burroughs reading, and some classic rock faff.
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Why Blockchain won’t save the music industry, and Imogen Heap wants to spyware you.
The blockchain book I’m writing; a couple of short excerpts from the music section I drafted about half of today.
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Links: The Pop Group, the Birthday Party, Plastic Bertrand, Düsseldorf.
A new Pop Group album (and it’s good!), the last Birthday Party record, the truth about Plastic Bertrand and a book about Düsseldorf.
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J. G. Ballard and music. How to write the entire New Wave into being.
Post-punk’s favourite writer, who didn’t listen to music himself. It’s all about the imagery.
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Links: Negativland, Diamond Rio MP3, Dylan, writing.
The ultimate in merchandising, reviving an old gadget, Dylan as writer, me as writer.
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How to discuss rock music, with German Fall fans.
German Fall fans in a round-table discussion. Be sure to watch to the end.
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Hey, ho! Let’s go! Punk rock links.
Pavarotti’s “Blitzkrieg Bop”, Kill Your Pet Puppy retrospective, a contemporary punk novel, Manchester punk history, Czechoslovak punk history, Scottish post-punk history and a children’s picture book on punk. The secret histories.
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Stephen Witt: How Music Got Free (2015, 2016).
This purports to be the story of the last twenty years of the record industry, told by one of the kids who collected MP3s in his college dorm just before Napster. It isn’t the story of the MP3 revolution, but it is some stories, only one of which is seriously important to the claim in the title. But the details mostly aren’t wrong.
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Fenris Wulf: Loki’s Child (2016 edition). A witty political satire using pop music! I bet you’re delighted already.
Every field has its standard ways to fuck up.
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Links: how Deerful and J. G. Ballard work, how Warner Bros doesn’t, what to do in Norwich afterwards.
Secrets of the stars!
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The Hugos, the Sad Puppies and 1970s science fiction paperback covers, which were ridiculous.
The thing that really struck me about Hugo vote-stackers the Sad Puppies was founder Brad Torgersen’s lament that he could no longer tell from the cover of a science fiction novel what it was about.
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Links: Records and machinery.
Online streaming, ’70s music technology and ’90s record shops.
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David J. of Bauhaus on Alan Moore, interviewed by Elizabeth Sandifer.
David J. Haskins is not just the other guy from Bauhaus, he’s also an old mate and collaborator of comics genius Alan Moore. Here he’s interviewed about Moore and occultist magical workings, with occasional sp00ky stories, by Elizabeth Sandifer.
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