styleovercontent

3liza: playstationgirl: I don’t understand, why are you...

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:12:22 -0500

playstationgirl:

I don’t understand, why are you insulting and calling this person a piece of garbage when their argument makes sense?

Just because it is not the technical definition of ‘stealing’, it doesn’t mean you aren’t taking away their profits from what they made. As an artist, 3liza, you would be pissed if someone found a picture of your art on the internet and then reproduced it for their own profit, or if people never bought anything to support you because it was readily available on the internet.

Again, you can fly off the handle and say that we’re supporting ACTA, MMPA, whatever but in reality we’re not - we’re just saying that this is the consequence of illegal pirating & downloading of property by consumers that takes away from the profits of those creating it (regardless of their economic status, and whether they ‘need it’ or not).

It makes sense - if you steal and pirate everything, soon someone’s going to get pissed and trying to stop you doing it. It doesn’t mean that you’re ‘human garbage’. It means you see the logical conclusion, and can understand why it would happen. It doesn’t mean you support what ACTA proposes, it means you support a better way of doing it.

This argument would make sense IF Megaupload, PirateBay, et al had been selling copies of illegally-reproduced music for profit. Which they aren’t. Internet pirates do not pirate media to make money, and to claim as much is incredibly disingenuous, just as it is disingenous to claim that the corporations that control an artist’s work are doing it “for the artists” instead of as a way to immorally profit from the work of actual creators.

Then you attempt to tell me what I want, “as an artist”. Let me tell you something about being an artist. As an artist, my stuff is widely available on the internet. I make sure of it. Anyone can download my work and print it and hang it on their walls to be enjoyed, which is exactly what sites like PirateBay are doing for musicians. And yet, because I make a good product that people like, and because people want to support me as an artist, they still buy my paintings. It’s fuckin’ BONKERS, I know!

By your logic, since photos of my paintings and JPEGs of my digital drawings are available in high resolution for free online, no one should ever spend money on me again. And yet…

Here, I’ll just let Mr. Gabe Newell, CEO of the intensely-profitable game company Valve Software, let you know how things work “for artists”:

We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. For example, if a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24/7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country three months after the U.S. release and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate’s service is more valuable.

Most DRM solutions diminish the value of the product by either directly restricting a customer’s use or by creating uncertainty. Our goal is to create greater service value than pirates, and this has been successful enough for us that piracy is basically a non-issue for our company. For example, prior to entering the Russian market, we were told that Russia was a waste of time because everyone would pirate our products. Russia is now about to become our largest market in Europe.

Our success comes from making sure that both customers and partners feel like they get a lot of value from those services. They can trust us not to take advantage of the relationship that we have with them.

We usually think of ourselves as customer centric rather than production centric. Most of our decisions are based on the rapidly evolving opportunities to better serve our customers, and not on optimizing to be a better game company or digital distributor. The latter focus would be more of a straitjacket than conceptual aid.

Your argument is that human civilization deserves to be punished by corporate monopolies because someone copied a Radiohead album. That the removal of profit from megacorporations by consumers fed up with paying $25 for an album, (maybe $2 of which goes to the actual artist), is punishable with global criminalization.

But the radical idea that people will buy a product that isn’t shitty, and doesn’t come with a bunch of humiliating DRM bullshit, and is easy to purchase, and not prohibitively expensive, is not an argument that you or your buddy n8tacles or the MPAA or the RIAA is willing to listen to.

The fact that I am an artist, that I am directly “at risk” of “losing money” because someone “stole my work”, and that I’m still not interested in having my copyrights “protected” by these motherfuckers, means something.

sortilega: top albums of 2011

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 16:22:32 -0500

All in all, 2011 was a good year for music, particularly innovative re-imaginings of darker electronic genres. Last year’s fringe revival of early goth, industrial, postpunk, and new wave began to coalesce into something more substantive, particularly the tongue-in-cheek “witch house” genre that began as a bedroom- and Internet-based phenomenon. This openness and experimentation led to standout debuts from Holy Other and Balam Acab, while a certain retro-futurist aesthetic culminated in projects like Laurel Halo, Funerals, Austra, the Soft Metals, and others. New beat and analog synths have caught the imagination of a range of musicians and producers, leading to a resurgence in bleak but danceable minimal wave, such as The Present Moment and Xeno & Oaklander.

