Originally Posted by kinnikpasswordforgetter

none of you seem to consider the idea that your music, or the music of those that you are defending, is not worth paying for. it is not that people no longer wish to pay for it, it is that there is no need to pay for it. And if you really believed in the notion of the transcendence of art over material concerns, you'd be pursuing your music expecting no remuneration, releasing it free of charge online and becoming overjoyed at the opportunity to dessiminate it so widely and with such ease.

Originally Posted by hipster_bebop_junkie

I'd consider that a really odd statement. Fuck it. It wouldn't matter if the biggest genius making music today would hypothetically say that, it still sounds to me as if they are lowering an album to pretty much the same level a flyer has in the scheme of things. I can't agree with that. If that were the one and only function of a record, then it would have sense to just release it exclusively on the towns they're touring or fucking forcing bands to tour the whole world over in order to get exposure, which sounds nuts. The contrary (touring to promote the record) seems more reasonable. Since the vast majority of bands i love have never visited my town, and likely never will, i think it's obvious to me, especially considering the globalization, that a consequence of a tour is the spawning of a possibility that your music will get to some ears in far away places somehow, considering that no band can take their act to everywhere in the globe. Agreeing with that concept of what a record is and living in accordance with it, would limit my experience of listening to music to Los Tigres Del Monte, El Grupo Ronco, and all that horrible crock of shit that passes as música popular mexicana these days. Oh my god, that would be so grim.

Originally Posted by jonathan

Not really sure what you mean by that, Genteel.

Yes, one man bands are totally depressing, but it's their own fault for failing. It's a cut-throat world out there, you know. Fortunately, tascam four tracks are available to anyone with $25 and access to craigslist: the strong can survive and the rest can whither away into obscurity.

Originally Posted by jonathan

I feel like there has always been a plethora of shit. Just because you make it to record doesn't make it good. Consult any $.99 bin at a record shop for proof.

I hear what you're saying though. I think these types of things are important, but they are by no means how I judge the quality of the music. At the same time, I've never been one for aesthetics in this field. In bands, I'm never the guy that makes the fliers, or the album covers or t-shirts. I put all my focus on the music and I tend to take it pretty seriously. I guess this is part of the reason why I find the way music is going to be liberating. At the end of he day, I get to focus on what I enjoy doing, which is making music and I don't have to worry about all the other stuff that comes with it.

Kinnik. You're jealous of other people and the meaning they are able to attribute to their lives. No matter how vapid, or "false", their identities might be, I think you prove to everyone that it is certainly better than nothing.

Originally Posted by kinnikpasswordforgetter

yes, but why do them then, for any other reason than showing to others you have done them and thus care about your craft.

in other words, pointless formalism, doing so for the sake of itself. the puffed up vacuity of a stale establishment, impressing only in the depths of solipsistic redundancy those involved must have to go in order to summon the energy to convince themselves it's almost worth doing in the first place.

Originally Posted by Decayed Rhapsody

As if on cue, The Wire has this interview with Chris Cutler (of Henry Cow) about downloading and its effects:

http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/6715/

I should point out that Cutler is responding to pomo princess Kenneth Goldsmith's article about filesharing: http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/6445/, where he states that:

How boring!