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SchnappM wrote:Yeah, but you can't hear shit if you wear earplugs. You'd be better off just going to fewer shows if you really want to keep your hearing.

That's ridiculous.

I can hear everything pretty ok with regular earplugs. Sure it's a little muffled, but come on... (it's probably what your bootleg recording sounds like anyway). Maybe after a few more shows without earplugs, wearing earplugs will sound really shitty for me too.

Before long, everything's going to sound like your wearing earplugs.

You can get frequency flat earplugs custom-made. They are well worth the money, and actually sound fucking great. http://www.etymotic.com

Anyhow, back to the Shellac stamp.

Well,
I saw one more Shellac gig in Italy, and that was very chaotic, however both shows are nice moments in my personal history, I was there having great time, and got to meet very nice people. (UZEDA and SHELLAC).

I don't know which part from my earlier post you did not understand(may I call you Schnapps?); when you buy ticket you pay entrance fee and that's it. You are exposed to sound and vision you did not pay to take home...do you get it now?
Just because you can it does not allow you to do so.
I remember gig we played with the Butthole Surfers in a big venue where guy was kicked out and got fired from a club because of videotaping soundcheck (and he was taping wrong band!) ...

I know that I cant stop you from making bootlegs, but think twice before you do it...it's not fair.

So, Andrew don't strech the problem too much.
Problem is not in "end users", problem is in suppliers.
Similar with the drugs...

DAMN i think i think 8033 reads too much chompsky and other hyper mentally liberal no-itnones that i think spout and spout and therefor spout.

yawn wrote:DAMN i think i think 8033 reads too much chompsky and other hyper mentally liberal no-itnones that i think spout and spout and therefor spout.

Yeah, liberal thinking and philosophical debate aren't very important. We'd all be much better off watching T.V. Re-elect Bush in'04!!

(and its Chomsky not "chompsky"; therefore not "therefor" and I'm pretty sure the context of "no" in no-itnones you were searching for is KNOW)

The greatest performance of Dog & Pony Show, in my opinion, is on a bootleg I found floating out in cyberspace.

I know. I know.

So, Steve... If your reason for not wanting tapers at shows is because tapers are "not at the show, really" since they're so "distracted" and "distracting", then why do you allow people to photograph your shows then? Those are the people who historically are annoying / distracting / "not at the show, really". Let's face it, very few tapers are bringing headphones and mic stands in to shows (especially Shellac shows!) or making a scene as they record. Do you think people reading this thread would rather stand next to a guy who's simply wearing something like a crappy little tie clip mic (who they probably wouldn't even realize is taping), or someone who's spending half the show moving around the stage and front row blocking peoples view to get that "perfect shot" of you screaming in to your guitar? Not to mention that same photographer is probably spending half the time at the show adjusting exposure / focus etc and looking through the lens of their camera for most of it. I personally think a photographer is way more distracting to audience members, and is way more distracted with the camera, thus is "not at the show" more so than anyone who's standing there with a tape recorder running in his pocket.

Another thing... So what if that person's recording of a show only gets "the sound" from the show? Maybe all that person wants is "the sound" from the show. After all, that's what music is, right? Sure, you're there to watch the band and hear them, but hey... a photographer is only getting a 2D representation of a 3D event, without sound! *gasp!* What if they use black and white film?!! People looking at the pictures aren't going to know the color of your jumpsuit, or what color shirt Bob is wearing!! I've never met anyone that commented on how great "taking in" the smell of the clove cigarettes coming from the annoying girl standing in front of them was at the last show they attended, or how great it felt to be packed in a room full of other people that like the same band they like at a show. Saying that only having the sound of a show is "meaningless" is almost like implying that the songs (the "sound") are meaningless as well. If that were so, I think there'd be a lot more deaf people showing up to Shellac shows to feel the bass and drums, to see the skinny guy rock back and forth like he's autistic, to see the amazing hairstyle the drummer maintains, to smell the smoke, etc. Most people don't get to sit in the studio while you play live, but everyone likes listening to the recording of it.

Maybe most of the people who tape shows are just big fans of the music your band comes up with, and can deal with the "poor sound quality" of their recordings when they want to hear a song you played live that's not gonna be out on a record for another 3 years, or ever officially released at all (like the futurist tracks you played live...). That same person is probably listening to your meticulously recorded high fidelity releases on CD through a $250 Aiwa bookshelf "stereo" anyway. - Quality shouldn't get in the way of enjoying things like that - Are the "sounds" on the 3 or 4 CDRs I've made for myself of archived streaming audio Nina Nastasia live in studio performances "meaningless" because I wasn't at John Peel's place to "experience" what was happening there live, or because there's a tiny bit of compression artifacts on some of them? I bet you wouldn't mind having copies of those, being as big a fan of hers as I am. Sure, we can listen to the albums of hers that you recorded, maybe you even have the luxury of being able to hear some different takes. Since I don't have access to anything like that, I really appreciate having different arrangements of some of her songs on pretty good sounding CDRs.