In some ways, the most exciting part of new music in 2011 was the increasing willingness to ignore longstanding genre differences, and find creative ways to combine influences that might’ve seemed incompatible a decade ago. I wouldn’t necessarily describe this as a blurring of musical boundaries, but more as an openness to beat structures, sounds, samples, and techniques that push old genres in new directions. These included influences from dubstep, drone, R&B, drag, shoegaze, hip hop, early industrial and EBM, synth pop, 70s psychedelia, and noise rock — which is largely to say, a lot of bands wanted to be Suicide. Rather than rehash past sounds, though, an emerging generation is reworking them in contemporary ways, often pursuing a lo-fi, minimal, or psychedelic sensibility. Highlights in this vein included HTRK, Clams Casino, Grouper, and Water Borders.

The post-dubstep moment similarly seems to be solidifying its direction, with heavy bass lines fusing with the sparseness of minimal techno and tech house. The catch-all term “bass music” suggests a hesitance to pin down or define this trend too narrowly, but at the forefront were artists like Zomby, Egyptrixx, and Nguzunguzu.

Below are my top ten albums, plus nearly as many that are really worth checking out. Some of the year’s notable labels included Tri Angle, Captured Tracks, Night Slugs, and even Ghostly International, while 4AD seems poised for a revival with the Zomby full-length and a forthcoming album in 2012 from Grimes.

1. Holy Other — With U EP, Tri Angle
Ghostly and hypnotic, Holy Other is one of the highlights of so-called “witch house,” melding dark electronic dance music with drag, R&B, and other influences.

2. Zomby — Dedication, 4AD
Taking cues from the eerie grittiness of early dubstep and garage, Zomby’s latest full-length brings together grime, synth, and other electronic dance genres in novel ways, pushing bass music in the right direction.

3. HTRK — Work (work, work), Ghostly International
Slow, spare, ambient noise rock, with a lo-fi sensibility (pronounced Hate Rock).

4. Laurel Halo — King Felix EP, Hippos in Tanks
Psychedelic “avant” synth-pop, with vocals that recall the dreamy ethereal rock of the Cranes, the Cocteau Twins, and 90s labels like Tess.

5. Egyptrixx — Bible Eyes, Night Slugs
Tech-y bass music from UK label Night Slugs, proving that there is life after dubstep.

6. Funerals — Marae EP, Tundra Dubs
http://soundcloud.com/funeralsfunerals/
Driving, catchy electro/synth wave, describing themselves as “Midnight-techno.”

7. Austra — Feel It Break (LP), Domino
Shoegazing analog synth wave that made a bit of a splash when the trio debuted, first with the single “Beat and the Pulse” in 2010, then with the full length “Feel It Break” in 2011. Lush, romantic, and beat-driven yet experimental.

8. Balam Acab — Wander / Wonder, Tri Angle
Slow, dreamlike, and haunting, Balam Acab represents one of the break-out acts of witch house/drag, with glitchy clicks and hisses that seem to bubble up from deep under water, gauzy lo-fi vocals, and spare, syncopated beats.

9. Widowspeak — Widowspeak, Captured Tracks
Lo-fi guitar-based dream pop, with plenty of reverb and hazy vocals, on a promising debut record.

10. The Soft Moon — The Soft Moon, Captured Tracks
Compelling post-punk from San Francisco.

Worth mentioning:

Clams Casino — Rainforest, Tri Angle
Sludgy, experimental, hip-hop-based electronic music.

Grouper — A I A : Alien Observer / A I A : Dream Loss
Spaced-out, droning, noisy acoustic ambient music with dreamlike vocals.

Nguzunguzu — Timesup EP, Fade to Mind
Future bass from LA.

Water Borders — Akko EP; Habored Mantras, Tri Angle
Experimental electronic music from San Francisco.

