So, Philip Sherburne wrote a post this week on Pitch Fork called “The Month In: Techno” It starts out like this…

“Everything feels fucked up. The environment, the economy, war, terrorism, an unraveling Constitution, obesity, reality shows, the coming 2012 apocalypse meme– it’s hard to be optimistic about much these days.”

Phillips article was ok — it got to the point and made some sense from his perspective. A lot of the manifestos, tho, sounded extremely ostentatious and pedantic. Like this post.

I want to respond to some of them. I am not going to make any friends with this, but, whatever. If you put it out there you should be willing to be criticized…

Begin long-winded post poking fun at techno producers.

“Make a full EP or LP completely sober…”
- Oh man. Thanks for that! I’ve been making music and always been high and just thought everyone needed to eat a pill or spark up to ‘get it’. That explains *EVERYTHING*! whew. problem solved.

“Tracks should be mastered either professionally or properly”
- Oh. Thanks for this too! I thought that pumping it through L2 on “squish” was enough, because, you know, people are on drugs and they like it like that!

“Live acts just using a laptop should be called “semi-live.” That’s already common in Holland. ”
- Go Holland! Because, you know, computers really do ALL the work. Are you kidding me? I guess they are from the ’school of guitars’ because only ‘real instruments’ can be ‘played live’. jeeze.

I love this one…

“If you can’t do it in real life, don’t put it on a mix CD. … It’s so obviously an Ableton mix– … It sounds great, but if you can’t pull that off at the club, don’t even bother.”
- How do you know it can’t be done live? Perhaps the dude uses Ableton to DJ! Wait, is THAT *REALLY* DJing? I guess not, no Discs and no Jockying…

“Before that track you just made goes out into the world, ask yourself: have you just made something that would knock you out if someone else was the author? Would you need to own it and listen to it again? …”
- True on this one. No joke.

another one that gets it.
Strategy (Community Library, Kranky)

That whole “FACT” rant thing was a bit much, almost as bad as this post I am writing here.

What can I say, someone named pheek gets it as does Peter…

ok - my point? some good stuff in there, but a lot of bollocks. really. it was a bit nauseating.

speaking of nauseating…

I have a writing that was posted to the Modifyer blog back in June. Not a manifesto, more a set of rules for a specific compositional experiment. Shit this is worse than those other postings.. I’ll just post a bit and link to the rest…

http://modyfier-modifying.blogspot.com/2008/06/blog-post_17.html

1. Limited and constant sound sources are to be used in each composition.

2. Once all hardware sound sources are used, additional computer-based sources are allowed, with the stipulation that they are treated as hardware sources.This means they are used on individual inputs and outputs from the computer’s sound card and mixed in the analog mixer as audio.

3. If a sample is needed a software sampler can be used. See rule #2 for stipulations.

4. Once a composition is started it has to be completed before starting a new one.

5. To complete the composition each song will be performed live and a 2 track recording will be captured in the computer.

6. Once a composition is completed it can not be gone back to. The exception is that an edit can be done in post production.

7. If the mix is incorrect or needs to be fixed, this too should be done in post production.

8. The composition title is the name and time of the day on which the composition is created. Notes and annotations are allowed in titles.

9. Once a composition is completed the patches and settings on the hardware will be erased.

I hope i didn’t offend anyone and everyone gets that all of us take our selves far too seriously.

I mean, come on. It is dance music, and it is techo for chists-sake! Even if it was opera or rock i’d say the same thing. Don’t get too caught up in it or it will go the way of … (gasps) … IDM! It is all about having fun and enjoying what you do, right?. Forget the rules, forget the stardom and just enjoy what you do or else there is no point at all. Get high and make music if that is what you want to do, it fucking worked *well* for Bob Marley.

“With CD sales continuing to fall, record labels realize they must reinvent themselves or perish.“

It sounds like the same song that has been being sung for a while. We’ve all heard it, we’ve seen the headlines for years, but the truth of the matter is that it is really happening. The old paradigm of Artist -> Manager -> Label -> Distributer -> Media Outlet -> Consumer is breaking down. It is easier than ever for fans to get the music of their favorite artists, at little to no cost. The concept of “free” has unfortunately migrated to “entitlement” and it is causing major problems. People don’t feel the need to pay for the music they want to listen to anymore. New methods need to be devised to generate income from music for artists, and soon.

RCRDLBL.COM is one of these new examples. Their methodology is something that may sound familiar — Take an established artist that has some cred and show their work along side an up and coming artist for a mutually beneficial result. What is new here is that this isn’t an event, or a festival, but an actual business, a meta record label housed in a BLOG format. Very interesting. Couple all of that with a keen business sense, good connections, a star maker (Josh Deutsch) and the internet and you have something called RCRDLBL.COM. This new business model could potentially help get the music industry moving in the “right” direction.

Or could it?

Some quick Googling sheds some light into the cooperate machine behind this [seemingly] new paradigm — coupling emerging and established artists to the benefit of all parties involved. This idea, while (relatively) new in the music industry has been the way that the fine art and underground music communities have been promoting and raising awareness of new talent in their respective universes for eons. Ars Electronica, Mutek, and the DEMF are just a few examples of organizations that function with this methodology.

The major player in this venture is Josh Deutsch, the founder of Downtown Records. Yeah, I know what you are thinking, who is Downtown Records? Well, remember Gnarls Barkley? Downtown Records. Other artists on Downtown are Spank Rock, Mos Def and Justice. Big dawgs. Do a little Wikipedia action on Downtown to get the skinny. In short, Downtown is jointly distributed by Warner Music and Atlantic Records. This isn’t some mom-and-pop record label, or a truly independent label for that matter. It is starting to look like a shake-and-bake venture for the big dogs.

Now, this Josh person. Who is he? To start with he is a “former Senior Vice President of A&R at Virgin Records. What’s up mr. bigdog-corporate-part-of-the-machine guy. Next he has ties to Warner and Atlantic. The site has major sponsorship from Puma, BMW, Nokia, Nikon, and Virgin Atlantic. Hmm. Is something going on here? Am I being a bit too cynicle? Perhaps, but, when you get “Big Record Labels” involved in music, things seem to get shadey real fast. On the surface this whole thing looks like a good and mutually beneficial endeavor for artists, labels, and for rcrdlbl, but I am concerned with the licensing contract. It isn’t on the site and I have no idea who gets what percentage of royalties.

So, if you choose to go into something like this take a deep look into the contracts before jumping on something that looks to be a good thing. It is true that this site and this idea could help artists get noticed and press, but as with all business dealings, you always need to read the fine-print before you sign.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/27/technology/leonard_downtown.fortune/index.htm

These two articles were published back in December of 2007 on Wired.com and are even better the second time around. Thom Yorke of Radiohead talks about why Radiohead decided to release “In Rainbows” as they did, and David Byrne talks about survival in this new age of the music industry. Both are absolutely fascinating reads and point a spotlight on these topics, which is starting to get a lot of attention on this (transelectronic.net) site.

Wired.com | Issue 16.01: David Byrne and Thom Yorke on the Real Value of Music
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/16-01/ff_yorke?currentPage=all

Wired.com | Issue 16.01:David Byrne’s Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists — and Megastars
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/16-01/ff_byrne?currentPage=all