Then you say "Some of my most vivid memories of gigs are of really bad ones -- ones where I got the full suffer -- and hearing a recording of them wouldn't even get close." Yeah? Kinda like the "missing jacket" show? I'm sure people suffered at that one, as you readily admitted that show was not that good. Why put Bob's announcements from it on the back of a (rare give away, but still) Shellac 7"? By your standards, none of the owners of that 7" will be able to fully appreciate the humor of that show since they weren't there to suffer through it, or experience the "wonder who in this room's got the jacket" tension of the night? Same goes for the live Japanese Shellac CD. You can't exactly argue that it's a "quality recording" when half the time your vocals aren't there due to the condensation build up on the crappy mixing board's contacts... and again, listening to that recording supposedly doesn't let us who own it / have heard it experience what it was like to be there, so why bother letting K.K. Null release it (let's pretend I live in Japan for arguments sake)? I'll be the first to agree with you that it's better physically seeing your band live than listening to a recording of that same show, but it's nice to have some things on tape to hear again. If "Shellac" didn't feel that way at least some of the time, Bob wouldn't have wanted a copy of your Halloween show at Lounge Ax for himself, you and Todd, and the people he gave copies to who apparently eventually leaked it to the internet, where everyone who has been dying to hear it finally can. Bob probably wouldn't have recorded the Mission of Burma shows I saw him record either if he felt that way 100% of the time. I almost never care about hearing a show I wasn't at, unless something very unique happened at it. I'm sure the people who've cared enough to download the halloween show wish they were at it, but still love the fact that they were at least able to hear it since it was impossible for them to have been there, no matter how crappy it sounds.

So if anyone wants to hear "canada" live, yeah, they should go SEE Shellac live. But if they wanna know what it's like when Shellac play with Scrawl and do Cheap Trick, Joy Division and PiL covers, all they can do is try searching for recordings of that, cause I really doubt anyone's ever gonna get to see that happen live as it happened one New Years Eve...

I guess I don't think everyone has a natural right to whatever he wants. Records are records, and even records made of a live show are made to be records. Shows that are "just" shows are for those who are actually there.

Photography doesn't bother me, and I don't have a consistent reason for why not. It doesn't bother me, and I'm not worried about why.

I sometimes try to articulate reasons for things long after the response has been engendered on an un-conscious level, and this is such a case. Often enough the reason I like or dislike something is not the result of an internal "rational" debate, and so my reasons are not entirely consistent.

I will allow myself that inconsistency:

I don't mind photography at shows.
Videotaping bugs me.
"Sound Archivist" recording bugs me.

If that isn't entirely consistent, it shouldn't be much of a surprise.

best,

Intern_8033 wrote:SchnappM: For the record, I don't agree with you.

lunar wrote:I don't know which part from my earlier post you did not understand(may I call you Schnapps?); when you buy ticket you pay entrance fee and that's it. You are exposed to sound and vision you did not pay to take home...do you get it now?

You can call me Betty, and Betty when you call me you can call me Al.

I know that you don't pay for a live recording when you pay for the ticket. You also don't pay for photographs but many people take them anyway. I understand why you think it's wrong, but I also think the ends could, in some cases, justify the means.

As I said, I myself am not a bootlegger. I am way too much of a pussy. Also, I'd rather just watch the show and not worry about taping it. But I respect the people who do bootleg, because they're doing so solely out of a love for the music that they're taping. No one is going to tape a shitty show that nobody would want to listen to.

Snorlax pretty much summed up what I was trying to say, except he is much more eloquent. It was kinda shady using ultra-rare Shellac releases as examples, though. I've heard them, but I mean, I was never supposed to anyway.

And I understand that Steve has his beliefs and as I said, I respect that. I have my beliefs too, and I don't think I'm really hurting anyone by pulling a bootleg off of Soulseek, so I will continue to do so at my discretion.

And yeah, I was kinda out of place with the michaeltheangryrussian thing. You have a good reason for wearing earplugs. I don't get to go to THAT may shows (unfortunately only about once per month), because I'm still pretty young and I don't really live within travelling distance of a venue where any respectable band would play, so I wouldn't suffer the same consequences as you would for not wearing earplugs.

I wore earplugs when I saw Wolf Eyes open for Lightning Bolt, because goddamn, Wolf Eyes sucked, and I wanted to block them out. If I had actually been interested in hearing the band, the earplugs I was wearing would have been terrible. And I know there are super-high tech earplugs available, but, really, how common are those? Most people just stick whatever into their ears.

Sill, though, some people are just whiny bitches. I mean, wearing earplugs to a show is just as bad as playing full-contact football with pads. Pussies.

SchnappM wrote:Most people just stick whatever into their ears.

this is true. i have seen people stick pen caps and flathead screwdrivers into their ears. maybe not for dB reduction, but for whatever stupid reason they had.

the question of earplugs is one that seemingly always had either two responses: be a pussy, and wear earplugs...or be an idiot--er, man, i mean--and go without.

personally, i think that moderation is the key. apply some fucking science, for god's sake. if you're going to a club which is typically loud, and the band enjoys playing loud, well, then, the tinnitus you'll possibly receive for proving your manliness is your own problem. it's easy to weigh typical dB levels with the likely amount of sound which you'll be exposed to. if you're going to be exposed to it for a length of time which will begin to affect your hearing, then using earplugs to just bring it down even 5 dB (a slightly less-damaging level) could be a possible solution. but if you're going to a show to see, say, nina nastasia or goiter or that fuckstick mark kozelek, or some little acoustical get-together in a small club, taking ear plugs along would be a little excessive.

some people are snobs about wearing them; others are abrasive about the subject. i'm not really being thorough about it, but i don't think i need to be.

regards,
jet.