8Sided Blog

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

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.

The Punk Rock Dream

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I’m watching this Minutemen concert video from 1985 (“And when reality appears digital,” Mike Watt soothsays at 18:57) and thinking about the punk rock dream. American independent music was at its height, disadvantaged, compared to its British counterpart, by the sheer size of the country. For the first time, bands like these were finding nationwide renown without a major label attached. (A quick pause to recommend Michael Azerrad’s essential book Our Band Could Be Your Life if you’d like to learn more about these scenes.) But the dream — yes, the punk rock dream — was autonomy. Self-releasing, self-distributing, self-promoting, self-administrating, self-booking. Some, like Ian MacKaye’s still inspirational Dischord outfit, came closer than anyone had before.

Fast forward a few years after that Minutemen concert. I was nineteen years old and wanted more than anything to start a record label. But those were ancient times, and I had no idea how to manufacture vinyl or find a distributor and doubted it was possible from my lonely North Louisiana dorm room anyway. So I dreamed — came up with names, imagined the types of bands I’d sign, scribbled fake logos, studied the discographies (and personalities) of labels like SST, Alternative Tentacles, and Factory.

What a time. Here I am (guitar) at nineteen, playing something resembling punk rock with my friends (photo by David):

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“Home Taping Is Killing Music” was a strange ’80s PR campaign by the British Phonographic Industry, a trade organization representing major labels and distributors. We read that slogan to mean “the music industry” as taping our friends’ records made more music, not less. The punks agreed. Alternative Tentacles released Dead Kennedys’ In God We Trust Inc. on a one-sided cassette — the b-side was blank. The cassette displayed the familiar tape-and-crossbones icon (now appropriated by The Pirate Bay) and the phrase, “Home taping is killing record industry profits!” Below that: “We left this side blank so you can help.”

The major labels were the target of our ire, but, in reality, our problem was with the corporate gatekeepers. Sure, we had our gatekeepers — the fanzines, the college radio DJs, the cool punk rock clubs. Not all gatekeepers are bad, but those corporate gatekeepers insisted on shoving their agenda-culture down our throats. 

Because of this attitude, some celebrated when Napster supposedly (but not really) brought down the music industry. That era offered a glimpse of the power of self-distribution, aided by the internet revolution. As bandwidth got faster and tools more sophisticated and egalitarian, predictions about ‘the end of the major label’ were common (guilty as charged). “No more gatekeepers!” was the rallying cry — that emerging teenage bands would soon have the same chances at an audience as an established superstar. 

The result: not only are the corporate labels flourishing, but new gatekeepers have covertly replaced the old ones. Sure, the power to self-everything is here, but most choose to sieve their independence through an algorithmic filter. We’re gaming the gatekeepers just like old times, but now it’s about massaging the algorithm to get us on the right playlists, to amplify strategically placed hashtags, and to get the targets just right in that boosted Facebook post. 

There’s so much frustration with this newfound reliance on social media and low-paying streaming services. But do things have to be this way? 

Back in my dorm room, I was frustrated that I couldn’t figure out how to do what all the punk-inspired DIY’ers wanted: to navigate this music thing without any interference (or interaction) from ‘the man.’ That was the punk rock dream. And now we can have it but only if we really want it. The dream’s not easy, and algorithms, and the promise of shortcuts, are seductive.

If I’ve personally advised you on label or recording artist stuff, you’ve heard me mention ‘the punk rock dream.’ I talk about it a lot. I’ve been thinking about the concept since that dorm room. So, when I decided I needed a new tag-line for my blog, I decided on “A zine about sound, culture, and the punk rock dream.” Because, really, that’s what the blog and newsletter are all about. (The ‘zine’ part is a nod to how I got started with all of this.)

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Revisiting my relationship with ‘the punk rock dream’ inspired me to start the process of moving my email newsletter off Substack. I’ve thought about this for several months and recent debates have strengthened a need for platform independence. The importance of self-publishing is probably best examined by talking through the changing definition of independent music.

