8Sided Blog

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

Unforeseen Circumstances

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It turns out that if you put off replacing aging scleral contacts for a couple of years, they become brittle and might crack as you gently clean them in your hands. Good to know. And that’s why I’m dealing with unforeseen circumstances — meaning, in my present state, I can’t see circumstances for shit. 

I’ve written about keratoconus here a few times. It’s a total bummer. The eyeballs lose their shape, and one’s eyesight gets wacky. As it’s a structural degradation of the eye itself, glasses aren’t too much help. Scleral contacts are your best bet (unless you want to live la vida loca and get a corneal transplant, which I am not wont to do).

The good news is I found a rad new eye doctor on a friend’s recommendation. She has keratoconus, too, which is bad news for her but good news for me. It’s nice to have a doctor who understands your condition and what you’re going through first-hand. This doc is also about 5 minutes from my house. That proximity is a novelty — over a decade ago, when first diagnosed, there were so few eye specialists dealing in keratoconus that I had to be driven (as I couldn’t safely drive) four hours to Miami. I did that almost monthly for a year. And my new doc had to do the same thing at the time.

I saw this doctor yesterday and was thoroughly eye-prodded and iris-scanned to get the perfect fit for my new scleral lenses. I can’t wait to get them. Because right now, I’m legally blind. And I’ll remain this way until the contacts arrive, which appears to happen next Thursday. 

I won’t get into what these things cost. I’ll just say that if you wear ‘normal’ contacts, multiply your price by at least five. But I can’t normally function, easily work, or do much of anything enjoyable without my expensive bionic eyes. That keratoconus is not covered by any insurance plan I know of is another white mark on the chalkboard of health care crimes in the good ol’ USA.

But I can blog, right? Sure! But if you spied into my window, you’d see me holding my phone up to my face, typing on the tiny keyboard with my thumbs. It’s so much comfier on my peepers to do it this ridiculous way than looking into my huge 29″ computer monitor. And watching movies? On my iPad, also held maybe five inches from the tip of my nose. So, what do you have planned for the week ahead? I’ll be holding various devices against my nose.

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I also realized that I hadn’t posted my BNDCMPR playlist for June. So, here it is. As always, this playlist is a selection of fantastic songs I ran across on Bandcamp over the past month. The playlist is shorter this time, but the quality is mountain high. If you dig anything I included, then feel free to purchase the tune. Or, at least, follow the corresponding artist or label on Bandcamp. Enjoy!

Thoughts Held Hostage

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As I do the mental strength training to reenter the world of blogging, a war rages on. Once more, my thoughts seem held hostage. Writing through this is an option, but I’m not sure if music recommendations and snarky asides will cut it.

‘Inspiration blogs’ are essential right now — these are the blogs that I look to for a glimpse at how others are managing in tough times, something I mentioned in my guide to blogging. Kottke is a good one to peruse as Jason continues to post about topics ranging from meaningful to frivolous, but not without acknowledging the weighted sadness of current events. Warren Ellis has started blogging again (and a reason for his recent absence should be noted) — his casual but steady approach to blogging reminds me not to overthink the process. And then there’s James A, Reeves’ Atlas Minor, which proves that there’s a lot that’s fascinating and rewarding in blogging about what’s going on in the internal spaces.

This Bandcamp Friday, Support the Music of Ukraine
Today is Bandcamp Friday, and we encourage our readers to support the artists and labels of Ukraine. We’re scoured our resources to find 25 of the best instrumental and experimental…
This Bandcamp Friday, Support the Music of Ukraine
Today is Bandcamp Friday, and we encourage our readers to support the artists and labels of Ukraine. We’re scoured our resources to find 25 of the best instrumental and experimental…

Today is Bandcamp Friday1And I’ll have plenty more to say about Epic Games’ acquisition of Bandcamp soon.. If you’re a fan of the type of music I regularly write about here, you should venture over to A Closer Listen’s list of Ukrainian artists to support. I’m breezing through it as I type this and discovering many brilliant new-to-me ambient/electronic/post-rock sounds.

Here are Ukrainian artists and labels you can support and celebrate – CDM Create Digital Music
There’s never too much music, and never enough attention on independent artists and labels. The reality is that Ukrainian artists – like so much of eastern Europe – often got…
Here are Ukrainian artists and labels you can support and celebrate – CDM Create Digital Music
There’s never too much music, and never enough attention on independent artists and labels. The reality is that Ukrainian artists – like so much of eastern Europe – often got…

Also, Peter Kirn highlighted an expansive spreadsheet devoted to Ukrainian bands and artists to explore. He’s picked a few excellent recommendations to peep in his post.

The Quietus | Features | A Guide To Ukraine-Supporting Compilations On Bandcamp Friday
Miloš Hroch has come up with 11 suggestions for those looking to buy some Ukraine-supporting music on the latest Bandcamp Friday
The Quietus | Features | A Guide To Ukraine-Supporting Compilations On Bandcamp Friday
Miloš Hroch has come up with 11 suggestions for those looking to buy some Ukraine-supporting music on the latest Bandcamp Friday

And, via The Quietus, here’s a list of benefit compilations “for those looking to buy some Ukraine-supporting music on the latest Bandcamp Friday.”

Morning reading: Smithsonian Magazine gives some 20th-century historical context to the war over Ukraine. This article also helped me better understand some of the themes in Come And See, which I wrote about previously. Adam Tooze’s Chartbook newsletter is invaluable in understanding what’s going on in this war and what it means for world affairs. I admit a lot of what ‘The Tooze’ writes about goes over my head, but I have just as many “oh, I see now” moments, too. I’m also working through Tooze’s conversation with Ezra Klein on Klein’s podcast — dense but illuminating stuff. (Not Ukraine related: Klein’s episode last week with philosopher C. Thi Nguyen talking about how games are always present in our lives is a humdinger.)

Ballad of the Blog

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Perhaps you’ve noticed that this blog is alive once more, after a long and mysterious absence. My newsletter came to a skidding halt about seven months ago, and the blog’s been eerily silent. The only place you could openly find me all this time was Twitter, which is simply embarrassing.

I wrote about this on Twitter last August with an optimistic tone that, in retrospect, was perhaps jumping the gun a little. Expanding on that thread, I’ll say that I was (and am) exhausted — just like many of you. As COVID-times dragged on and on and on and the vicious news cycle dragged on and on and on, the ennui gathered into mountains. There was nothing I wanted to write about. Nothing in my head, nothing inspiring, nothing exciting to document in the early morning hours. Even my journal, updated almost daily for years, went dark.

Luckily my professional life doesn’t rely on writing, so I had the luxury to stop and wait. Nevertheless, I knew that I was hardly alone in this stifled feeling. And, heeding the advice of those talented enough to write through this malaise, I knew the best strategy was to not stress out about my lack of motivation. The recommended move was actually to lean into it — do other things, find new hobbies, read lots of books, and occupy the brain with something other than the fact that the creative plumbing’s sprung a bad leak.

So, that’s what I did. I shifted focus to my spunky music label, 8D Industries. I learned to make tasty and fiery hot sauces (which became a gateway drug to vegan cooking). I got actively involved with marketing Caroline’s growing Kitten School channel. I spent a lot more time with family as I successfully and safely moved mom to a house next door during a pandemic. And I started getting involved in freelance podcast production.

Several months ago, I was hired to edit and co-produce Andrew Loog Oldham’s Sounds and Vision podcast, and the experience has been a delight. If you don’t know, Andrew is the original manager and producer for The Rolling Stones — as just one of his too-many-to-list-here historical music adventures — and he’s got stories for days. Check out the podcast if you’re even a little curious. It’s a lot of fun. I’d recommend the Elliot Easton (guitarist with The Cars) episode for a starter as it’s got lots of juicy behind-the-music-industry tales.

Meanwhile, the writing bug has finally returned over the last couple of months (along with the music bug, but that’s another story). As arbitrary as ‘the new year’ is as a signifier, it’s still a useful prompt to refresh. And that’s what I plan to do. On the immediate agenda: make some changes to the blog (currently in progress!), start blogging regularly again, and then, once firmly in the saddle, relaunch the newsletter. Voilà. Easier said than done, right? But I’m excited nonetheless, and that’s an accomplishment in and of itself.

I’ll finish this deep gaze into my navel with a few notes about the newsletter. 

First off, I’m retiring Ringo Dreams of Lawn Care. I consider Ringo its own series (in the television sense) and a moment-in-time capsule. I’ll call the relaunched newsletter something else (tbd). It’ll have a different format, but I’ll cover the same genre of topics. 

Also, the newsletter won’t be on Substack. I’m exploring a combination of Sendy and Newsletter Glue to host the newsletter on this site. This change potentially sets up a roadblock of discouragement as it’s complicated (oh jeez I’ve got to figure out what a VPS server is). But I want to learn newsletter self-hosting partly as a self-challenge and also to be able to teach others how it’s done. 

If you’re a Ringo subscriber your subscription will automatically transfer to the new entity once I’m ready to roll. You don’t have to do anything, unless you’d like to unsubscribe, which you can do at any time (including now if you’d like). If you’re not subscribed, go ahead and use the Substack sign-up form found in the sidebar of this site. I’ll add your address for the new incarnation of the newsletter upon launch.

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Another personal update: I released a song at midnight on January 1.

Grottoes is a long-imagined project, revealed as I finally step away from Q-Burns Abstract Message. Yes, the AUDIOTOTEMPOLE EP was always meant as a closing of the door. And Grottoes predates “Touchtones (1997),” the earliest reference on that EP. I tried and failed to start a band called Grotto in the early ’90s after the dissolution of my much-beloved (by us and some others) band Tick Tick Tock. There are too many other bands called Grotto nowadays, so Grottoes it is. It looks mightier written as text that way, so win-win.

The quiet first appearance of Grottoes was a remix for Brighton’s The Self-Help Group and the song “Temple OS” (a fine song in its own right, btw). That one was recorded in mid-2021, during my supposed creative lag, and is the last time I worked on something musical. I hoped this would spark other Grottoes tunes to serve as accompanying tracks for something called “Straw Belle.”

