Hydrgnc

(via doctorwhotvuk) “Water is patient… Water just...

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:45:29 +0000

“Water is patient… Water just waits. Wears down the clifftops, the mountains, the whole of the world. Water always wins.”

"Sixty years ago, a young woman named Mary Douglas studying tribal custom in Africa, came across the..."

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:09:25 +0000

“Sixty years ago, a young woman named Mary Douglas studying tribal custom in Africa, came across the following belief: if a woman had been unfaithful, she risked miscarriage in pregnancy. This was viewed not as bad luck or magic, but as a law of nature, as today we might regard gravity. At the time she thought the tribe primitive, exercising a crude means of asserting power and ignorant of science. Later, Douglas, a celebrated anthropologist, came to the view that their behaviour was not primitive at all but normal in all societies. That is, what we call “risky” is often an expression of disapproval - though we might not be aware that this is what it is - as much as a measure of real danger.”

- BBC NEWS | Magazine | A risky business

"… I think by track sales are not only history, but the wrong way to go. You don’t want people..."

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:39:51 +0000

“… I think by track sales are not only history, but the wrong way to go. You don’t want people making a million cheap decisions, you want them to make one big one, ten bucks a month.”

- Lefsetz Letter » Blog Archive » Streaming

"The problems in the Copyright Wars are not caused by technologies or by consumers acting badly, and..."

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:12:12 +0000

“The problems in the Copyright Wars are not caused by technologies or by consumers acting badly, and they cannot therefore be solved by laws, and certainly not by more draconian laws. The problems—such as the decline in sales of CDs and DVDs—are the result of the copyright industries’ many and considerable failures to focus on satisfying consumers’ desires as opposed to stifling those desires out of a woefully misguided view that copyright equals control and that control equals profits.”

- Record labels keep blaming P2P, but it’s a hard sell - Ars Technica

"She’s not going to win [the] fight [over downloads],” Stone said. “None of us will..."

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:34:22 +0000

““She’s not going to win [the] fight [over downloads],” Stone said. “None of us will win that fight. So let’s just accept it and see it as something that can be beautiful and might change music for the better. It might sort the weeds from the flowers.””

- Joss Stone: Lily Allen is not a singer | Music | guardian.co.uk

"Books, he says, looking at the book in his hand, and sighs. I read a book in nineteen-seventy-three,..."

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:42:29 +0000

“Books, he says, looking at the book in his hand, and sighs. I read a book in nineteen-seventy-three, he tells me… It disturbed me… and I haven’t read one since… Not one.”

- The Bedside Crow: My customer sways in front of the counter like a drunk leaving the pub at midnight.

"The mythology of rock ‘n’ roll is nowhere near as interesting as the reality of creativity."

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:50:03 +0000

“The mythology of rock ‘n’ roll is nowhere near as interesting as the reality of creativity.”

- » Culture Technology music » The Future Of Music is… Indie! (via Dellh)

"The latest approach from the Government will not help prop up an ailing music industry. Politicians..."

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:35:39 +0000

““The latest approach from the Government will not help prop up an ailing music industry. Politicians and music companies need to recognise that the nature of music consumption has changed, and consumers are demanding lower prices and easier access,” said Peter Bradwell, from the think-tank Demos, which commissioned the new poll conducted by Ipsos Mori.”

- Illegal downloaders ‘spend the most on music’, says poll - Crime, UK - The Independent (via loopier)

"I sometimes think there’s a faint melancholy in these zealous new young pop..."

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:07:04 +0000

“I sometimes think there’s a faint melancholy in these zealous new young pop traditionalists/archaeologists that they weren’t around when the music they’re passionate about was on vinyl and had more of a direct impact on the social and cultural environment. This is allied with a sense of apprehension that those comforting old structures and belief systems are insistently collapsing, replaced at the moment with an environment that is fiercely and almost completely commercial, and also a sense of excitement, that there are multiple ways to potentially reach and enthral an audience. At the moment, the music transmitted throughout this radical new commercial environment is reminiscent of music that would have been around twenty, thirty, even forty years go, give or take an amount of techno tweaking and image massaging. This music is aggressively but not necessarily sentimentally nostalgic for when music craved a future, and more recognisably defined various generational anxieties.”

- Paul Morley’s showing off… Frankmusik | Music | guardian.co.uk

"As Oscar Wilde once said, I would rather weigh my press than read it. It doesn’t matter how much..."

