Blogging, Books, Cats, Music, Mayhem
Update: Sam actually likes his sweater. Or, at least, it chills him out. He’s an anxious cat and gets really anxious when we have a lot of company over (as one does when it’s holiday season).
He has a “thunder shirt” that chills him out substantially but it’s been misplaced. Meg knitted this for fun a while back and we found that Sam will happily wear it pretty much all day. He’s also very good at slithering out of it when he feels like it.
The idea of “authenticity” and “selling out” when applied to artists, musicians, and other folks is largely bullshit. Worse, it’s a trap.
Let me back up a sec. The other day I was on the Twitters and noticed an exchange about how some artist wasn’t “authentic” anymore because they licensed their music for a commercial of some sort.
Now, I get it. Music is highly personal. We (potentially) attach all kinds of emotions to a piece of music. That spills over to emotional attachments to the artists themselves. A lot of people want to think that the art they are highly attached to is “pure” rather than a crass cash-grab.
I wish we lived in a society where musicians, artists, open source contributors could do their thing without concern about money. We don’t. Since that’s the case, I’m emphatically in favor of people taking opportunities to convert their work to income. You know what happens when artists don’t make money from their art? It often inhibits their ability to make more art.
If a band isn’t making money, it’s hard to record and release more music. It’s hard to support open source development without finding a way to pay the developers and support the infrastructure, etc. As crappy as it is, just about everything costs money. (This includes people’s time. If a person’s art or contributions don’t bring in money, they have to find another way to support themselves. That’s time they can’t spend doing art or contributing.)
You might quibble with specific ways that people take cash for their work. Maybe licensing music to or working for Evil Corp is a line too far.
But the idea that anybody has to be “authentic” and “pure” is right there with the idea that people have to suffer for their art. And that’s just garbage.
We shouldn’t want people to suffer. We shouldn’t hold people to standards of scraping for a living in order to consider them “authentic.” I’m probably not going to buy an album full of songs about “Jeeves, get my my slippers” and “I got the blues, my private jet is in the shop” but I really want everybody to have financial stability. As boring and non-punk as that may sound.
Trying to achieve “authenticity” by rejecting licensing deals or whatever? It’s a trap. You don’t win any real benefits by appeasing the authenticity police, you only lose.
My music library is full of bands and artists that didn’t put out as much music as they could have, because of problems with money. Maybe it was a label messing them around because they didn’t sell enough copies. Because money, they didn’t have full control of their catalog. Maybe they were independent but couldn’t afford studio time. Maybe money problems impacted their life in other ways that futzed up their ability to record and release music.
Whatever. If a band can solve some of that by letting their music be used in a car commercial or vacation destination or deodorant, I don’t really care. If an author can write more because they sold the rights to a book that gets turned into a crappy movie, I don’t care. I still have the book. I still have the albums. And they’re getting to eat.
The Monkees were a cash-grab, studio creation. And, you know what? “Last Train to Clarksville” is still an amazing song. The list of musicians and artists who were “authentic” and ended up struggling and dying poor is too long to even get into.
I’m not saying fat stacks of cash should be the number one goal. But authenticity – which really translates to “be broke and not too popular” – is a bogus yardstick.
If I hear one of my favorite artists or bands is “selling out” by licensing their work for commercials or something, I’m just going to smile and say “good for them!”
Been a bit between posts, so here’s another run at the jukebox for all my readers looking for a few good tunes to pass the time. Some oldies, some goodies, nothing boring and all good for your soul.
This is a melodic psytrance piece that runs seven minutes and never lets up. If I were the Peloton type, I’d definitely queue this one up for a indoor cycling session. But, alas, I am not. So I merely listen to this while typing. Give it a listen on Bandcamp, I think you’ll be hooked.
[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=1093589695 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small]
This isn’t a new release nor is it new to me, but I put this on for the millionth time last night and it’s still just as fresh and enjoyable as the first time I listened to it. This album was a recommendation from a friend in college, who dubbed it to cassette for me. I can still remember popping it into my car stereo driving between Columbia, MO and Kirksville, MO – not knowing what to expect, I wasn’t quite braced for it.
Depending on who you ask this fits into the “country rock,” “alternative country” or “alternative rock” genre. There’s definitely a bit of twang and country influence here, and I’d be shocked if Mark Olson and Gary Louris didn’t have some Lynyrd Skynyrd albums in their collection. But the album really transcends genre, it’s just damn good music.
