Free - a critique of a book i've not read

so i felt really out of touch, with the slew of free albums out last year, to be charging for bruised pilgrim. i honestly wouldn't have minded giving it away, paying for the pressing out of my own goodwill and effort and lobbing it out to people who i thought would probably appreciate it. which to be fair, is pretty much what i've been doing with most of my copies anyway.

but i think mr. wired longtail is wrong about his 'free' conjecture. and here's why:

there's only two ways to support the 'free' hypothesis (i changed my mind, it's not a conjecture anymore); either by promise of money in the future, or by ad revenue.

in terms of promise of money in the future, imagine every band gave their albums away for free until they were popular enough to sell their music. anytime that a band got to that point, not enough people would buy the paid-for album - they'd switch away in droves to all the music that was still free, or just pirate the paid-for albums, since they were so used to free music.

in terms of ad revenues - come on. maybe on the internet, but a) i can't see band websites having banner ads that cover the cost of hosting, let alone recording and promoting music, and b) where's all this money going to come from? who are these adverts for? at some point, somewhere along the line, someone must be transacting some money, so this point regresses into an infinite loop.

maybe if the people who are selling their wares spend all their profit on advertising through the people who are giving stuff away for free... ah this is just stupid. you either do it for free, or you don't. the free economy is a con.

you can tell it's a recession

i wandered into the photocopier room and heard an advert break on the radio. something you can imagine i don't hear very often.

the first was american express: it's not just for posh stuff! you can use it to pay for burger and chips!

the second was for bt landlines: calling your parents is so much more special on a landline.

i feel sorry for landlines. i agree, there's something nice about tucking yourself into your cosy chair next to the immobile phone and just sitting and talking, without the option of getting up. having a little space just for calling friends and family.

but that's not the point. both adverts sounded so desperate. imagine, amex trying to shake their elitest image. bt, trying to convince people to use one phone instead of the other. these weren't advertising anything new, anything different; it was just broadcast pleading. cheered me up a bit.

bloggy blog blog

so i just laurence's post on fake meat, and thought that's some good bloggage, and read dan's post on january 18th, and thought thaht there's some good bloggage too, and then thought, hey, wasn't i thinking today that i missed my blog?

so i thought i'd write. i've not done that very much because of the pgce, which feels like, to borrow XLR's tagline, 'drowning in ditches of white noise', but not in a good way.

i've been listtening to a lot of old metal recently. earache's peel session 3cd set and choosing death (book). digesting pig destroyer's album 'terrifier' while planning a lesson on volume is an irony not lost on me. reading 'choosing death' is such fun - all these legendary bands were just kids when they started. i mean like 14-16 - you think heavy metal junior is a joke but it's not far from the truth. the brutal truth. they really were just obsessed with extremity above all else, sometimes it all sounds so spinal tap. although the tape trading scene thing that was going on was such a weird thing to have happened. it's all zines and that isn't it? DIY but not localised.

somewhere along the way the band is still limping along, about a practice a month and a gig every two. we're not progressing much, more in stasis. have a couple of new songs, but that's half the amount of this time last year, and that was half again of the year before. actually those weren't even new then, so that's that theory shot down.

i think my favourite album of last year has been euros childs' 'son of euro child'. that might not be surprising coming from me, but i have been his harshest critic too - i don't rate his previous two albums very highly (he doesn't even count 'cheer gone' on his website. well i've got it euros, and i remember it very well. lol - actually i couldn't tell you the name of a single track). i think son of euro child is might be the best tracklisted album since bowie's low, or at least kid a. it's perfectly silly and cynical, fun and moody, joyous and bleak yada yada yada.

basically i'll try and write stuff when i can but i have more ideas than time and i don't have many ideas. xx

copenhagen

watching two small birds fighting for dominance of the food on the bird table.
there's enough for everyone, but they waste their energy on a squabble in the cold.
this is life: singing while the titanic sinks; fighting over scraps; only thinking of their own survival, rather than the survival of life itself.

and i thought, fuck. this is it. this is all their is; this is all life is capable of.

starlings, on the bird table. a whole bloody flock. eating as much as they can. we can clap them away, but they'll only learn that it's not a threat and so stop reacting. they'll eat until they're full, then they'll have as many babies it takes for their babies to be starving to death. the songbirds regulate their population through territory, but the starlings will just breed and breed, they expand to fill their container like a foam. so we just shouldn't feed them, because it doesn't matter how many of them there are. what matters is the diversity of all the different bird species.

we just aren't capable of organising ourselves. and as a result, we'll die. and it makes me want to kill myself right now because there's no progression, there's no liberty, it's a natural law of physics that the energy you get out of a system is less than the energy you put in. in other words, life isn't worth the effort.

having more people in the world isn't better than having fewer people in the world. it's exactly the same, just with more people dying round the edges. and until we have some sort of communal brain, our shitty competition will only kill us all.

thanks copenhagen.

the splurge

books and cds bought since october 5th with bursaries and grants:

choosing death: a history of grindcore and death metal
bad science (again - i gave shell my former copy)
the tiger that isn't: seeing through a world of numbers
this is your brain on music
bonobo: the forgotten ape
mathematics minus fear
the elephant in the classroom
dodgem logic issue one (with free cd)
the filth


genghis tron: board up the house
genghis tron: cloak of love
very impressive.
various: early morning hush
fantastic epic 70s nether-folk compilation
parched: arc
davide tiso out of ephel duath and the erlando belochi who made their remix album do ambient guitar jamming
john lawrence: rainy night
formy gorkys chap in a neil young mood.
various: choosing death soundtrack
not arrived yet, but 80s deathgrind.
various: earache artists at the bbc
a fantastic document of deathgrind peel sessions.

looking back on that, you know, i think i might have just gone a bit far.