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:04:55 +0000

“As Oscar Wilde once said, I would rather weigh my press than read it. It doesn’t matter how much press there is, as long as there’s lots of it. Answering your point on the polarised opinion, I feel that it’s better to be somewhere of an extreme than somewhere very averagely in the middle. The NME review gave me one star, which was a horrific journalist writing these horrible things about me. I found that journalist’s old band, and it was the biggest load of crap I’d ever heard in my life. It’s just people’s opinions. I didn’t start making music because I cared about what anyone thought, so I should carry on that way.”

- Interview – Frankmusik. « Mike Atkinson

caroline: Apparat by Arcadia

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:26:49 +0000

caroline:

Apparat by Arcadia

physical attractions Photo Gallery - Photo 3 of 21 by michael...

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:37:22 +0000

physical attractions Photo Gallery - Photo 3 of 21 by michael mclinn - MySpace Photos

Jamie T - The Man’s Machine : EP Released Nov 23rd...

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:48:44 +0100

Jamie T - The Man’s Machine : EP Released Nov 23rd (via jamietmusic)

Soul, glass, concrete and gravel… all we got to keep us together

"Looking back, when I was at school, I would have liked to be an architect, a novelist, a musician or..."

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:25:58 +0100

“Looking back, when I was at school, I would have liked to be an architect, a novelist, a musician or a painter – but I knew I wasn’t bright or clever enough to succeed at any of them… but now I seem to have found an area between them all.”

- » Blog Archive » Various Artists – Cherry Red Records – 1978

Fascinating review of Zigzag magazine (I still have every issue of its “third phase”) and Pete Frame. Didn’t know that the man who founded the magazine was also the man who does the rock family trees, which keep recurring in my conversations recently.

"Groups are for fostering member-to-member collaboration, while Pages remain the best way to..."

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:19:55 +0100

“Groups are for fostering member-to-member collaboration, while Pages remain the best way to broadcast messages to your fans, if you are a business, organization, public figure, or other entity.”

- A face-lift for Facebook’s Groups | The Social - CNET News

"I want no limitations on what I can, and will do. I think the size and shape of the traditional..."

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:48:53 +0100

“I want no limitations on what I can, and will do. I think the size and shape of the traditional album is just morphing into something much more in the moment. Four songs at a time will mean I can give my heart over to the music fully without giving away my now happy life.””

- Billy Corgan to give away new Smashing Pumpkins songs for free | News | NME.COM

xkcd - A Webcomic - Bag Check

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:36:07 +0100

xkcd - A Webcomic - Bag Check

"It has been 20 minutes since I’ve read her now-notorious column, and I’m still..."

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 15:35:43 +0100

“It has been 20 minutes since I’ve read her now-notorious column, and I’m still struggling to absorb the sheer scope of its hateful idiocy. It’s like gazing through a horrid little window into an awesome universe of pure blockheaded spite. Spiralling galaxies of ignorance roll majestically against a backdrop of what looks like dark prejudice, dotted hither and thither with winking stars of snide innuendo.”

- Charlie Brooker | Why there was nothing ‘human’ about Jan Moir’s column on the death of Stephen Gately | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

"Young artists starting out in this digitally mediated world have another path other than stardom, a..."

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 07:22:22 +0100

“Young artists starting out in this digitally mediated world have another path other than stardom, a path made possible by the very technology that creates the long tail. Instead of trying to reach the narrow and unlikely peaks of platinum hits, bestseller blockbusters, and celebrity status, they can aim for direct connection with 1,000 True Fans. It’s a much saner destination to hope for. You make a living instead of a fortune. You are surrounded not by fad and fashionable infatuation, but by True Fans. And you are much more likely to actually arrive there.”

- The Technium: 1,000 True Fans

I’ve heard this theory quoted in conversation (with the number 500, rather than 1000), but this is the first instance that I’ve seen written down. Fascinating.

"Darnielle communicates directly with fans electronically today by posting on the popular forum at..."

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 07:13:16 +0100

“Darnielle communicates directly with fans electronically today by posting on the popular forum at The Mountain Goats website. At one point he asked his fans what kind of merchandise they wanted. The forum exploded with fan suggestions and The Mountain Goats delivered: the next tour had a Mountain Goats reusable grocery sack for sale as merchandise. The grocery sack sold out.”

- In Defense Of 1,000 True Fans - Part I - The Mountain Goats - MTT - Music Think Tank