about the unheard music and so on

So this starting a label thing is looking kinda nuts and might not work. I'm not quitting, but it might not get nearly as far as I was hoping it would. For instance, a friend and I got in touch with a member of a prominent alt-rock band from the nineties. This band member felt that our goal of assembling a retrospective for their group with a focus on rare, live and unreleased recordings was a great idea and one whose time had finally. We started talking, he said he was going to send us some tapes, and we haven't heard from him since. Now, I'm not attacking the guy or trying to give him trouble, as he has his own life and job, so if things got hectic for him I understand. Furthermore, my friend has reiterated that this has happened with this specific band member before and that we'll likely hear back from eventually. So no hard feelings, it could still happen, and there are more ways than one to get the job done, but despite a lot of work on our ends, it's not going anywhere right now. If I could get someone from their old label to answer some phone calls, that might be a different story, but it would help if I knew who I should be calling.

On a somewhat related note, I still get asked why I shut down the site and what is happening. The basic story is things became to difficult to achieve. Sending links was fine, but links only lasted so long, and the files were big, and it was really time consuming to re-up them regularly, and links would get reported despite my best intentions, and torrents weren't a feasible solution. As I've always promised, I'm not quitting, but running the site with it's original goals became fairly difficult to achieve. I'm still working on the final version of the Paul's Boutique Companion which I hope to share around February, but I can't find anyone who can help with the artwork. Otherwise, the second version of the site, the one that had it's own address and such, I paid for it for two years and I'm currently unemployed, so I let it go. I'm sure I can get a good domain name when I need one, but until then I'm just going to post here.

I am thinking about working on a musical restoration project of sorts, one that should be doable, though I don't know how long it could take. To the best of my knowledge, no tape rips are available of the Pixies' original Purple Tape. I know the content has been issued elsewhere, but there are questions as to the mix. The aesthetic and flow changes considerably as well, so I think it needs to be found. The four Mr. Bungle demo tapes are another example of something that needs to be found, though these are around online in decent to awful quality. There have to be copies of those tapes lying around somewhere that could be provided to make high quality, lossless rips of. I know there are others, but those are the first ones that come to mind, and this should be doable, we just have to work on it. If you want to help, drop me a note, because I'm sure I could use some assistance!

Regarding the hunt for lost and rare demo stuff, I'm still occasionally doing clean-up work on tapes, usually with iZotope RX2 Advanced. I just did a little work on the Beastie Boys bootleg known as Original Ill which contains a near-final version of Licensed To Ill, albeit one with their Beatles cover/re-write, I'm Down, and various alternate versions of released tracks. Most of the tracks have no real differences, though some have subtle changes or extra lyrics. Rhymin & Stealin, for instance, has an extra ad-lib towards the end where someone, I believe it's Mike D, says I smoke my crack, a line that Columbia/Sony/Def Jam understandably wanted removed. There's also a version of Fight For Your Right with an extra, unused verse. I might post this somewhere eventually. It's nice that the bootleg is still around and in lossless no less, but the various glitches and sound problems can be easily repaired now, so why not fix it preservation reasons, right?

Okay, that's it for now, I'm going to make Mannwich because Nick Offerman rules. That's not a statement advertising support for Mannwich, though I do like it, but that statement is in support of Nick Offerman because he most certainly does rule. He's married to Megan Mullally, you know. I always had a thing for Karen on Will & Grace. Yes, I am a straight male!

Television, video games and other wastes of time

So the PS4 is shipping with consoles dead on arrival for a number of reasons. This happens whenever a new console launches, but there seem to be a lot of issues this time. Maybe it was rushed manufacturing, unfinished debugging, less than thorough testing, but it certainly looks bad for Sony in the short term. Of course, I'm of the opinion that I'll never trust Microsoft again and refuse to buy an Xbox One after all their attempts at removing control from the user base. Regarding that, I'm just thrilled that the gaming community listened and reacted so fiercely to Microsoft's assumption that they were vegetables who would never notice their rights being taken away. So I won't buy another Microsoft console, and I'm sure I'm not the only one that feels that way, but it doesn't mean Sony will win the war. There's plenty of time for the victor to be decided, and that decision will be influenced by price, catalog, exclusives, console features and hardware stability. Since the new Xbox launches today, we'll hear what users think of it soon enough. Though this begs further questions, like whether there will be enough of a change from current generation consoles to justify gamers moving to next generation ones. Arguably, there are enough, but still, this isn't comparing a Nintendo NES to a first gen Playstation. These devices have been glorified computers for years, so all these new machines truly are are consoles with more ram, hard drive space and connectability. I know people like some of the newer gaming features like hands-free controls and online multiplayer, but die hard gamers are either hot or cold about those add-ons, never luke-warm. Myself, I generally don't do hands-free games, with exceptions like Wii bowling and such as they are fun and easy to play with friends and family with no one trying to kill each other. I guess I'm old-school when it comes to multiplayer because if I don't know who I'm playing with or I can't be in the same place as everyone else, why bother? A decade ago, I was in a group of friends that got together every Sunday night and connected our first gen Xboxes so we could do multiplayer Halo. I sucked at it, but no one cared because we were having fun and hanging out. It's nice to have my friends online, but that doesn't beat the experience of hanging out. Maybe it's time to just skip this generation of consoles. My money is on the Steam "boxes" that will be dedicated to gaming only, easy to upgrade and easy to bring wherever you go. If they're cheaper than whatever Sony and Microsoft will be selling, they lose. That said, I'll always have a place in my heart for Nintendo, no matter how bad they screw up.

On to another popular waste of time, I don't watch much television these days, mostly because everyone around me hates it when I do and I don't enjoy watching alone. Their disdain for my presence is cemented by two facts, first that I can pull shows apart by pointing out their flaws, although in my defense I don't do that often and it is the lesser of the evils. The real issue though is that I can predict plotlines from the outset of the program. Give me a few minutes to establish the characters and the reasons for the presence and I can tell you most of their secrets and reasons for their actions. This doesn't work all the time, as shows like The Mentalist can have ridiculous plot twists that only the creators could know, but shows I love like The Closer or Major Crimes, I generally reveal their secrets by the first commercial. It's fun for me, since I feel like I'm being challenged to figure it out before the end, and then I find out of if I was right, close or completely wrong. Where this makes me nuts though is with programs like Scandal and, to a lesser degree, Grey's Anatomy. There are both Shonda Rhimes' productions, and while Grey's does a pretty good balancing job of maintaining their story arcs, there have been so many characters that have left quickly, never come back, never been referred to again, done incredibly stupid things only because they could, suddenly added to the cast, made important despite their questionable natures and just ignored the logic they've spent years building to show who they are that it makes me nuts. I'm sure the argument is that this is how real life is sometimes, but I beg to differ, as life is easier far more complicated or way easier than the situations they pose. I'm not even going to get into specifics, but if you know the show then you know what I'm talking about. And before anyone asks, yes, I watch it, and I used to really like it, though I mostly watch it now because my woman does. As for Scandal though, you've got great characters, you've got detailed storylines, you've got intense plots twists, but you've got weird plot holes here and there that make me want to kill. Why is the girl who keeps asking Huck all the stupid questions still alive? Why didn't he kill her? Why point out details like whose hand appears in a fake political commercial intended to persuade a political adversary to toughen up but not mention the character mentioning the non-existent commercial in a televised interview? Wouldn't you think that mentioning something that doesn't really exist as the impetus for their new found fury would bring unwanted attention to those parties in the show's universe? Why can't the President discuss the true details of secret actions he has participated in with the woman he calls all the time and had an affair with despite being married and was his political fixer and still gives him advice? Presidents, no matter what their amount of insulation, are humans and do stupid human things. You can't tell me everyone else on the show does them but the President wises up when people who are in his trusted circle start talking about important things that could hurt him. You also can't hint that the father of the President and First Lady's child is the President's father if it happened fifteen years earlier and the child was only conceived in the last four or five years. Who are they fooling? Am I obsessed? Am I out of my mind?

Okay, I'm not out of my mind, but I'm focusing to much energy on these points. The real reason for bringing this up is that I feel if you're going to spend the time and money to write an incredibly detailed show, you should try to have less plot holes. Not everyone watches crap like How I Met Your Mother, not everyone will follow it's nutty plot to the end of time, and not everyone really cares for 2 Broke Girls. Also, people still find The Big Bang Theory funny despite it jumping the shark a few times, be it their fault or not. I know I do. My woman tells me to suspend my disbelief, but that's a lot easier when things aren't meant to be realistic. Lost was easy to trip into, and the first season of Desperate Housewives comes to mind as a pleasant jaunt towards unreality, but if you show me your original program based on reality is more nutty than the real world, then I'm just not with you. That's the kind of thing that kills once good programs like Law & Order: SVU or the original Law & Order. I don't know where they think the intelligent viewers have gone, but the only reason they've left is because they're not being treated like the intelligent people they are.

God, I'm a whiny baby sometimes.

Porn. It's not as much fun as it used to be. Whatever happened to the series where the actors seemed to be having fun and not just giving scripted grunts and moans? Am I the only person that remembers and misses the original Shane's World series? No offense to whomever makes them now, but it's just not the same. If I want to watch people copulating, I'd like a more convincing sense of illusion that they're enjoying each other. Even scripted porn in the eighties often achieved this feat, with Alex de Renzy's films coming to mind. Asia Carrera, Kobe Tai, Stephanie Swift, Desiree Cousteau, Candie Evans and many more classic porn stars were good actresses (at least by porn standards, though Asia is quite excellent in her own right) and actually seemed to enjoy their antics to some degree. There are porn stars that seem to enjoy their field of expertise and perform with more conviction than others, but filming everything like a mechanized excuse to get every required position on film along with a huge cum shot to top it off just isn't much fun to watch. I want a return to spontaneity! Where is such a thing? Please, world, tell me! But don't show me, I'll find it if you tell me. Last thing I want is someone "showing me" where to find porn. Finding your porn is a private, if not solitary, exercise in maintaining your mindstate. Go ahead, argue that point, we can have a good discussion about it.

Music, money, freedom and stuff

So, many people who know me are aware I've always wanted to start a record label. It's not that I want to be a mogul or rip off artists, rather I was hoping to share music I love with the world. It's becoming easier to do the sharing part, but it's still far from perfect and no one makes money off of sharing alone. The idea of free music is great, but I have to wonder what it really does for the creators and their contemporaries. Take Death Grips for example, three of their albums have been made available for free. You can now purchase two of those albums in selected formats, but you can still get the originally shared versions for free. Are they making their money elsewhere? Yes, they probably are, so are they making the music simply because it's what they love to do? I suppose they could, but it's clear they want to make money. They may not care to be rich beyond their wildest imaginations, but they would almost certainly like to be well-off. I'm going to say that there is nothing wrong with that, though I'm sure if the right person reads this they'll argue I'm an idiot. Whatever.

Free music is kind-of over. It doesn't really benefit anyone. Executives at record labels in the late nineties and early two-thousands said this devaluing of the product was bad, and to an extent they were right, but probably not for the reasons they stated. Giving something away can be a good thing, especially in moderation. Give a taste of what is to come and you may have people lining up in droves. They've been doing it with video games, movies and music for years via demos, trailers, radio & television, and reviews, but when you can get the most current music or movie in a compressed format, why wait for the sample? The compressed format isn't quite as good as the real thing, but most people don't care. As for video games, people are able to get them the day they're released or earlier and they are equal to what is being sold. So why bother? Well, people still buy things, and there is science to argue that people who pay for what they want will respect it and take more time to enjoy or study it. There is a new generation of game publishers providing their content at far more agreeable prices than the $50 to $60 dollar instant mark-up for something not worth that. The same can be said of musicians, filmmakers and writers. People still want the physical product, something they can take note of, they just don't want to pay so much that some executive's children's children's children will be able to purchase multiple mansions years later without worry. It was different when we didn't have easier, less expensive distribution methods, so businesses have to accept that things are changing, just like the artists are doing.

So, why should I start a label? Because there are people who make music and should get paid for what they create. There are people that will take note of anyone whose release is distributed by a label of any sort over the local Bandcamp merchandiser. Is that fair? No, but it's a fact.

But... what about things that are out of the legal jurisdiction that are noteworthy? Records, films, books, video games, etc. Why can't the creators get them published? Why can't fair agreements be made regarding these releases? I have to wonder if John Oswald could have gotten the original plunderphonic released legally if he simply gave all the publishing to the original artists? He wasn't making any money off of it to begin with, but would the authors of the samples have said "free money!" and been agreeable about it then? Would multiple sample sources have complained that they deserve more money than others despite smaller contributions? Would lawyers and idiots fight over unrealistic payments for their artists? I can see the negatives happening easier than the positives, but positive things happen for more frequently than people give them credit for occurring. So why not give up the publishing in an agreeable method and keep some of the income? Is that so terrible? It's not necessarily good for people who are trying to make millions of dollars, with rappers and pop-stars being easy examples and targets for suggestion, but if they're serious about their art they can get it heard, or if it's been lingering in obscurity for ages, blocked by legal issues and complications, why not? Hell, what's wrong with making a profit? You can be successful without being the biggest business in the world. The biggest ones stay big by working with the smaller ones, and the smaller ones still keep more of their income at the end of the day, so why not? And of course, if you're not sampling Beatles or Rolling Stones records or whatever and instead making your own works, you could keep almost all of it. Isn't that a concept?

And if you really can't come to an agreement with the powers that be, you can just give it away and be done with it, at least in America. If you need a reason for "free" to be an option, there it is.

So what does all of this mean? It means I'm still trying to start a record label and maybe trying it differently. Maybe it's possible to share plunderphonic with the masses after all, or at least the masses that want it on vinyl or CD with liner notes.

I guess this brings up one other question though, and it's a big one. If it was okay for a big label to sell a good amount of records back in the sixties, seventies and eighties, why is it bad to return to that concept? Major labels may be realizing it's not 1999 and longer, but they're still fighting like it is, trying to get their pre-packaged pop-stars to the top of the charts. There will always be room for that, but when will they stop acting like everyone can become the next big thing? If you're making a profit and everyone gets paid, isn't that good enough? Of course it can get better, but that's a pretty great place to be if I'm not mistaken.

Anyone think I should do a kickstarter? Anyone think copyright trolls should be shot? I'm looking at the estate of Marvin Gaye, TufAmerica and ABKCO here, at least for starters. Anyone think I should be shot?

Whitey says NO

Nathan Joseph White, better known to the music community as Whitey, posted a fantastic e-mail earlier today. I'll just let you read the unfettered brilliance. For more info on Whitey, visit his Bandcamp page and Wikipedia reference.