[youtube https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kGKXzr_-UvUI-9otP8G8i50Kqm3cbvJNM]
Loved the concept, an album with songs inspired by various protocols (FTP, IRC, HTTP, POP3 and Gopher!), but wasn’t sure the execution would live up to it. Turns out, it does. This is great video-gamish music that is fantastic to work to or just enjoy. This is nerd rock at its finest. Ironically it is available as download, vinyl or cassette – but not CD. Sigh. (Can’t argue with the digital download price, though. One Euro is completely reasonable.)
[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=238542805 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small]
Paul McCartney’s McCartney III was some of the best work that the former Beatle has turned in for quite a while. Clearly he made good use of the quarantine time to put together a fine album, but then did us one better and reached out to a number of contemporary artists to remix/re-imagine songs on the album as McCartney III Imagined.
I absolutely love what Khruangbin (another favorite of mine) have done with “Pretty Boys,” and highly recommend giving it a listen.
[youtube https://youtu.be/K-sjSobYNag]
It’d be amazing to put McCartney and Khruangbin in a studio and go for a full album.
That’s it for me on this installment. What are you listening to these days?
Spotify is a great tool for music discovery, but some of the exploration tools aren’t obvious. If you want to search for something by song title or artist, that sort of thing, no problem. But there are other ways I like to explore new music, like by music label or genre. You can do that too!
The Spotify UI doesn’t expose things like record label, but that’s a really good way to find new music. For example, if you like classical music the Naxos label is famous for it. The Blue Note label is famous for jazz, 4AD is great for indie artists like Bettie Serveert. Point is, if there’s a genre or artist you like, branching out by checking out the other acts on the same label is a good way to find great new music.
Here’s how you do that, in the search box just use label:"blue note" or whatever label you’d like to search through.
Want to narrow the search a bit? You can add the year parameter, like year:1965, so search by label:"blue note" year:1965 and that should turn up everything that Spotify has tagged with that year and record label.
Once upon a time, Spotify listed its advanced search syntax on its website. However, the only place (I think) you can find it these days is via the Wayback Machine. According to the old page, Spotify supports these parameters and operators:
You might have already tried searching for genres on Spotify, and searching for “jazz” will turn up some jazz, and also any albums or artists or songs with “jazz” in the name. If you want to search only by genre you can tag on the genre: search modifier and you’ll get results of artists who fit the genre.
Weirdly, Spotify doesn’t return albums using this search modifier, just artists, songs, and Spotify’s “top result” for the genre’s artist. For instance, you search for genre:jazz and you’ll get Miles Davis for top artist. Seems legit. Search for genre:rock and you get Weezer. That’s a little sus. (If anybody from Spotify is reading this, I’m available to help clean up your categorization and taxonomies for a modest fee…)
Note that the results may not be perfect – And I don’t just mean questionable categorization on Spotify’s part. Searching for 1965 and Blue Note yields (among others) Cornbread by Lee Morgan. According to Spotify’s album info the album is from 1964, and Discogs says it was released in 1967.
There’s also a chance that minor labels are going to have name collisions. There’s more than one TCB Records, for instance, so if you try to locate some 60s jazz from the label by Lionel Hampton And His Orchestra you end up mixing in a lot of more modern stuff (but no Lionel Hampton).
Finally, results vary depending on what Spotify has in its library. Spotify has a lot of amazing stuff, but it’s hit and miss on deeper jazz, indie labels, and that sort of thing.
My guess is that the search parameters and operators are a still-functioning but legacy feature with Spotify that’s not well tended to by its product team. It works, mostly, but it doesn’t seem to be something the company is investing in or trying to put in front of users as a power tool. Pity – because when it works, it is a fun way to sort through the catalog on the service.
However, if you’re trying to find new-to-you music and want to go outside Spotify’s recommendations and generic search features, the additional modifiers can be a great tool. And, remember, artists don’t get rich off Spotify plays – when you find music you really like, think about buying the album direct from the artist or Bandcamp or whatever source is best to give the most money to the artist.
Let’s shake some of my browser tabs and see what falls out.
RSS has been on the decline since Google snuffed Google Reader. Many sites, these days, don’t even support RSS. It’s a problem.
One solution that might fit the bill for many users is Fraidycat. It comes as a standalone app for Linux, macOS, and Windows, as well as extensions for Firefox and Chrome. (I’m currently using the standalone app for the Linux desktop.) The standalone appears to be an Electron app, so I might switch to the Firefox extension.
I snagged this EP by Amyl and the Sniffers on the last Bandcamp Friday. It’s raw, joyous and punk-y. I think I might have been 45 seconds into the first track when I decided “yeah, OK, I’ll listen to this again and again.” Released in 2016, but I’d have believed it if somebody it came out in 1983. Assuming live music returns someday, I’d definitely head out to see them live.