Soft Metals — Soft Metals, Captured Tracks
“The Cold World Melts” EP from 2010 was one of my favorite minimal/synth wave albums of last year — chilly, spare, and very danceable — and the new full-length is worth checking out.

The Present Moment — Loyal to a Fault, Mannequin
Dancey minimal/coldwave with driving beats, melodic synthpop vocals, and lots of analog synths. The last.fm tags are especially entertaining for this — “broken-clash,” “crunkgaze,” “death disco,” “ghost step,” “witch chill,” and “trianglecore,” to name a few.

Com Truise — Cyanide Sisters EP; Galactic Melt, Ghostly International
Synthesizer-based chillwave.

Ford & Lopatin — Channel Pressure, Software/Mexican Summer
Retro 80s electronic pop that experiments with and reworks nostalgia for the VHS era.

Mushy — Faded Heart, Mannequin
Experimental, ambient darkwave from Italy.

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-11-13)

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 07:53:24 -0500

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-11-13):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-11-6)

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 23:38:58 -0500

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-11-6):

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My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-10-16)

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 13:08:22 -0400

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-10-16):

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My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-10-9)

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 06:58:04 -0400

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-10-9):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

disculture: ✞ ✞ ✞ Saturday, October 15, 2011 ✞ ✞ ✞ ✞ ✞ ✞ ...

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 01:42:26 -0400

disculture:

✞ ✞ ✞ Saturday, October 15, 2011 ✞ ✞ ✞
✞ ✞ ✞ SUB/Mission Artspace SF ✞ ✞ ✞

♡ C E R E M O N I A L D A G G E R ♡

✇ ∆ A I M O N ✇

☠ T E X T B E A K ☠

◊ DJ SETS BY ◊

✓ Nako [120 Minutes/Shutter]

✓ Bobby Peru [Sick Sad World/Booze Wazi]

Bands & Tundra will have merch available (7”, tapes, CDs, etc) so bring extra cash!

SUB/Mission has a bar and DOES card at the door. It’s 18+ to enter and 21+ drink.

Sat. 10/15/2011
SUB/Mission Artspace, SF (2183 Mission Street (between 17th and 18th)
9pm-2am
$5 at the door

http://tundradub.bandcamp.com/
http://facebook.com/tundradubs

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-10-2)

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 20:40:07 -0400

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-10-2):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-9-25)

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 11:39:42 -0400

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-9-25):

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My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-9-18)

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 20:50:15 -0400

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-9-18):

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My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-9-11)

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 06:52:54 -0400

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-9-11):

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My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-9-4)

Sat, 10 Sep 2011 11:20:06 -0400

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-9-4):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-8-28)

Sun, 04 Sep 2011 02:27:56 -0400

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-8-28):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-8-21)

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 16:55:10 -0400

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-8-21):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

postdubstep: And let’s just enjoy some innovative electronic...

Wed, 06 Jul 2011 02:51:19 -0400

postdubstep:

And let’s just enjoy some innovative electronic music.

PBR&B! I’m sold.

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-7-3)

Wed, 06 Jul 2011 01:08:46 -0400

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-7-3):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

alyssapandaeyes: Triangle and Cross Tote by PANDA EYES...

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 00:49:41 -0400

alyssapandaeyes:

Triangle and Cross Tote by PANDA EYES SHOP

need this asap.

guccigoth: Damir Doma Womens pre-collection SS12/// Via the...

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 17:23:31 -0400

guccigoth:

Damir Doma Womens pre-collection SS12///

Via the lovely dirtyflaws. I love Damir Doma’s earth-tone pieces so much, and especially the idea of a comfortable summer robe-dress.

re:finery summer sale extended, ending today!

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 15:45:05 -0400

today’s the final day of the sale, please spread the word! 20% off everything in the store with code SOLSTICE2011.

re:finery specializes in handmade/remade items, including shredded tee-shirts and tops and leather and chain accessories. all items are made with repurposed/recycled materials as much as possible, for sustainable fashion.

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-6-26)

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 13:00:40 -0400

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2011-6-26):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz