8Sided Blog

a zine about sound, culture, and the punk rock dream

The Art of Alan White

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After playing on famous albums by George Harrison and John Lennon, drummer Alan White joined Yes just before their next tour, on three days’ notice. That’s notable because those Yes songs (and Yessongs, a live set culled from that tour, is the first album Alan played on) are complex, baroque beasts filled with time-switches and dastardly riffage from which no instrumentalist can escape. He passed the audition and was Yes’s key skin-pounder for the rest of his life. And that life, unfortunately, ended for Alan White this week.

I’ll argue that Alan White is one of the most influential drummers of our time, though I bestow the title fully knowing that his influence is involuntary. You see, Trevor Horn bought a Fairlight CMI sampling keyboard with his formidable “Video Killed The Radio Star” royalties, setting him back a cool £18,000. “You could buy a house,” he says about that purchase. But Trevor sniffed the future. He parlayed this new device to help get his early music producer jobs — bands not only enjoyed Trevor’s production chops but also exclusive access to this wizardry machine. Malcolm McLaren and ABC came calling.

Trevor assembled a team to help out on those two productions, with Gary Langan on engineering duties and JJ Jeczalik managing the ins and outs of the frustratingly complicated Fairlight. The great Anne Dudley also appeared, contributing string arrangements and keyboard expertise. This crew then worked on Yes’s 90125 album, home of the breakout song “Owner of a Lonely Heart.” Yes’s dated prog-rock pomposity unexpectedly gave way to Trevor’s unmistakable sonic touch.1Yes’s previous album Drama is also worth a listen as it’s where Trevor Horn first collaborated with the band — as their lead vocalist!

As legend has it, JJ Jeczalik and Gary Langan were lingering in the studio after a Yes session, fooling around with the Fairlight. They thought it would be novel to take a discarded drum track from Alan White and feed it into the Fairlight’s Page R sequencer. Wikipedia claims (and I have no reason to doubt) that this was the first time an entire drum pattern was digitally sampled.

Fast forward a few months, and this production team formed The Art of Noise around these Fairlight experiments with the assistance of writer and media wrangler Paul Morley. And, as a result, that’s Alan White you hear sampled, cut-up, and processed-to-hell on the seminal songs “Close To The Edit” and “Beatbox.”

Not only is it likely that Alan White was the first drummer to get captured in a sampler’s Phantom Zone, but those beats went on to inspire whole genres of hip hop, breakbeat, big beat, and so much more. I doubt there’d be a Bomb Squad without Alan White and that night of Fairlight tomfoolery, and, really, that’s all you need to know. Today’s music wouldn’t be the same.

Curious about this vintage alien technology called a Fairlight CMI? Someone made a video with the sampler and replicated the creation of “Beatbox.” The display graphics seem right out of a dashboard screen on the USCSS Nostromo:

Fairlight CMI Screen

Side tale: When I heard (Who’s Afraid of) The Art of Noise? I was instantly obsessed. I couldn’t figure out how this music existed, and I needed to know. In my knowledge quest, I learned about this amazing new thing called a digital sampler. I had to have one, but I didn’t have £18,000 lying around. So I made a list of all the things I’d eventually sample once I got ahold of one: household appliances, my friends vocalizing, various neighborhood pets, and so on. When I finally got my first sampler, a Casio SK-1, I was frustrated by its limitations and couldn’t act on over 90% of my list. But it was still a formative blast. That weird little keyboard and a few tunes sampling the drummer Alan White were responsible for pushing me down the music production path.

🔗→ Previously: Digital Sampling With a Sense of Humor

I’m Screaming Inside

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Another week, another shooting. Another mass shooting — a horrible, unthinkable, unimaginably terrifying act of inhumanity aided by a fringe-boosted gun culture that thinks banning — or even limiting access to! — assault rifles are, I don’t know, a slippery slope to the Harvesters from The Matrix shoving us all in pods. Little kids — children! — were most of the victims. Once again. Seriously, I just typed “once again.”

I wish I were a more seasoned writer as I want to write about this but I don’t know how. I want to write about the horror that this could happen to my nieces or my friend’s kids at school, or to my wife or mother or me while grocery shopping. It’s unlikely but it sure seems likely.

I want to write about the frustration of knowing nothing’s going to happen to prevent other children or people from being harmed. That the ‘well if we just arm teachers’ line is going to be trotted out again by the same people who won’t allow firearms at their convention. And that those people have paid for indifference from those who could actually do something. Meanwhile, the ones supposedly on our side won’t take hold of the narrative and force some political accountability. It’s infuriating, it’s scary. I don’t have the aptitude to write through this.

Oh, and I want to write about the guns. They are the problem, full stop. The nonsensical culture around them is a part of that problem. The lobbying and money pouring into the political system is a part of that problem. The excuses made in public by those who know better are another part of that problem. But it all stems from guns.

My dad was a gun guy, a lifetime member of that organization I mentioned above that won’t allow firearms at their party. And he thought assault weapons should be banned. Most gun guys do. So why is there a problem? That’s the least of what should happen, what should have happened a long time ago.

Maybe someday I’ll get my writing chops in gear and lay down a moving essay that’ll make me feel a smidgen better. But for now, I’m angry. This is a broken, demolished country and it’s impossible to see it any other way. The fact others don’t get this — or are ‘let’s burn it all down’ psychopaths— is pure gaslighting.

It feels like I’m screaming inside. Like all the time.

Here are a couple of commentaries from two of my favorite newsletter writers that I hope you’ll click and read in full:

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todayintabs.com
What Are You Willing To Do?
We all know what happened. Now what?
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todayintabs.com
What Are You Willing To Do?
We all know what happened. Now what?

Rusty Foster:

Since at least 2016, I’ve been asking myself: what am I willing to do? So far the answer is protest, when there’s a protest happening. I quit my job, and I encourage others to quit their jobs when I get a chance. I vote, for all the good that does. So in total: I’ve done nothing.
[…]
The truth is, I don’t know what to do. I hugged my own third grader goodbye this morning and sent her off to school. The middle school she’ll attend in three years is remote today because they discovered “threats” in a bathroom. We live in a country where statistically, until age 19, she is most likely to die of a gunshot wound. So what am I willing to do? Anything. 

Tell me what to do.

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annehelen.substack.com
This is What Happens When You Live Under Minority Rule
And this continued inaction is how a government loses its legitimacy
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annehelen.substack.com
This is What Happens When You Live Under Minority Rule
And this continued inaction is how a government loses its legitimacy

Ann Helen Petersen:

The dilution of votes in cities is the point, and so long as the minority remains in power, it will continue to make laws (and judgments) that protect against its erosion. Voter registration campaigns are not enough. Reciprocal gerrymandering strategies, not enough. If, in a state like Idaho, you go through the initiative process to try and pass legislation (like Medicaid expansion) that’s actually popular, then the legislation will rewrite the laws to prevent it from ever happening again. 

It’s not enough to live in a blue state. It’s not enough to try and send your kids to private school. It’s not enough to donate to an abortion fund. It’s not even enough to have money, or a home, or an education. Privilege can insulate you from the hostility of American society but it cannot ultimately save you from it. Collective and individual action feel impotent. The idea of representative democracy comes to feel like a farce.
[…]
Voting, on its own, will not be enough to change that. We have to decide: what will be?

That Word Doesn’t Mean Anything Anymore

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Philip Sherburne Loves to Write About Records
a.k.a. An interview with one of electronic music’s most respected journalists.
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Philip Sherburne Loves to Write About Records
a.k.a. An interview with one of electronic music’s most respected journalists.

SR: During the past decade, there’s been a larger reevaluation of pop music and its merits—what many refer to as poptimism—and it’s prompted a major shift in music journalism, especially at outlets like Pitchfork. Do you think that’s been a good thing?

PS: I do in the sense that people are taking seriously styles of music that for a long time were just written off. It’s caused journalists and readers to rethink a lot of assumptions about what constitutes value, and it’s undone a lot of prejudices about women and people of color making music and what styles are valid for critical appraisal. At the same time, when it comes to contemporary pop, what I find frustrating as a reader and a listener is that I sometimes find the discourse to be far more interesting than the music. For many records, there’s not a lot of substance there beyond the fame of the artist, and I don’t think that the critical discourse acknowledges that. Still, it’s hard to generalize, and my opinion probably reflects my own tastes, which are quite experimental and idiosyncratic.

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PS: … if we’re using the word underground to talk about dance music that’s made primarily to fill nightclubs where the business model is based on alcohol sales, then that word doesn’t really mean anything anymore.

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PS: … as the scene has become more diversified, not just in terms of demographics but also in terms of geography and styles of music, I think it’s become harder to do an electronic music publication that represents the breadth of everything and still feels central. There’s been an explosion of musicians, DJ and venues; maybe the answer is to go back to more locally focused publications. That might be a better way to represent what’s actually happening in electronic music.

A few of my favorite takeaways from Shawn Reynaldo’s in-depth interview with veteran music journalist and reviewer Philip Sherburne. All instances of emphasis are mine. The full piece goes up behind a paywall tomorrow so read it while you can (if you’re a paid subscriber to Shawn’s excellent First Floor newsletter then you’ll continue to have access).

Gardening Not Architecture

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There was an article about me yesterday in the Orlando Weekly. Written by long-time friend Daniel Fuller (who you may remember as danielfuzztone), the piece is a sort of ‘where is he now?’ explainer for the curious. Of course, I’m not hiding — I’m here on the blog and involved in many public-facing projects. But, locally, I’ve left the scene behind. Remember: I was a Q-Burns Abstract Message once, and for a decade or more, you could find me DJ’ing in Orlando at least a few times each month.

Daniel did a fantastic job summarizing what I’m up to. And the article is fascinating (at least to me) when paired with a prior Orlando Weekly profile from 1997, also written by Daniel. If only I knew then what I know now etc. etc.

There are a few things in the article I feel like elaborating on. I thought about calling this the ‘director’s commentary,’ but, in that comparison, I think Daniel would be the director. So these are my liner notes:

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How Orlando’s Michael Donaldson left global DJing behind to reconnect with music (and life)
Q-Burns’ abstract journey
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How Orlando’s Michael Donaldson left global DJing behind to reconnect with music (and life)
Q-Burns’ abstract journey

“I got into DJing initially because it seemed like an extension of what I was really into as a punk rock kid … I was really into the idea of the band being the facilitator for the show; they weren’t necessarily the stars.”

The main draw of punk rock for me in my teenage years wasn’t the music, though I liked a lot of that, too. Instead, it was the concept of fans and bands occupying a level playing field. One was as crucial to the scene, the show, and the ‘infrastructure’ as the other. As a result, punk rock felt like a co-op. (Here’s the point where, once again, I recommend Michael Azerrad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life. This book describes the grassroots independent music scene that shaped all my opinions and feelings on how decentralized communities really work.)

As I grew up, punk rock did, too. Suddenly, many of these bands were preening on magazine covers and making major label compromises. They became the stars, and we became the fans in the crowd, a hierarchical separation. I lost interest.

Then, I discovered underground dance music around 1990. At that time, the independent dance/house/techno scene had a lot of the elements that brought me to punk rock: the dancefloor as equal (or maybe more critical) to the DJ, a self-distributed ethos, and an international network furthering the music through zines, small clubs, and independent distributors. Of course, there were always DJ ‘stars.’ But what interested me were the scenes that developed around specific labels, crews, and parties. The DJs or their names were inconsequential, which is partly why many early producers kept changing pseudonyms from release to release. It was also common for the DJ to be hidden, maybe behind a wall with a small opening. Or in the center of the dancefloor without a spotlight. Like the band in my quote above, the DJ was there to facilitate the goings-on.

But, yeah, that aspect of underground dance music dwindled as the boom years of the mid-90s hit. The trajectory followed that of punk rock, with more and more DJ cover stars and heightened commercial aspirations. The DJ booth became a place under spotlights, and by the mid-2000s, one couldn’t DJ without a line of people watching instead of dancing, like the DJ’s doing a guitar solo or something.

I recognize that I found myself on a few magazine covers and did the major label thing — I wasn’t immune to these aspirations. But by the late 2000s, I was over it. Underground dance music lacked most of the things that initially brought me into it. DJ stars got upgraded to superstars, festivals were ascendant, and that whole Boiler Room thing of ‘let’s watch the DJ’ became the norm.

I realize some pockets retained the original spirit, and some probably still do today. But I couldn’t connect with the place I found myself in — and I’m partly responsible for occupying that place — which made me uncomfortable. I wanted out, cold turkey. And then the keratoconus hit.

“It became a little tougher for me also because I had this eye disease called keratoconus that made it really difficult to see in dark rooms — so it became less and less fun for me for that reason as well,” Donaldson says.

You can learn more about keratoconus at this link. I knew I had a problem when I was playing a warehouse party in San Francisco under my ideal circumstance — no spotlights! — and I couldn’t see the record covers. I’m thumbing through my vinyl bag and have no idea what to play because I couldn’t distinguish one record from another. That sucked! A DJ named Joey Youngman was there and saw the trouble I was having. He happened to have a penlight and gave it to me, my knight in shining armor.

Not-so-fun fact: Scott Hardkiss had keratoconus, too. We used to commiserate over it whenever we talked. I miss that guy.

But after seeing Meat Beat Manifesto perform, he bought a sampler and began creating his own dance tracks …

I tell the whole story of how Meat Beat Manifesto led to my first sampler and how that encounter eventually resulted in a tour with them in this episode of the Scotch and GOOD Conversation podcast.

For the curious, search for “Animation Festival” on Bandcamp — a Butthole Surfers-esque group he was in during the late ’80s.

I would rather you didn’t search for that, but here’s the link as I know you will anyway. Please don’t start with the first song as it’s distorted all to hell.

Animation Festival wasn’t a band but a solo effort I recorded on an old four-track recorder. (My then and still close friend Les added some guitar to the last tune.) I was teaching myself music production and setting up challenges for myself. The goal of this project was to see if I could record a ‘continuous album’ on four tracks. In other words, to have the separate songs fade into each other. If you’ve ever tried recording an album on a four-track — especially in stereo — then you know this is tough! I was successful though not without mountains of tape hiss.

I sent this to a Memphis-based tape label called Harsh Reality Music. They put it out! And they sent one to Factsheet Five, and it somehow got a great review. “This is real music,” was the review’s last sentence, which baffles me to this day. But, technically, this is my first album, my first time working with a label, and my first review.

The notes on that Bandcamp page say I recorded the tape in 1990, but that’s wrong. I started recording this in 1987, going into ’88. Oh, and this is fun: I achieved the pitch effects on my voice by twiddling the tape speed on the four-track. That’s how we used to do.

In fact, one of his favorite countries to travel to was Russia, where he DJed more than a dozen times.

I really need to write more about Russia on this blog. I wrote about one experience here. 

I wouldn’t say it was one of my favorite places as I loved going anywhere, especially if I hadn’t been. But I started going to Russia in 1998 — a prominent club promoter was an early fan — and, yes, I ended up back there about 15 times.

I made many friends in Russia, and I’m still in touch with a few, though some have long since moved outside of the country for various reasons. I loved exploring Moscow and Russia and was fond of the people I met. But, yeah, the government and its leaders always creeped me out (which led to more than one heated conversation with a Russian friend). 

As I kept going back, things got weirder and weirder. My last visit was around 2010. During my visit, I was stopped and threatened with arrest for walking to a diner after midnight, and the club I played got raided by authorities touting machine guns. The possibility of either of those things would not have crossed my mind until my last few trips.

But so many beautiful things happened there, too. Once I was invited by the then-girlfriend of my friend Boris to join her family for Maslenitsa, the Russian day of forgiveness. That was quite an honor, and we ate the traditional pancake-like meal while the father quizzed me in Russian (his daughter translating) about my favorite science fiction movies. After dinner, the father invited me to the drawing room, where we partook in shots of vodka. Then, after plenty of drinks, the father called his daughter over to help translate something for me.

He got emotional. The father explained that during Soviet times he worked on Russia’s nuclear missile arsenal. “I helped with the missiles aimed at YOU!” he said. Then, getting more teary-eyed, he added, “If you had told me then I’d host an American in my house for Maslenitsa, I would have said you were crazy. It’s incredible to have you here. These are wonderful times.” And we toasted and did another shot.

Those were wonderful times. I don’t miss DJ’ing, but I wouldn’t mind returning to that feeling of reconciliation and friendship among those formally separated by state-ordained ideology. And I’m not just talking about people of different countries. But, like my last DJ set, it seems so long ago. 

We’re Still Statik Dancin’

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Minimal Compact were (are?) a groundbreaking band that were based out of Tel Aviv in their heyday. They released a series of acclaimed albums in the ’80s on the Crammed label that explored post-punk’s funkier, artsier edges. Minimal Compact are probably more influential than you think — ask a few clued-in art punks.

The band sounded the alarm with “Statik Dancin’,” the first track on their debut album, 1982’s One By One. You could say “Statik Dancin'” helped set the template for the DFA/LCD sound alongside Eno’s work with Talking Heads and other triumphs of sonic mish-mashing from that era. There’s more than one unique element to “Statik Dancin’,” but Samy Birnbach’s disconnected but urgent vocal delivery and Marc Hollander’s spiraling bass clarinet solo are most noteworthy. The rhythm line is an electrical pulse, high tempo but locked in. And this guitar is more scratch than notes and counts as part of that rhythm section. I’m positive you could play this at any dance music club without killing the vibe.

Even wilder: a new re-release of the original version (not the respectable Colin Newman assisted 2019 re-recording) backed by a remixed ‘dub’ from none other than Mad Professor. A dub done well shines sunlight on the bones of the source track — it’s the same skeleton but you can now examine the joints. And what joints are these! The bass and drum (and percussion) drive is as kinetic as ever while Samy’s voice and Berry Sakharof’s guitar twirl in the echo chamber. Mr. Professor adds elements familiar even to those who only know his Massive Attack work, and, despite the absence of bass clarinet (maybe it’s hiding in the mix), the whole thing feels like an explosion in slow motion. What a cut.

There aren’t many people producing dubs as tastefully and effectively as Mad Professor. Unfortunately, many contemporary dub versions are either too heavy-handed or sonically timid. I feel like DAW in-the-box automation, for all its advantages, takes the danger out of recording a ‘version.’ Dub is on the fly, an octopus at the controls, pushing buttons and riding faders. Just check out this video of Mad Professor in action. Or how about Adrian Sherwood for something even more intense?

Adrian Sherwood at the controls

Let’s leave the subject of dubs and go back to Minimal Compact — or, more specifically, Samy Birnbach. His post-Compact career has been long and wide, including curating the beloved Freezone series of compilations and his SSR label. As DJ Morpheus, he DJs on radio and club decks and is responsible for one of the best sets I have ever heard. It was at a small club in Moscow, and Samy didn’t beat-mix a single record. The music selection and his sly sequencing did all the work, and it blew me away.

Let’s go back further. In 1996, I released a record on San Francisco’s Mephisto Records called “141 Revenge Street.” The 12″ got around more than I could have imagined, and a copy ended up in Samy’s hands. He got in touch with me (maybe by fax!) and suggested I hang out with him in Miami at the Winter Music Conference. I had no intention to go but couldn’t help but think it would be cool to meet the guy behind the Freezone compilations, the guy behind “Statik Dancin’.” So I popped down to Miami — my first time — and met up with Samy, who seemed to know everyone but spent a lot of time with me. He gave me a lot of advice, encouraged my then fledgling DJ/producer career, and introduced me to people like Carl Craig and Kruder & Dorfmeister. Holy cats, I was hooked.

I returned home with a multi-year supply of inspiration and got to work. I started recording what would become my Sunburn single and the next Mephisto release. Samy released “141 Revenge Street” on SSR and got Glenn Underground to remix it. Then someone bought me a plane ticket for the first time, and I flew to Detroit, where a guy heckled me during my entire DJ set. It wasn’t but another year or so that Astralwerks came calling.

I’m still in touch with Samy. He’s been a trusted constant and friend in this business called music. All these years later, we’re both still statik dancin’.

What a Time to Be Alive

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“What a time to be alive,” he groaned.

About a decade ago, a friend and I talked about how the world was in turmoil and disturbingly uncertain. I remember telling him my theory that the cause of almost all modern conflict is resistance to change. Humans are progressing and becoming more enlightened, for the most part, and the status quo doesn’t approve. A concerted and institutional effort to stop this change only gets more desperate. After all, change is inevitable — it’s happening whether anyone wants it, which is ultimately an optimistic view.

But, as I told my friend, it will get a lot worse before it gets better. So we sighed and shook our heads in grudging anticipation for the tough times ahead. But we had no idea it would get to this.

It’s not easy to write through democracy in crisis. ‘The American Experiment,’ once presented with holy reverence in high school civics classes, may not survive the strain of 250 years. What seemed hyperbolic and the province of chicken littles is now a rising possibility. It’s scary out there. And I find it unfathomable that this is acceptable to others who also sat through those civics classes. Some of them — elected officials, even — are cheering on democracy’s potential collapse.

How did we get here?

Sean Illing is the host of Vox Conversations. Within that weekly podcast, Sean launched a monthly series called The Philosophers. Each episode focuses on different philosophers and how their teachings are relevant today. And the installment on philosopher Hannah Arendt, author of 1973’s The Origins of Totalitarianism, is an eye-opener. The podcast isn’t an easy listen — not because it’s dense but because of how Arendt’s findings apply to our situation. I found the conversation illuminating, and though it didn’t add hope to my day, it brought some new perspectives.

The perceived helplessness is stifling, too. I’m a massive advocate of voting — if you saw me DJ close to the 2004 and 2008 elections, I was probably wearing a t-shirt with “VOTE!” written across my chest. But the right to vote, the bedrock of democracy, is increasingly compromised. And then there’s the fatigue of seeing too many elected officials not sounding the alarm as they should. In her fantastic Lorem Ipsum newsletter, Margot Boyer-Dry linked to this cartoon, accurately summing up the feeling in the air. 

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But I think voting is still the most important action, in concert with other forms of activism, support, and donation. The guiding principle is to do the opposite of what the knuckleheads want. And they don’t want us to vote. The evidence is there. They want us to feel frustrated and powerless. They want us to ignore local and midterm elections and only care about presidential politics. And they want us to vote for third-party candidates and to believe those votes count.

The fact is that our political system is based on what’s called ‘first-past-the-post’ voting. Intrinsically, this creates a two-party system (even independents like Sanders have to align themselves with one of two parties), and voting outside of those, at best, does nothing but provide a limited sense of personal satisfaction. CGP Grey has a great video on first-past-the-post voting and how easily it can lead to undesirable outcomes. 

CGP Grey - Vote Leopard

Look, I’m not saying this is a great system. Far from it! If I had my way, there would be zero political parties in the US or, at the very least, a parliamentarian system. Ranked choice voting is the most probable alternative within the US system, but it’s still a pipe dream on a national level.1If you like the idea of ranked choice voting, the best way to advance the concept is to build support for it in your city or county. Ranked choice voting will need to trickle upward to acceptability.

You might cry that I’m asking you to vote for “the lesser of two evils.” I am, and that’s not a bad thing! That’s the only way to make first-past-the-post voting work for us. We find candidates that are a step in our preferred direction, even if those steps are baby steps. We won’t and don’t have to agree with everything — just those things that are important to us. If we’re consistent in electing ‘baby step’ candidates, those steps get larger and larger as new candidates see how the wind is blowing. The alternative is what we have now: steps backward. And, dismayingly, these backward steps are large steps. For those traditionally trod upon, they’re giant steps.

Speaking of those giant steps backward, here’s Margot Boyer-Dry again, from a recent edition of Lorem Ipsum:

Having moved through the years 2016-2022, this moment is hitting bluntly, mainly because it feels like there’s relatively little to be done from an establishment perspective (again, outside the voting, which we will all do responsibly, if with a degree of dejection). But what does that leave? Everything besides the establishment. I think we’re about to see a lot of guerilla change. Just wait until we all start hosting kids from Florida in our city apartments while they get medical care. Watch the startups normalize mail-order abortion pills. Observe the the Supreme Court’s crumbling in the cultural consciousness. There will be stuff to do; we just have to make it up. Sit tight.

🔗→ see also: Creating Sends a Signal

Expand the Bubble

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In January, I started compiling my Bandcamp discoveries in a monthly playlist. I utilize BNDCMPR technology, allowing songs from everyone’s favorite music platform assembled into an online playlist. BNDCMPR isn’t just a useful alternative to Spotify playlists for turning people on to cool tunes but these compilations also help me remember favorites I’ve run across on Bandcamp.

I just published April’s playlist. It features a mix of brand new music, a few great songs from friends, and a couple of meaningful rediscoveries (R.I.P. David Freel). As always, I put care into the sequencing so listen to the playlist from beginning to end if you’re able. And please check out the full albums and purchase any music that you’re particularly digging.

Need more? Here are my previous playlists from January, February, and March.

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I spent a good part of the weekend cleaning out my RSS feed subscriptions. There are a lot of feeds in there and I don’t think I’m even a third of the way done. I subscribe to a lot of feeds. I like to open my RSS reader (I use Inoreader) and start flipping from the most recent thing that comes up. This gives the experience a random feel to it (and you know how much I like random things) and I’m often finding inspiration from articles and posts I wouldn’t have run across otherwise.

That said, as I audit my RSS subscriptions, I’m saddened but not surprised at how many blogs are dead or inactive. Granted, many of these bloggers have moved on to newsletters (you can follow many of those with RSS, too) but — come on — let’s get back to the beat of the blog!

Subscribing to RSS feeds is the most important part of my gathering and researching process. It’s also how I keep up with my favorite blogs and sites, especially those of friends of mine. Until recently, I kept up with ‘what’s going on’ and potential writing topics through Twitter and social media. Now, with RSS, I get to finely curate the info flow to my interests while keeping things broad enough to expand the bubble, all without the overwhelming noise. And — bonus! — there aren’t any algorithms getting in the way. The web is pleasant again.

Interested? Here’s a great page that explains all you need to know.

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I’m considering posting the week’s media diet here every Sunday. I worry revealing this information will make it seem like I read, watch, and listen to way too much. Please know that I compartmentalize my intake — I have specific times of day for it all and I rarely finish anything in one sitting — so rest assured it’s not like I’m staring at a TV all day.

WATCHING

Shoot the Piano Player (1960) – François Truffaut’s second film is excellent and surprisingly hard-boiled, but also comes off as a little slight. That’s probably because, in Truffaut’s filmography, it’s sandwiched between The 400 Blows and Jules and Jim, two of the best films of the 20th century. I like that the two gangsters in Shoot the Piano Player apparently got into their line of work because they really enjoy meeting new people.

A Separation (2011) – I first saw A Separation a decade ago and can’t believe how hard it still hits in a rewatch. Masterful in every. Single. Way. Here’s a fantastic review of the film on Letterboxd that helps explain why it’s so great.

King Richard (2021) – I’m still getting through last year’s Oscar-nominated films. I spent a small chunk of this thinking Rick Macci was played by Bob Odenkirk under a wig and a bit of makeup. Despite that disorienting delusion, I found this to be standard but enjoyable Hollywood fare. The kids are great as is Smith, even in light of the post-Oscar elephant stomping around the room.

Tokyo Vice – Caroline and I are enjoying this. It’s stylish and fast-paced, and Ken Watanabe is always a joy to watch in action. There are more than a few moments of insufferable expository dialogue (usually my TV-watching kryptonite). And a few of the plot points require putting logic on hold, which is no biggie as the source material might not be that logical either. But it is a lot of fun and who doesn’t enjoy cruising around late-90s Tokyo for an hour each week?

LISTENING

You already know what I’m listening to music-wise if you check out the BNDCMPR playlist that started this post. Other than that, two podcasts caught my ears this week and made my brain whirl.

I really got into this conversation between the author Robert Greene and Pete Holmes on the latter’s You Made It Weird podcast. Holmes is a little hard to take at times (especially if you’re a new listener and aren’t used to his overbearing bedside manner as a podcast host), but Greene and his fascinating interests make everything good. He gets a little into his process and also goes into how a follower of Zen Buddhism could comfortably write books about power and seduction. There’s some life-after-death and ‘time is a flat circle’ type talk, too, so hold on to your hats.

I didn’t exactly get what I expected from the author Emily St. John Mandel on The Ezra Klein Show besides a couple of passages read from her books. Instead, most of this discussion is about time travel and what it would mean if we are indeed living in a simulation. I ate this up, especially the conclusion that we’re already living in a simulation because of the stories we agree upon that control our lives. Heady stuff!

READING

I’m working my way through Salman Rushdie’s Shame. It’s not an easy read! But I’m continuing on as every time I pick it up there’s some gem of magical realism or a gorgeous series of sentences that keeps me moving toward the end.

Spot Lyte On Podcast with Carrie Kania

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A quick plug for the latest episode of Spot Lyte On…, a music industry-adjacent podcast that I co-produce and edit. Host Lawrence Peryer speaks with Carrie Kania, creative director at Iconic Images and former publishing executive at HarperCollins. Unsurprisingly for these two music-heads, most of the conversation is about music — favorite bands, early music memories, favorite shows — but you’ll also hear fascinating reminiscences about living in New York at the end of the 20th century and plenty of insight on the book publishing industry. The episode is available on your favorite podcasting platform or app including our suggestions found here.

Milk Crate of Forgotten Playlists

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The best and truest discourse regarding Twitter’s predicament (and that of its users) expresses the sentiment of just letting it go. This is a hopeful stance, so don’t misconstrue it with surrender or giving up. Folks obsessed with fixing, preserving, or even finding an equal replacement for Twitter are embracing a defective template. Like arguing with Spotify to change its ways, a focus on what’s clearly an unsolvable problem distracts us from creating ‘first-principles’1Yes, I’m cheekily using a term popularized by that billionaire knucklehead. alternatives. Rip it up and start again.

Ryan Broderick in Garbage Day:

I’ve seen arguments on Twitter from liberal users this week saying things like, “Twitter is a public square and the front page of the internet, we must stay and fight the Musk fans and conservatives for it.” lol with all due respect, but why? The main benefit of the internet is that it’s infinite. There doesn’t need to be a public square! And there can also be many! […] Twitter, though smaller than other platforms, still monopolizes our culture more than any other. And very soon it will be owned by the richest man on Earth… But we don’t need to stay there. There’s nothing keeping us there. And I’d argue we can take it further. We now know that centralized feeds are just easy targets for despots and oligarchs (and whatever Mark Zuckerberg is) to capture and control. We need to throw it all out. Make websites and message boards and Discords and become ungovernable. Kill the central feed.

Robin Sloan:

There are so many ways people might relate to one another online, so many ways exchange and conviviality might be organized. Look at these screens, this wash of pixels, the liquid potential! What a colossal bummer that Twitter eked out a local maximum; that its network effect still (!) consumes the fuel for other possibilities, other explorations.

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Brian Eno with guitar

I appreciate Gary Hustwit’s approach to documentary film-making, and his feature-length profile on designer Dieter Rams is a total joy. So, under Hustwit’s steely direction, I’m more excited than hesitant about a documentary on Brian Eno. But will it be generative?

From the press release:

Befitting its subject, Eno will utilize proprietary generative software developed by Hustwit and digital artist Brendan Dawes to provide unique viewing experiences via multiple digital formats, cinema screenings and site-specific installations. “You can’t make a conventional, by-the-numbers bio doc about Brian Eno,” said Hustwit. “That would be antithetical and a missed opportunity. What I’m trying to do is to create a cinematic experience that’s as innovative as Brian’s approach to music and art.”

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Hidden in a Fire Island House, the Soundtrack of Love and Loss
In tragedy, music provided solace during the AIDS epidemic, and newly discovered cassette tapes captured two decades of parties and pain.
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Hidden in a Fire Island House, the Soundtrack of Love and Loss
In tragedy, music provided solace during the AIDS epidemic, and newly discovered cassette tapes captured two decades of parties and pain.

This moving NY Times article explores how mixtapes can capture and contextualize historical moments. In this case, a stash of recordings discovered in a former ‘party house’ on Fire Island documents the escape and loss experienced by the island’s community throughout the tragic height of the AIDS crisis. There are many other histories told through hand-designed mixtapes — the genesis of hip-hop and the ebbs and flows of the original rave movement, for two examples. However, these histories are confined to the period from the mid-70s to the late ’90s. Future accounts told through music will take other forms, but it’s not like anyone will stumble across a milk crate packed with forgotten playlists.

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I can’t get enough of this cover version of Black Flag’s “Rise Above” from the French duo Ibeyi. It’s as perfect for 2022 as the original was for 1981. The predictably angry reactions peppering the song’s YouTube comments section miss the point entirely — the fed-up spirit of punk rock is for everyone, no matter the race, nationality, or musical genre. Nobody exclusively owns that.

Imagining Astronauts Overhead

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Early in the morning — 4:00 AM on the dot — I was woken by a deep but distant rumbling sound. At first, I thought the sub-bass rattle was from one of the formidable car stereos often heard rolling through a busy intersection a mile to the west of my place. But there was no rhythmic consistency, so these weren’t jeep beats.

Then I remembered seeing, previously that day, an alert for a SpaceX launch scheduled just before the rumble eased me out of my sleep. Four astronauts were on their way to the space station. 

I live over 50 miles away in Orlando, and, on a cloudless day, I can see the Cape Canaveral launches on the horizon over my backyard lake. It’s one of my favorite things about living here. But I’ve never heard the sound of a launch from here before, much less get woken by one. Perhaps it was the tranquil evening; the lift-off sounds resting on light winds blowing in my direction. I quickly fell back asleep, imagining astronauts overhead.

There’s a moral conflict when awful people do good things. I love spaceflight — I was hooked ever since I gawked over the first Space Shuttle launch from a pier in Cocoa Beach. So, of course, I’m happy that SpaceX has revitalized the rocket industry and gotten more people excited about space exploration. And, tangentially, I’m thrilled that Tesla made electric cars sexy to the point where every major car company is now invested in plug-in vehicles. But the billionaire behind all of this is a knucklehead. What makes him more awful is that he gets all sorts of ‘passes’ because of his money and influence as a perceived genius. 

Furthermore, his stated aspirations with Twitter show he shares a pervasive, toxic idea with other awful people in the monied class: that rich people should be able to exclusively define free speech as something that excludes the financially privileged from consequences.

I’ll keep cheering on rocket launches, though I simply like rockets, SpaceX or otherwise. And my next car will be an electric one. It won’t be a Tesla.

🔗→ Some great thoughts on this topic from Ezra Klein.