The qualifications for ‘independent music’ once seemed cut-and-dry, apparent in Michael Azerrad’s book that I linked to above. Now things are fuzzier. How independent is the punkest of punk labels if they primarily promote through Zuckerberg’s platform, via a corporation so huge it would have given Jello Biafra an aneurysm back in the day? A band might self-release, but are they independent if Spotify and YouTube are the focus of their outreach? One could even go as far as to charge that a reliance on Apple products to make music is a dependence on the most giant of multi-national corporations. 

We can go all over the place with this until it’s just nitpicking and cutting hairs. But my definition of ‘independent,’ which I wrote about here, is summed up by a simple question: do you truly own the work you’re passionate about? 

That ownership includes all the decisions made about how an artist presents her work: how it’s distributed, how direct the access is to the audience, and the alignments that color the public perception of the work. The primary platform hosting this art — your preferred way for people to check out what you’ve made — plays a large part in determining ownership. The person who writes paragraphs of prose as a Facebook post doesn’t own that — Facebook can take it down at any time. It’s the same for a photographer using Instagram as her only portfolio. Or a video-maker hosting his achievements solely on YouTube. I don’t even think Bandcamp is immune, despite its reputation as a bastion of music independence. It’s all the same if you’re relying on it. How screwed would you be if it went away? Or if a corporation that doesn’t share your values acquired it?

I’m not saying you shouldn’t use these platforms. But position your art and the work you’re passionate about under the assumption that these platforms and — crucially — their policies are impermanent. These should be deployed as mere tools, not adopted as foundations. Let your work live somewhere you own, and make that place the primary destination for your audience. Everything else is a funnel. 

Sounds like the punk rock dream, right?

Self-publishing the newsletter is the way to go. I’ve done the research and am looking to apply something close to what Jared Newman is doing (without charging my readers, of course). There’s also some great advice from Ernie Smith of Tedium on self-publishing an email newsletter.

At the very beginning of Ringo Dreams of Lawn Care, I mentioned that the newsletter is an experiment until it isn’t. Changes are just another visit to the lab, mixing chemicals and seeing what happens. I’m constantly testing what independence means in the digital age and how the internet can facilitate — rather than stifle — that punk rock dream. Consider my newsletter and 8sided.blog a continuing report on my findings.

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.”

Creating Sends a Signal

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Craig Mod wrote two powerful paragraphs in today’s edition of his Roden newsletter. Like the sentiments that led last Friday’s post, these words serve as a guide for how to deal with challenging times. “Life is a protest,” says Craig, and I’m planting this here as I’m also not above needing a reminder:

I’ve written this before but I constantly need to remind myself of it, so, once again: A certain kind of work, lifestyle, mode of living — in and of itself — is protest. That is, work that is curious and rigorous is implicitly an antipode to didactic, shallow bombastity. It is inherently an archetype against bullshit. That to be committed to this work or life of rigor (be it rigor focused on “art” or, as they say in Japanese, sakuhin, or family or athleticism or whatever), and to share it with the world is to opt-out of being paralyzed by idiocy, and help others who may be paralyzed find a path back to whatever fecundity of life it is that they deserve.

I’ve held this belief in my pocket these past four years. Wrapped my fingers around it as needed. Along with sane, productive, brilliant friends, a therapist, and a loving partner, it keeps me from seizing up. Who knows what this week or month will bring, but please remember: The very act of living, moving forward, not seizing up, is a protest, and a damn strong one at that. And, shit, if our collective brains are, by chance, uncoupled from the eternal low-level Doom Vibe of Unkindness in Power, use that as a boost to go even further. Take that energy and run with it. It’ll be a gift more now, than ever before. You know what to do with it.

I’ve spoken about how optimism is a form of resistance but, today in the US, as trusted institutions (like, uh, voting) are getting trampled under despotic ambition, that’s easier said than done. But ceasing to move forward, to stop creating, to let ‘that guy’ invade your thoughts 24/7 is the kind of defeat those evil forces savor from you and me. Living your life — for yourself and those around you — and putting new things out in the world inspires more benefit than news-fretting nonstop in our heads and on social media.