“Straw Belle” isn’t new. I started recording it maybe three or four years ago, and it’s a song that I revisited and tweaked periodically. I settled on a final version at some point in late 2019. I feel it’s one of the best things I’ve recorded. And I held it tight — only about four people have heard “Straw Belle” before today — under the assumption that I’d record a few more songs like it and release an EP. As you probably guessed, that never happened.

After encouragement during a catch-up phone chat with my friend Jeff (the bass player in even earlier attempts at bands), I realized that “Straw Belle” would never see the light of day if I attached it to the loose promise of ‘other songs like it.’ So I decided it should finally come out on its own, and, as this revelation came at the end of 2021, New Year’s Day seemed like a novel release date.

For your consideration, here’s “Straw Belle” by Grottoes. Artwork by Matthew Naquin. Secret assistance from The Imprisoned Wizard. Sounds like group homes, wavering spaces, pangs of crunch, tones from belief, e-bow symphonies. I hope you like it. Please tell the others if you do.

Addendum: The Orlando Weekly‘s Bao Le-Huu wrote about my musical shift to Grottoes and scared a few headline skimmers by declaring me dead.

cory doctorow on blogging

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The Memex Method
When your commonplace book is a public database
The Memex Method
When your commonplace book is a public database

Cory Doctorow‘s encouragement to blog (and treat one’s blog as a commonplace book) inspires. This is one of those articles I’ll turn to whenever I’m down in the dumps and debating the point of all this blogging. It’s also motivated me to post a lot more on this MEMORA8ILIA page, to treat it as a referencable scrapbook of the things I encounter. Here’s Cory:

Like those family trip-logs, a web-log serves as more than an aide-memoire, a record that can be consulted at a later date. The very act of recording your actions and impressions is itself powerfully mnemonic, fixing the moment more durably in your memory so that it’s easier to recall in future, even if you never consult your notes. […]

These repeated acts of public description adds each idea to a supersaturated, subconscious solution of fragmentary elements that have the potential to become something bigger. Every now and again, a few of these fragments will stick to each other and nucleate, crystallizing a substantial, synthetic analysis out of all of those bits and pieces I’ve salted into that solution of potential sources of inspiration.

That’s how blogging is complementary to other forms of more serious work: when you’ve done enough of it, you can get entire essays, speeches, stories, novels, spontaneously appearing in a state of near-completeness, ready to be written.

3+1: James A. Reeves

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About a year ago, as the pandemic’s elongated reality started setting in, I discovered the blog of James A. Reeves. James was writing a few paragraphs a day under the tag ‘Notes from the End of a World.’ These posts relayed James’s feelings and reactions to a world on fire, embossed by his memories and unshakable present circumstances. Reading these entries became part of my daily routine — in isolation, I connected to this distant person feeling a lot of the same things as me, even if through a different nostalgic lens.

Also: James has excellent taste in music and ended each blog entry with a song recommendation, often linked by title to the theme of the day’s writing. 

James A. Reeves is an artist as well as a writer and, according to his About page, is interested in “the role of ritual and faith in the digital age.” He’s published two books (one of which — The Road To Somewhere — I just purchased as I want to read more of his writing) and is presently working on a novel about “a loud god.” On the art front, he’s recently collaborated with Candy Chang on a public installation titled Light the Barricades. It’s on display at The Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina, through July 25. And James and Candy will have a new installation on the subject of loss, opening in September in the chapel at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

James also takes night photos of roadside service stations. Here’s one of them, below, followed by a bit of 3+1:

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1: You blogged every day in 2020 but had no idea about the pandemic when you started this endeavor. Besides the topics, how do you think your posts and blogging would have differed if there was no COVID monster?

For eight years, I’ve kept a nightly journal, and last year I decided to make it public because I wanted to kill the mean little perfectionist in my head, the part that writes ninety-percent of an essay or story then leaves it to languish in some folder in the cloud. The good thing about writing in public is that it forces you to complete a thought, or at least make it semi-coherent. Otherwise, my notebooks are filled with scribbles like Remember that shade of red + storm chasers + nefarious forces.

I initially expected to write about nostalgia because I worry about how my perception is warping as I grow older, which carries the hazard of pining for simpler times that never existed. I often think about the poet Ovid who mourned a vanished “golden age of harmony and invention.” He wrote that in the year 8. And yet: there’s the very real sense the wheels are coming off, that the weather and algorithms are steadily rewiring the world until one day it will be unrecognizable. So I wanted to have a record of these in-between days when familiar routines and moments of beauty are constantly colliding with breaking news, attention hijacking, and the two-minute hates of social media. 

But writing about nostalgia felt incredibly unhelpful in the light of a pandemic. Throughout 2020, I became increasingly anxious about writing anything that resembled opinion-mongering or soothsaying. I’m mystified by how many people claim to understand how the world works, how other people think, or what will happen next. The smartest thing I ever heard was from an old man in New Orleans who told me, “Opinions kill motherfuckers and experience saves lives.” So last year, I ended up writing quite a bit about my experiences with grief and my desire for some faith. 

2: You mentioned in your email newsletter that you’re now writing fiction instead of the daily public life-journalling you were doing in 2020. Why the change? Is the shift in your practice changing your mindset or the way you’re settling into 2021? Will we get to see any of these writings, or are they only for you?

I’ve been rewriting the same novel about a loud god for six years, and it’s time to finish the thing. And after a year spent monitoring headlines, fiction feels like an increasingly liberating possibility that can sidestep this humiliating age of thought leaders, pundits, and charlatans because it allows us to imagine our way into complex questions without demanding an opinion. For example: I’m fascinated by the future of faith. As the world gets weirder, this will create a vacuum for new gods, cults, and dogma. So what do I make of my own craving for some otherworldly ethic or mythology? If I were to expand these ideas into an essay, it’d probably be an insufferable piece of writing. Others can pull it off, but last year I discovered I couldn’t. But if it’s a novel about, say, people who begin to hear the voice of God in discount superstores, then it becomes a canvas for these ideas to play around without becoming didactic.1Footnote from James: I realize it’s odd to champion fiction while our relationship to truth feels increasingly tenuous as more and more of us are caught in fractured realities powered by the mechanics of bad storytelling: hyperbole, dot-connecting, the high drama of us versus them, etc. And reckoning with this growing hunger for conspiracy seems like one of the biggest tasks of our time.

I rewired some bits from the novel into short stories (two of which were published here and here), and I hope this book goes into the world someday. But the odds of getting a novel published are tremendously long, which is a good reminder for me to do the work for its own sake, for the pleasure (and pain) it brings.

3: What is it about dimly lit gas stations photographed in the middle of the night?

A lone gas station in the night feels like church. Maybe it’s the lighting, which has the chiaroscuro of a Caravaggio, or the optics of some sci-fi temple. There are probably symbolic and limbic reasons that I don’t fully grasp: a sanctuary or crossroads, the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. It’s also the only situation where fluorescent lights are worth a damn.

+1: Something you love that more people should know about.

Two answers came to mind at the same time, and they’re connected. The first is the music of Bohren and Der Club of Gore. Their music is essential to my writing life. Particularly Midnight Radio, which is slow-motion doom jazz with a light-night neon aesthetic that points to the second thing: staying up late with the radio when I was a teenager in metro Detroit, listening to the Electrifying Mojo at the top of the dial. This was the early 1990s, after Mojo had been on the air for ages, quietly influencing the shape of music by playing everything from Funkadelic to Kraftwerk to Devo to Model 500 to some thirty-minute version of “Planet Rock” or “Flashlight” that only he seemed to have. Some say he laid the foundation for techno. The man lived as a myth, a ghost in the ether who would tell everyone listening to flash their headlights, and I remember driving down Woodward Avenue flashing my lights while passing cars did the same. It was beautiful, all these strangers drawn together by a voice in the dark.

Visit James A. Reeves (and read his 2020 journal) at AtlasMinor.com.

Slippery Between Fingers

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The Web is Too Damn Complicated → Robin Rendle says, “The web doesn’t have to be this ugly and embarrassing thing … the web can be made beautiful.” He’s made a beautiful webpage to prove this case. Rendle has illustrated his scrollable essay with vintage woodcuts and metal engravings that are surprisingly effective in amplifying his points. And those points are about how the recent ubiquity of email newsletters is a missed opportunity for a blog renaissance.

Rendle is really asking, “how do we make the web for everyone?” He sees the rise of newsletters as an encouraging sign that people are moving away from social media’s grasp. But why not embrace blogs, which are capable of much more creativity than allowed in email? Because, ultimately, the open web is not as convenient. Website-building is not intuitive, nor is website-following (“RSS is for nerds.”). The creators of Substack know this and made a publishing tool that’s easy to use and receive. 

“If we could subscribe to websites easily,” says Rendle, “then the web itself might not feel quite so forgettable.” He suggests that browsers should include built-in RSS reading. In a way, I guess this would be like a global version of Facebook’s newsfeed. That feed is essentially an RSS reader, but one can only subscribe to feeds within Facebook’s prison camp. 

I do like newsletters. On second thought, I actually like that more people are writing and sending out personal essays. The email newsletter is merely the delivery method. Thanks to Feedbin, I read my newsletters in an RSS reader, living side-by-side with the blogs I enjoy. 

I have an email newsletter but, if I had to choose, this blog is my preference. It feels more open, free, and permanent (as permanent as something on the web can be). I do fear that newsletters may prove a fad — both Facebook and Twitter are jumping on the newsletter bandwagon, which hints that ‘peak newsletter’ isn’t too far off. Blogs remain that scruffy outlier, unpeggable and persistent, slippery between fingers of profit-hungry CEOs. Email’s okay, but blogs keep the web weird. 

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New Wave Eye Candy → That’s a tag on Simon Reynolds’ Hardly Baked blog, and there are three installments in the series (so far). These posts contain a long scroll of vintage graphics from album covers, adverts, and posters that exemplify the look and attitude of the post-punk new wave. It’s also a remarkable glimpse of cutting edge graphic design just before the days of Photoshop et al.

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Emily A. Sprague – Hill, Flower, Fog → “Mirror” is the unassuming third song on Emily A Sprague’s latest, Hill, Flower, Fog. As gentle as a shower of cotton puffs, the song lightly bubbles and pings in sensuous repetition for over nine minutes. The changes are subtle — a lonesome synth swell lingers in the background, pining for recognition, and stereo echoes increase patiently. “Mirror” is the best kind of unobtrusive, and it’s almost shocking when it ends. It feels like a sound that should last forever. 

It’s tempting to say the same about all of Sprague’s latest album for RVNG Intl. — its warm reassurance is a welcome companion. It feels real, and, over six sonic tapestries, Sprague turns a Eurorack’s cold toughness inside out and brushes its circuitry with earth, dew, and sap. Like mysteries of the natural world, Sprague’s electronics feel emergent.

Hill, Flower, Fog is a pandemic album, recorded last March as the world started to realize the trials to come. But these songs magically (and sonically) trade impending sense of loss and uncertainty for sonic intimacy and optimism. One could note that Sprague’s cyclic melodies and looping treatments reflect the imposed routines of lockdown. However, the music is encouraging, inferring these daily patterns as something cherishable, an opportunity for reflection and moving inward. It seems to say, “one day at a time.”

Not As Many Yesterdays

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• Over the past several months, I’ve been reading not-so-heavy fiction before bed to help clear my head of news-trauma before sleep. I’m using the opportunity to check out books I probably should have read in my teens and college years but didn’t. At the time, I was mainly reading music fanzines1It’s fair to say that music fanzines made up 85% of what I read between the ages of 17 and 25 and Stephen King novels (with the occasional Vonnegut and beat writer interlude), so there’s a lot of catching up to do.

I just finished Isaac Asimov’s The Foundation Trilogy. A lot of people enthusiastically recommended the series, but it didn’t blow me away as I expected.2I guess I really should have read this when I was younger, as that’s when all the people who recommended it did. I’m glad I read the trilogy, though. There are many thought-provoking concepts, and that’s the least one can want from a book. Also, the storyline of The Mule captivated me. The Mule is a mutant conqueror who can mentally bend people’s emotions to become subservient, effectively enamored by him. What’s most interesting is that these people are aware of their manipulation, but they press on in their devotion. Here’s a passage from Second Foundation:

What kept him from action? What deadened him? There was a time when he was a rebellious and unpromoted captain of the First Foundation’s commercial empire, when it would have been himself rather than Channis who would have taken prompt and daring action such as that. Was the Mule right? Was his controlled mind so concerned with obedience as to lose initiative? He felt a thickening despondency drive him down into a strange lassitude. […]

Pritcher nodded mutely, and cogitated in the sudden loneliness on the evils of approaching fifty. The visiplate was sparsely starred. The main body of the Galaxy misted one end. What if he were free of the Mule’s influence—

But he recoiled in horror at the thought.

I can’t help but equate this to our struggles with social media and the internet in general. Not to mention, how we ‘lose initiative’ through our internet interactions (see: slacktivism). We know we should turn away, but we can’t — it feels too good to persist. File this alongside Wednesday’s ‘Siren’s song’ metaphor.

• Often this blog gets ‘meta,’ and I talk about the joys and processes of blogging. There are many things that I wish I had started earlier (like reading something meatier than music fanzines). I like to think blogging is one of those things. But, I was blogging as soon as the late ’90s. Astralwerks set up a site for me, and I had a ‘dispatches’ page where I could post a tour diary or studio updates. My Q-BAM site had a blog, too. And I’m embarrassed to admit I semi-regularly blogged on MySpace — most of those posts disappeared into the ether.

The problem was that I didn’t blog consistently. If I did post, the content was usually related to promoting an upcoming gig or release, or a tracklist and link to the latest Invisible Airwaves radio show. Occasionally the writer within appeared — here’s a piece I wrote on Tony Wilson from 2007 that I still enjoy seeing — but those pieces were rare. 

I’m thinking about this because I ran across a blog post by ex-Google programmer Steve Yegge from 2005. It’s called You Should Write Blogs, and I wish I had read it at the time. Steve is encouraging everyone to blog, and he lays out compelling reasons. Early on in the piece, he writes:

This is certainly the most important thing I’ll ever say in my blogs: YOU should write blogs.

Even if nobody reads them, you should write them. It’s become pretty clear to me that blogging is a source of both innovation and clarity. I have many of my best ideas and insights while blogging. Struggling to express things that you’re thinking or feeling helps you understand them better.

I don’t know if this article would have inspired a blogging (or writing) practice in those years. I certainly didn’t understand how writing in public sharpens the mind, hones opinions, and feels fantastic. No one told me. Or, more likely, I wasn’t listening — I was too busy slurping vodka and playing records in dark rooms. 

What’s the cliché? The best time to start something is yesterday, and the second-best time is right now. I’m thankful I started this blog a few yesterdays ago, even if it’s not as many yesterdays as I’d like. For the rest of you, the time is now. Get blogging. Here’s some encouragement of my own.

• This video of David Bowie turning the interview tables on MTV’s Mark Goodman is making the rounds. And with good reason. How cool.

• I’m just putting this here: State Moves Into Unannounced Goth Phase of Reopening

• The news has come over the wire that Jon Hassell is releasing the second installment of his ‘pentimento’ series on July 24. The first one, from 2018, was excellent, so I’m excited to hear its follow-up, Seeing Through Sound. The lead track — “Fearless” — is live, and it’s no surprise that it’s a stunner. Pre-ordered!

I should also mention that there’s a GoFundMe page for Jon Hassell. He’s not in the best of health right now, and the present COVID-19 dangers have made his situation direr. The page was set up by friends and family to help Hassell get financial assistance so he can receive the care he requires. [LINK]

• Lake Holden was looking particularly serene this morning = [LINK]

Shine a Light

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First off, as previously mentioned, today is ‘Bandcamp Friday’ — the platform is waiving its cut of revenue with 100% going to the artists. Here are some suggestions where you can throw your support today:

  • Pitchfork’s list of labels and artists directing Bandcamp revenue to Black Lives Matter organizations [LINK]
  • A list of black artists, producers, and black-owned labels on Bandcamp [LINK]
  • Resident Advisor’s list compiling both, with an emphasis on electronic music [LINK]
  • If you’re into ambient music, here’s a Reddit thread listing ambient artists of color that could use your support (h/t Terry Grant) [LINK]

Like most of you, I was feeling dispirited and down yesterday. The constant barrage of evidence that this country is falling apart weighs heavily. And the gray skies and rain weren’t helping. I had an interview scheduled in the early afternoon and didn’t know if I was up for it. I was looking for some good news, and anything would do.

Unexpectedly, Warren Ellis provided that bright spot with a shout out on his blog, perhaps in response to my shout-out to his blog on Tuesday. It’s a nice boost to get mentioned under the ‘Isles of Blogging’ tag. I’m proud to inhabit my little beach-side hut.

One thing I learned: Ellis has a lot of readers. There are a lot of new eyes peering at this speck on the web (hello), and I picked up a healthy amount of newsletter subscribers. Shining a light on a fellow toiling soul is one of the best parts of operating in an independent space, whether you’re a band or a novelist or a painter or a blogger. It’s a lovely feeling when you’re the recipient.

I mentioned Ellis’s newsletter — Orbital Operations — only a couple of days ago. It’s something I look forward to each Sunday. One of its regular highlights is the heartfelt words of encouragement closing each email, a needed end-of-week reminder that things eventually will be cool. I’ll shine a little light back by urging you to subscribe.

My interview was with Lawrence Peryer for the Spot Lyte On podcast. I talked about growing up in Central Louisiana, the challenges of finding underground music there, the historical threads of influence that connects musical artists, utopian streaming models, Kraftwerk (of course), and lots of other things. It was freewheeling and fun. Though I think we intended to include music industry shop-talk, there was very little of that. The podcast hits the pod-ways next week. I’ll give you a preview by linking to a record from 1981 that comes up at the end of the discussion: the mind-blowing “Outside Broadcast.”

Side-note: I enjoy gabbing on podcasts. If you’re interested in having me gab on yours then please get in touch.

I also mentioned a podcast interview with Derek Sivers. It’s an episode of Yo Podcast — an uplifting listen that will give your brain a break from the world-on-fire for an hour. Specifically, I mentioned and clumsily explained this part where Derek answers the question: Hendrix or Bowie?

Jimi Hendrix is like Charles Darwin. Darwin, he presents “The Origin of Species” to the world and it blows everybody’s mind. But now the theory of evolution is common knowledge, so to read the book, “The Origin of Species” now, is not so impressive. So Hendrix presents the “Star-Spangled Banner,” full of feedback and more sounds from a guitar than anyone had heard before, and it blows everybody’s mind. But now, every kid in the guitar store can do the same thing. So to hear the original, is not so impressive. I think it’s kind of the same with Stravinsky and the “Rite of Spring,” it’s actually kind of unfair that they’re revolutionary contribution is diminished with time.

But David Bowie is like Josephine Baker, exotic and desirable in their time, and exotic and desirable now. And same thing with Claude Debussy’s music. Like, David Bowie, Josephine Baker, and Claude Debussy, all of them stood outside of the culture. Their art didn’t infiltrate the culture and culture didn’t assimilate or adopt it. And so time doesn’t diminish their allure.

The podcast audio and the transcription are on Derek’s site.

Once again, dawn brings a bluish-gray over Lake Holden this morning = [LINK]

Ballad of the Blog: Phase 3 or 4

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I’m thinking a lot about my responsibilities as a digital citizen and how I can better contribute to the ‘indie web.’ There are steps I want to take to lessen — and perhaps remove — my participation in ad-supported social media. Ideally, my internet output will happen through this blog, my newsletter, and — for direct engagement — email. A longer post is forthcoming about why I’ve come to this point, but tl;dr: I’ve had it with Facebook and its ilk.

One upside is that I’ll post here more often. 8sided.blog has been quieter than usual, mainly due to growing pains with the demands of the weekly deadline of the newsletter. I don’t think I’ve had a writing deadline since college, so that’s proved challenging. I also set myself up by mostly posting more extended essays on the blog. That set up an expectation for myself that anything that goes here should be meaty — a multi-paragraph screed on a newsworthy topic. That’s held me off when I don’t have anything lengthy to say. It’s time to drop those reservations.

I’m an avid reader of other personal blogs out there in the ‘indie web.’ One of my favorites is Warren Ellis’s, which he claims to use mostly to post status updates and catalog his music and movie purchases. He peppers short posts that are sometimes just a photo of the sky (’timestamp‘) with longer musings about his world and process. The blog is entertaining and serves as the backbone for Ellis’s weekly newsletter, Orbital Operations. Every time I read it, I think, “I’d like to do something like this.”

Of course, I’m not Warren Ellis (there can only be one! … oh wait), and I’m not going to embarrass myself through imitation. But his approach gives me a lot of ideas. I’ve always wanted a more personal flavor to this blog and some fun posts outside of essays on ‘music’s place in the 21st century.’ And, as I begin my exodus from social media, I’ll want to use this space to check in with the world. It’s my home base, after all — the hub of my digital world. So if you’re a regular reader or have this planted in your RSS reader, then, first off: thank you. And secondly: get ready for an increase in blogging action.

One goal is to regularly post my version of a daily ‘status update,’ compiling what’s on my mind alongside things I’m encountering with my eyes and ears. If you’re a fan of the meatier stuff, that will still happen on the regular. Stay tuned for phase 3 (or is it 4?) of this blog.

 

Making the Case for Blogging

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I’ve had a few friends ask about blogging this week. They have the same questions: is blogging worthwhile in an age of social media? What if no one reads? Which platform is the best? Isn’t WordPress complicated? Well, I have opinions and answers and a desire to help out. This post might be a long one — hold on tight.

I’m hardly an expert at blogging, though I’ve been doing it in stops-and-starts and in various places since the early 2000s. I didn’t have a lot of help and learned as I went along. I stumbled a lot. And I’m still stumbling. It’s from this student perspective that I offer some advice.

Why blog? As I wrote here previously, blogging is “an exercise to notice more, to observe the day with intention, to create firmer opinions and ideas, and to cope with the fears of uncertainty and of time passing.” It doesn’t matter if no one is reading — the act of putting your thoughts down in a public arena is medicine for gathering ideas and inspiring confidence. Bonus: it will make you a better communicator, too.

Social media is a tempting place for posting your thoughts. But don’t give in to convenience. The content you post on, say, Facebook not only becomes corporate property, but you’re enhancing the social media product to appeal to its real audience: potential advertisers. When you post to Facebook, you become part of a product designed to collect advertising dollars and please shareholders. I find that troublesome.

Even more troublesome is how these social media companies operate and the damage they inflict in pursuit of profit. And they actively imply their necessity, giving rise to questions like, “Why should I blog outside of Facebook?” It’s the commercialization of our thought-space and precious attention, something Jenny Odell talks about extensively in her terrific book How To Do Nothing. Odell says, “I will participate, but not as asked,” framing the refusal to contribute to the corporate product as a form of #resistance. “I want this not only for artists and writers but for any person who perceives life to be more than instrument and therefore something that cannot be optimized.”

The other problem with a social media platform is that you lose control over what you’ve written. This dilemma is real in a legal sense — read those terms of service agreements — in that the platform can exploit what you post without your permission. But it also means that if you decide to move your content to another platform or even archive it for safe-keeping, you’re out of luck. Social media platforms make it nearly impossible to collect or move your content.

Here’s a confession: in the mid-2000s, I used MySpace as a blogging platform. Some of my favorite things I’d written were posted there, including diary-like tales of travel and the DJ life. When MySpace’s future looked shaky, I fruitlessly searched for a way to export the posts. And then I discovered older posts were deleted already. Now all of that writing is lost forever. Who’s to say something similar won’t happen with Facebook?

Now I use WordPress. I was hesitant at first, as I assumed there was a steep learning curve. I used the platform in the very early 2000s and found it frustrating at the time. But a couple of years back I decided to charge in head-first and was pleased with the improvements made to WordPress. It is now a cinch to set up, and the back-end is a breeze to navigate. I’m also a fan of the Gutenberg editor recently added to WordPress — posting and editing is as fun as it is on Squarespace.

I did use Squarespace for a while. It’s a good platform. After a few years, I found myself outgrowing its limitations, so I moved to the much more flexible WordPress. I was also taken aback by an announcement that CSS editing would soon only be allowed at a higher price level. Squarespace backed down on that, but it made me realize the platform could change its features and fees at any time. And, though you can export your content from Squarespace, it’s done in a way that’s not easy to move to other platforms. When I did this export a little over a year ago, images were not included, which was disappointing.

I enthusiastically recommend blogging, and I recommend WordPress. You’ll get a lot out of the writing practice — I honestly think it makes life better — and WordPress ensures the content is yours to keep. As for social media, the key is posting links to your blog posts (and you may have found this post via social media link). Sending people to your blog is like welcoming them to your home, rather than having them meet you in a rented hotel room.

