steve wrote:

stevenstillborn wrote:...I didn't start actually hearing anything other than mainstream/"classic" rock until there was a good radio station in the New York market. Now I'm Jonny-come-lately to all sorts of good music that I missed out on because I never heard about it.

You're proving my point. You eventually found music you liked. You didn't miss it.

But I found it through a commercial radio station. This wasn't a "college" station or an indie station, mind you. When I was 14, Q104.3 came out and played a lot of "modern rock" and music by less well-known bands. If there hadn't been a radio station making a decent amount of money, and bands willing to have their singles played on commercial radio, I'd still be listening to Go West and Billy Joel's Greatest Hits.

I don't know about you guys, but I went to that pitchfork thing last summer because there were some bands there I wanted to see, one or two of which I figured I wouldn't get a chance to see again. I found it pretty easy to avoid choking on press and hype in order to see them.

But reading that article makes me sick to my stomach. Yuck.

Having been 18 when Pitchfork was in its early years, it is for me kind of like a girl from high school who turned out to love her career in the advertising industry. I look at her now and shake my head and say, "holy shit, I can't believe I used to go out with you. Glad that's over. Yes, ok, fine, I will come to your birthday party, but it's just because we have a few mutual friends and I know you're buying all the whiskey with your stupid advertising salary money."

LutherBlissett wrote:So, what happened to your "ideological concept of art" as that which has a (commercial) audience?

I don't think the audience has to be commodified, but I tend to feel like the channels of access are. I could spout crackpot theories about how the internet may help alleviate commercial concerns in promotion, touring, publication, etc., and why copyright is obscenely archaic, but that's just gonna be annoying.

The rest of your post is interesting. I tend to end up butting heads with people around my local gallery scene about art that largely serves only the artist. I don't think that perspective is wrong, just different from mine.

steve wrote:
These things aren't done for us, they are done for the people who exist parasitically off of us. Fuck them in the eye.

quote of the year.

Aneurhythmia wrote:I tend to end up butting heads with people around my local gallery scene about art that largely serves only the artist.

Please explain how art serves anything else. You may be thinking that the artist should be serving somone other than himself, and I would be willing to disagree with that as well, but I cannot see how art can serve anything but the artist.

steve wrote:

Aneurhythmia wrote:I tend to end up butting heads with people around my local gallery scene about art that largely serves only the artist.

Please explain how art serves anything else. You may be thinking that the artist should be serving somone other than himself, and I would be willing to disagree with that as well, but I cannot see how art can serve anything but the artist.

Well, setting aside what Oscar Wilde said about all art being useless, I think of art as a compromise of the pure expressions of the artist such as catharsis, communication to the audience, the inferrence of the audience separate from the artist's conscious intention, how the context of the art changes with time and place... I'm getting worse at keeping this coherent the more I drink. Uh... Give me a minute, and I"ll try to frame this in the context of the originanl post.

I will extend my previous discliamer about crackpot theoreis.

my take on all of this is that it just doesn't matter.

in its worst incarnation it will hopefully force a new movement of SERIOUSLY underground bands to appear... similar to what was happening in the late 80s with bands like Moss Icon, Lava, (and tonie joy's other projects), and the early 90's with bands like Shotmaker, Universal Order of Armageddon, One Eyed God Prophecy, etc. etc. etc. etc.

or even in the 60s and 70s with the thousands of garage, psych, german (krautrock) soul, and etc. etc. etc. records that no one even gives a fuck about today. like Niagara, or 5 by 5, or Pussy.

there are still SO many bands that have never even had their catalog pressed onto CD. there are even bands from the 90s that have never had their catalog pressed onto cd, and never pressed more than a thousand copies of an LP on vinyl. a lot of bands.

the true lover of music will push and push and dig and dig and dig and find the things that aren't being sold to them at wal mart.

are justin timberlake and death cab for cutie really that different these days?

ps. i'm personally GLAD that people don't buy cd's and LP's anymore and just download shitty sounding MP3's on their computer. this makes it easier for me to find all of the shit that i want to find on LP for like, next to nothing.

i was also thinking about this today when i dropped 150 dollars on CD's at the virgin megastore downtown. and yesterday when i dropped 250 on CD's and LP's at reckless.

when i was walking around the virgin store i found a lot of stuff that i cannot find online or in reckless, or even smaller record stores. (it works both ways, obviously) i found some obscure roy wood compilation. i found the channel one comp that i can't even order so easily online. i found the move's 45s issued on a double CD comp. this was at the VIRGIN store. it sucks, it's corporate, etc. etc. but the point is... it is nice to be able to walk around in a huge assed mega library of music. it can be overwhelming. it is a luxury that few have outside of the US and in Europe. it may not be around that much longer.

i will personally continue to buy a ton of music at small stores, and online from small distros... and also from the biggest chains. i would be really sad if virgin shut down.

plus, on the subject of wal mart they probably sell a pretty badass kiss double CD compilation for like 5 bucks. yeah, anti union... whatever. (just kidding.)

BadComrade wrote:I watched a Documentary on Bravo or Sundance once. I can't remember the name of it. Basically, this kid gets a job working for Columbia house, and he's a fan of "alternative" music. He brings a video camera to work every day, and documents his job. The videos show him creating a way to market "alternative" music for Columbia, and shows him start to wonder if it's really the right thing to do.

Anyone know what I'm talking about? I'd like to know the name of the film.

Sounds pretty interesting.

If there's a silver lining to this whole piece of shit idea which was so rightfully declared "parasitic," it is that there is a pretty decent-sized possibility that underground music will get a lot more interesting and experimental because of the blandness of the so-called "independent/alternative rock" force fed into the mainstream. Underground music, as long as it is not interesting by contrast to the mainstream but interesting all on its own, will never cease to exist because there is a sort of evolving groundwork for it to thrive which is because of people who have absolutely no corporate or mainstream inclinations when it comes to their art.

It's not like good music is gonna disappear because the mainstream is catching on, but at the same time, I have a feeling there will be a lot more jack-off bullshit. Let's just hope it's not as laughable as grunge.

I dunno about you all, but I'm only on this forum because I heard Float On on the radio.