Creating sends a signal that we believe in the future. And our creations point to the world we want to live in. Let’s pledge to continue doing these things — to resist — no matter what unpleasantness this week holds.

A Singing and Dancing A-Team

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Why Are K-Pop Groups So Big? → Initially, I thought the headline was referring to the immense international popularity of K-Pop groups. But it relates to the growing membership sizes of these acts. Did you know there’s a K-pop group with 23 members? The article also details how larger groups can have multiple spin-off groups (‘subunits’). And there are specific roles and ‘divisions of labor’ within each act’s membership. These acts end up sounding like elite military brigades — or a singing and dancing A-Team, with each personality assigned a duty or specialty. A typical ‘old,’ I find all of this confusing and fascinating. Check out this bit:

Wanna One, the 5th highest-selling K-pop group of the past decade, was formed in 2017 on the second season of survival show Produce 101. Produce 101 supposedly allowed fans to “produce” their dream K-pop group from 101 trainees by voting on the member lineup. For some, a spot in the final group was too valuable to leave up to chance—the show is currently under investigation for vote-rigging by internal staff and external agencies.

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Jazz Musician Lettering → It’s often annoying when modern album covers ape the classic design style of the jazz-era, but there’s nothing wrong with the aesthetics serving as inspiration. And there’s a lot of inspiration found in this compilation of typography and lettering found in the artist names adorning records from the mid-century. Many jazz covers are so iconic that we overlook the inventiveness behind the text. This format invites an examination without the images and layout that complete the full design. Blogger Reagan Ray says, “Rather than post 100s of covers and posters, I wanted to isolate the lettering for easy browsing and analysis. There’s a lot of lettering out there, and a lot I left out.”

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Newsletter Subscriptions → Haven’t you heard? Email newsletters are a thing! Even I’ve got one. Newsletters are a significant move away from the information chokehold of social media — personalized ‘posts’ arriving in email inboxes with our permission and without the judgment of indecipherable algorithms. Finding the right newsletters for you is a little more complicated. First thing: check out the websites of your favorite authors and thinkers — chances are most of them have a newsletter. There’s also a fun newsletter about newsletter recommendations, Thanks For Subscribing. And, though it’s limited to the growing Substack platform, the search engine Stacksear.ch is useful. You type in a word or interest, and the search results show Substack newsletters where your phrase has recently appeared.

One quick thing you might not know about Substack: each newsletter domain has an RSS feed. That’s great for readers as they can get Substack newsletters delivered to an RSS reader without necessarily subscribing. That’s how I read many Substack newsletters. But I feel guilty as this is also bad for newsletter publishers — if we’re reading via RSS, we’re not actually subscribed, affecting the newsletter’s subscriber count. A compromise is to use something like Feedbin, which gives you a special email address to use to subscribe to newsletters. This email address delivers them into your RSS feed. That’s what I do now, and it makes for a better reading experience and keeps my email inbox relatively sane.

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Khemkhaeng – บ้าน → This ambient mini-album from a mysterious Thailand-based producer is a wonder. It’s not often a release in the ambient genre sounds fresh and new. Khemkhaeng rises to the challenge, and these five songs have a rare quality — I want them to last longer. As I wrote in my short Bandcamp review, “Everything here is beautiful, sublime, and seemingly of its own world — but ‘ดูรู้สึก’ is especially distinctive and fascinating. I may have to edit a seamless loop of this track so I can sit inside it all day.”

What Am I Doing Now? (June 2020)

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I kept the /now page stuck in January 2020 for months. I was reluctant to update things as that January time capsule quickly transformed into novelty. Have you seen those videos where the woman talks to her future self, visiting the past from only two months ahead? It feels like that when I look at the plans I laid out last January. If my past self only knew what was in store and how those bold plans went right in the bin.

Rather than give an overview of the past six months (which would be daunting), I’ll keep this in the present. I believe that’s what /now is about, anyway. So here’s what is happening now:

Work:
• I was hired by a pair of businesses to create original theme music and audio logos for their content marketing. That’s what we call a ‘side gig,’ and I happily accept those in this time of professional challenges. It would be cool to do more of this, and I created a simple landing page explaining what I offer.
• I was a featured speaker for the Giants of Video online summit. I gave an hour-long presentation on sourcing music for video and the various legal considerations that appear when syncing music with visual content.
• I also guested on the Spot Lyte On… podcast. Host Lawrence Peryer and I intended to talk about music business matters but instead quickly veered into a fun and casual conversation about fandom and loving music. I got somewhat nostalgic, which is rare for me.
• There were two new 8D Industries releases over the past couple of months: San Mateo’s Deepstaria and Monta At Odds’ Zen Diagram. Both are excellent (OK, I’m biased, but I wouldn’t put them out if I didn’t believe they were) and available as ‘name your price’ on Bandcamp.
• Newsletters are tough. I’ve shipped 17 ‘episodes’ of Ringo Dreams of Lawn Care and took my first break this past weekend. I wasn’t happy about skipping the weekend, but now I’m glad I did it. It’s a reset — what do I want this newsletter to be, and where do I want it to go? I have ideas. Subscribe here if you’re curious. 
• The licensing and sync industry joined the rest of the music world in slowing down for COVID-time. Things are revving back up as we all get (kinda) used to how things will be functioning for at least the rest of the year. I’m focusing on 8DSync through the summer, making up for lost time and aggressively pushing our current roster. I look forward to immersing myself in music publishing once again.

Personal:
• I spent the last month helping my mom buy a house. She closed yesterday. It’s next door. That’s a good thing — quite wonderful, really. She’s going to love lake life, especially if we keep having sunrises like this one.
• Caroline got another memoir offer and hasn’t even finished the one she’s presently co-writing. That’s amazing — she’s well on her way to a career as a professional memoir co-writer (if she’s not there already). I’m super-proud of her.
• I saw a tornado. And we were visited by coyotes.
• I’m experimenting with increasing my effectiveness (not productivity, thanks). Following Twitter advice from Craig Mod (now deleted, as I guess he deletes tweets after a couple of weeks), I’m no longer checking email or looking at any websites until the morning passes. That includes any news. For the most part, I don’t look at any news sites throughout the day. It’s interesting how the most essential and meaningful news stories still find their way to me while the outrage-of-the-day stories are invisible. And I’m removing myself from Facebook sometime soon — I can’t take that company anymore, and I’m embarrassed I didn’t make this move before. I’m currently figuring out how to go about it — instant cold turkey or gradual retreat. I’m open to any advice.
• I’m all in on Roam Research. Finding a way to digitally replicate Ryan Holiday’s index card system was my ‘white whale’ for the past two years. After trying many different apps and techniques — Notion, DevonThink, Ulysses, many others — and getting almost there but not entirely, I stumbled upon Roam. Immediately I realized Roam is the perfect tool for this digital commonplace book/index card system. Huzzah! Bonus: I’m also using Roam as my task manager and daily journal and starting to implement it as a CRM tool. I will soon be able to eliminate 3 or 4 other apps (including a couple that have subscription plans) and get the same functionality in a single app. (This seems like it should go under ‘Work,’ but this change has more dramatically improved my personal life.)

Consumption:
• As a form of de-stress, before bed, I’m catching up on the fiction — mostly science fiction — that I probably should have read when I was younger. I read the Foundation trilogy (just in time for this, I guess), which I enjoyed, but not blown away like some famous people were. I’m checking out Philip K. Dick — reading Time Out of Joint right now, which is amusing and good. I finished Consider Phlebus and had a lot of fun with it. I’ll continue that series. I also read some non-science fiction from a sci-fi author: Ray Bradbury’s Green Shadows, White Whale. It’s excellent and hilarious. 
• In the mornings, I am concurrently reading non-fiction: Tiny Habits, The Longing For Less, and Stillness Is The Key are recent ones. Right now, I’m into So You Want To Talk About Race and plan to follow that with other recommended books about this mess we’re in (and that we’ve been in since the country’s founding).
• I can’t believe I didn’t see Wild Strawberries until last week. Fantastic — I can’t stop thinking about it. I recently rewatched Long Day’s Journey Into Night, and it’s still my favorite film of the last couple of years. And we started The Bureau and just finished the second season. The series has us completely hooked. Other than those, there’s not a whole lot on the TV and film list. I’m reading a lot more these days, and the 8:30 PM sunsets have us enjoying lake life rather than watching TV in the evenings.

Connect:
• Right now, you can follow and message me on Twitter, LinkedIn, or micro.blog. Or you can reach out through this page. I’m always happy to hear from others floating around in this convoluted world. 

Aliens That Look Like Automobiles

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In the late ’80s, I was heavily into zine culture. Isolated in Central Louisiana, I was an outcast kid into weird stuff, craving connections to an outside world of strangers. I can’t remember how I initially discovered zines and the related mail art community. I’m sure my love of DIY punk rock played a part.

Eventually, I obtained an issue of Factsheet Five. The mag inspired me to open a secret post office box, so all this unusual mail wouldn’t arrive at my parents’ house. After sending off several envelopes containing a few quarters, or postage compensation, or an enthusiastic letter, I was part of the zine scene. I was connecting and corresponding with like-minded weirdos across the world. Kind of like I still do today — but without sending out stamps.

Let’s get a couple of definitions out of the way. ‘Zine’ is short for ‘fanzine’ — a short-run, self-published, often obsessive, and sometimes free magazine made by (and for) a ‘fan’ of something. The first documented fanzine was created in the ’30s, probably by mimeograph. That original zine, like most zines in the mid-century, was focused on science fiction. Punk rock created another significant zine movement, and, in the ’90s, the format reached an apex with riot grrl zines.

But zines could be about anything. There were zines for collectors of you-name-it, anarchist zines, intimately personal scream-for-help zines, zines by moms about mom-life, conspiracy and UFO zines, comix zines, and on-and-on-and-on. One of the most unique and heartfelt zines I read at the time was Duplex Planet. Published by an employee of a nursing home, the zine featured interviews and updates with the residents as they arrived and (often sadly) departed. I’m pleasantly surprised to see that it’s still around. Duplex Planet showed the possibility of zines and self-publishing as a vehicle for a personal voice.

If you think this sounds a lot like blogging and email newsletters, then I’d say you’re not off course. I recently subscribed to Rusty Blazenhoff’s Electric Dreams email newsletter, and right there in the header, it’s called “An Inbox Zine.” Wherever you go, there you are.

I’m thinking about zines because of Factsheet Five. Factsheet Five was like a search engine for zines but it was also a zine. Hundreds of single paragraph reviews of zines filled its pages. And the reader was also given the zines’ addresses and how to get them (such as “.50 or two stamps”). There were also music etc. reviews and editorials from various zine luminaries. But you got this for the zine listings. It was a joy to go through all these zine descriptions and highlight the ones that created the most curiosity. From my perch in Tioga, Louisiana, these were pre-internet windows to the wider, weirder world.

One could receive Factsheet Five a few different ways — by sending three dollar bills and a couple of quarters to the editor, or by mailing something to review (music, your zine), or by contributing something (writing, artwork). I did all three of those throughout college to get my issues.