[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=3846936675 size=large bgcol=333333 linkcol=2ebd35 tracklist=false artwork=small]
Short, sweet, noisy. Give it a listen, loud.
Song I stumbled on while testing out Fraidycat. Instrumental goodness.
[youtube https://youtu.be/tFUGspVnZFQ]
If you are entirely unlike me and need reading suggestions (vs. having a stack of books taller than you that need reading), then I have a great site for you.
Break the Bubble will give book suggestions that are “bubble breakers” for books you might be unlikely to stumble on, usually. Give it The Hitchhiker’s Guide, A Prayer for Owen Meany, and Post Office by Charles Bukowski and it suggests I might want to read Dread Nation by Justina Ireland or My Life as a White Trash Zombie by Diana Rowland. (Also a “Captain Underpants” title, so there may be a few glitches in terms of age appropriateness.)
That’s it for today’s Link-o-Rama. What else should I be looking at on the Web?
Doom: Eternal is a pretty good name for a franchise that keeps getting ported, updated, and rebooted more than 25 years after it first launched. Though I don’t do much gaming these days, the siren song of Doom was just too much for me and I caved and bought a PS4 and a copy of Doom: Eternal a few weeks ago and have been playing it off and on for about a week. Here’s one old guy’s take on the reboot so far, after completing several levels and maybe 15 hours of gameplay.
I play Doom for one reason, and one reason only: I want to power through levels and blow things up. Preferably really scary looking demons that go boom in interesting ways and that pose a challenge without making me repeat levels dozens of times to get past a boss or whatever, and without being more frustrating than my life in general. The point is to relax and blow off some steam.
At no point in my life have I been a super-serious gamer. Even in my 20s and 30s, I was a casual gamer looking to unwind for a few hours and then set the game aside until I had some spare time. Games that require a lot of commitment aren’t what I’m looking for, really. Preferably a game would have a high replayability factor, too. Something that is as much fun to pick up for the 20th time as the first.
The original Doom and sequels pass this test. I have picked them up and played them time and again on various platforms (the iOS port was really not a great experience), and especially love just putting my Doom Guy in God mode and mowing down monsters left and right for an hour or two here and there.
Quake III Arena is my all-time favorite. It’s simple, fast paced, was easy for me to pick up the controls and strategy, and rewards replays. I could play against bots on “The Longest Yard” and the other Tier 6 maps all day long and enjoy it.
The number of controls you have to remember in Eternal is a bit silly. I’m used to having to memorize the movement controls, switching weapons, firing (of course) and a bit more. This one adds all kinds of fiddly power-ups and gee-gaws to weapons that you have to toggle between and a whole experience and leveling-up process that’s just more like work than fun. My expectation is by the time the character is sufficiently powered up to be fun, the game will be pretty close to finished.
Q3 notwithstanding, I actually hate games that require a lot of jumping. Platformers that have a lot of intricate jumping from this precarious bit to that precarious bit are tedious. Eternal is particularly bad about this because in some cases it’s really not clear even where you’re supposed to be jumping. After playing through a few of these it’s become more obvious but initially it was really frustrating and not fun.
It’s also really changed the nature of Doom to be more like other games, and it feels a bit generic. I mean, the stadard monsters are all represented, but it feels like they’ve been slotted into a pretty standard template that could be just about any game.
It’s pretty, I’ll give the game team that much. The graphics in the game are really good. Contrary to the gaming industry’s belief, though, I’m not actually clamoring for more pixels and polygons. I was perfectly happy with the state of the art graphics for Q3, and if the industry had never evolved any further I wouldn’t have really cared. The old Doom games are perfectly fun even with the old creaky 90s bitmaps.
They do rely a bit heavily on repeated animations of glory kills or whatever. Fun the first time. Hilarious the first time my fiance watched me playing, but they get a bit repetitive and tedious after a few hours.
The storyline is … confusing and not interesting. Why do games even need a storyline? I may be in the minority here, or maybe the game industry just isn’t listening, but the fewer cutscenes and attempts to impose a narrative on a game the better. Really, if I want a story I’ll read a book or comic, or listen to a podcast or watch a show or movie. Something something Hell Priests just feels like a third-rate death metal band premise.
Overall, I’m having an OK time playing Doom: Eternal and don’t regret the purchase. But I’ll probably end up having more fun playing older titles on the PS4 than this reboot. If anybody from Id or Bethesda are reading this, what I’d really love is an open world Doom that has high replayability (think early Grand Theft Auto titles without all the fussy missions) and simpler controls. No need to update the graphics engine or impose a storyline. Just Doom Guy and endless demons to mulch with the chainsaw.