Here are a few tips and recommendations about setting up a blog on WordPress:

  • Grab your domain/URL. Finding something unique and sticky isn’t as hard as you think. Be creative. I use Namecheap for my domains, and I’ve heard that Hover is good, too. A domain is around $10 a year. Before purchasing a domain, search for the company name (like “Namecheap”) and “coupon code.” These companies are always running promotions.
  • Next, find a hosting company. You could use the same company as your domain, but I think it’s good to keep the hosting separate. You could use wordpress.com for hosting, but explore other options for the best price and features. I use Hostinger and appreciate the customer service and bang-for-your-buck on the pricing, which is generally below $5 a month. Here’s a list of other recommended hosts.
  • Once you have all of that sorted, it’s super-easy to get WordPress active on your domain. All hosts will have instructions for how to do this — here’s Hostinger’s process to give an idea of how painless this is. If you’re still feeling gun-shy, many hosts will do this for you for a small fee or even no cost. But I recommend doing it yourself to learn a little about how WordPress works behind the curtain.
  • In my opinion, the toughest thing about WordPress is choosing a theme. There are so many out there. I’d suggest looking at other blogs and finding layouts you like. Then apply this tool, which will tell you what themes those blogs are using and where to find them.
  • There are many high-quality free themes out there (especially if you want a minimalist look), but you may find a paid theme has the best appearance and features. It’s often worth it to go for a paid theme for the support alone — most theme designers I’ve encountered are super-helpful with questions about setting up and customization. And, another good thing about any WordPress theme is if you grow tired of your current one, it’s easy to switch. For the most part, your content won’t be affected by a change in theme.

And here are a few things I’ve learned about blogging in general:

  • Don’t worry if your traffic is slow or non-existent. That’s not why you’re here. If you’re consistent and honest in your writing, you’ll gain an audience, especially as organic SEO kicks in after a few months. And regarding SEO, read my post on the subject from a few weeks ago.
  • For inspiration, carry around a small notebook and write down cues to remind you of thoughts that come up, things you see, conversations you have, and what you’re watching or listening to. Consult the notebook when you sit down to write. These cues will spawn writing topics.
  • Another way I get inspiration is to look at other blogs. I have a bookmark folder of blogs to look at if I lack motivation or am doubting the practice of blogging. Seeing others doing it well, and having fun with writing always sparks my motivation. A few of my ‘inspiration blogs’ belong to Austin Kleon, Warren Ellis, and John Gruber. These three blogs are entirely different from each other — which is the point — but all spot-on in approach. It’s inspiring to see how different bloggers individually tackle their platforms and make fine-tuned magic happen for their readers.

Let’s talk about Medium for a minute. I do like Medium — it’s a sharp and simple blogging platform with a strong sense of community. Though one of those pesky corporations (it was founded by Ev Williams, former CEO of Twitter), Medium doesn’t have a corporate vibe and lacks the vitriol and manipulation of the social networks. Its heart seems in the right place, as writers can get voluntarily paid through its partner program. It’s easy to export your content, too — you can download your articles as HTML documents collected in a ZIP file.

But it’s still someone else’s platform, with the impression that you’re writing for (and building) Medium rather than your own identity. Josh Pigford of Baremetrics summed it up nicely in his article Why We Transitioned from Medium Back to Our Own Blog:

I realized Medium is really great about surfacing content, but it removes the face of it. It neutralizes all content to basically be author-agnostic. It’s like Walmart or Amazon in that you can buy from thousands of different brands, but you rarely actually know what brand you’re buying…you just know “I got it from Amazon.”

Same with content on Medium. Sure, you can see who the author is or what publication it’s on, but ultimately your takeaway is “I read this article on Medium”, and that’s not what I wanted.

But I do use Medium. I crosspost the longer, more evergreen articles after posting on this blog. I use Medium’s import tool, which makes this seamless and also removes any SEO conflicts caused by identical articles. I do this because I’m reaching a different audience through Medium, one that might be interested in discovering and reading my blog.1The overwhelming majority of my post views are still directly on my blog, not on Medium. I’m also in the partner program, and a couple of articles have gone mildly viral, paying out about $50 each. Why not, right? But this blog is the focus, and I wouldn’t create exclusive content for Medium.

So there it is. I hope this post is helpful. Nothing would make me happier than inspiring you to start a blog. Seriously, give it a go. Write about what’s precious in your life, your obsessions, and what you’re trying to do better. It might be frustrating at first, but once you get in the writing rhythm, wonderful things will happen. Be consistent, be honest, have fun, and, to paraphrase Timothy Leary, “Let the others find you.”

Update: As I was writing this, I kept recalling an outstanding piece from a few months ago also on the subject of blogging. After racking my brain I finally remembered and located it. So if you’re still on the fence you should immediately read this post by Disquiet’s Marc Weidenbaum. Here’s an excerpt:

And don’t concern yourself with whether or not you “write.” Don’t leave writing to writers. Don’t delegate your area of interest and knowledge to people with stronger rhetorical resources. You’ll find your voice as you make your way. There is, however, one thing to learn from writers that non-writers don’t always understand. Most writers don’t write to express what they think. They write to figure out what they think. Writing is a process of discovery. Blogging is an essential tool toward meditating over an extended period of time on a subject you consider to be important.