And here’s why Factsheet Five and zines are on my mind. Early this week, I was on Archive.org and thought, “I wonder if any old issues of Factsheet Five are archived here?” I did a quick search and discovered just under a dozen issues. I picked one from 1988 — as that’s the time I was most active in my zine-collecting — and flipped through the virtual pages. Amazing! I recalled when, to me, all of this was new and dangerous. I glimpsed some familiar names, including a few ‘pen-pals’ who I met through zine-trading. And then, to my surprise, I ran across a name I certainly recognized:

Plague On Wheels reviewed in Factsheet Five

In 1988 I decided to publish my own zine. It was called Plague On Wheels. The name comes from the title of a fictitious book written by Kilgore Trout in Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions. It’s about aliens that look like automobiles. And ‘Michael Behaviour’ was my punk rock name. A lot of us young miscreant-wanna-bes had punk rock names in the ’80s.

The review refers to Plague On Wheels as a ‘pfanzine,’ which is zine slang for a music-oriented zine. The ‘p’ stands for ‘punk,’ but a pfanzine can be about any genre of music. My zine had a lot of music in it, including interviews with a few random bands that answered my letters. I doubt I even heard these bands beforehand — I wrote them to get free music in exchange for some ‘press.’ Luckily, none of their music was awful.

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Plague On Wheels was handwritten, not typed. I didn’t have access to a photocopier (or the money to photocopy), so I had a pen-pal friend in Miami do it for me. I met this friend via Factsheet Five. He was a school teacher and could get free photocopies, but the quality was poor, and all the blacks faded in various tones of gray. Combined with the sometimes difficult to decipher handwriting, my distant friend and I agreed the flaws added a distinctive character.

My friend Flipper — also from Tioga — wrote the ‘How To Start a Radio Station’ piece. Now he has a book out through HarperCollins and regularly writes for established music magazines. I sent him this Factsheet Five review, and he told me that I was the first ‘publication’ to publish his writing.

Plague on Wheels. What a trip.

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I feel like there’s something I can say here about zines and blogs and newsletters. I should pull out my recurring theme of ‘the way we use new technologies can’t escape tradition.’ It does feel like I’ve been doing this a while. Running across a blog with an exciting point of view is similar to finding a cool zine on Factsheet Five. It just seems, with zines, the freak flag flies a little higher.

Zines are still around. And blogs and newsletters are resurgent. As long as singular voices are looking to connect — to find the others — we’ll have zines and blogs and all these things. And maybe our current state of isolation, this self-quarantining, has me thinking about how vital these voices are when we can’t seek each other out in person. Many of us need the weird little windows to the outside world, especially when those worlds seem cut off from us.

This post was adapted from Ringo Dreams of Lawn Care, a weekly newsletter loosely about music-making, music-listening, and how technology changes the culture around those things. Click here to check out the latest issue and subscribe.

What Am I Doing Now? (New Year Edition)

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This month seems like the beginning of a year of transition but, when you think about it, every new year is a year of transition. The flick-of-a-switch from one numbered timeline to the next is arbitrary, but the anticipation of flicking does inspire reflection and taking of stock. This one’s more potent as it’s the start of a new decade. The self-examination was particularly intense this time.

2019 felt like an ‘in-between’ year — like I spent it preparing for something. There were accomplishments and significant moments (like marriage!), but looking back, I see a lot of things getting set up for the future.

What am I setting up? Well, this is the year of 8DSync and going all-in on music publishing and licensing. It’s an area I’ve worked in for two decades but as a side-gig to other endeavors. Now with the help of my colleagues Miguel Bustamante and Craig Snyder, I have brought 8DSync to the forefront. The move makes sense — I am more knowledgable in music publishing than any other music business field, and it’s what I do best. Time to lean in.

Beginning the year, I’m in the process of redesigning the 8DSync website from scratch. Not understanding what I was getting into, I decided to do this redesign myself. The site is looking great, but it’s a work in progress as well as a time-consuming one. I’m adding many artist and release pages over the next few months.

Some of those artists represent new signings to the 8DSync roster. We start the year with these exciting additions: Kingston, New York’s psychedelic Shana Falana, the UK roots-rock act Swampmeat Family Band, Jonathan Brodeur and his power-poptastic Bird Streets project, and a lovely downtempo label out of Ireland called WeGrowWax. There’s also a new album from Scotland’s The Little Kicks on the horizon. That’s a lot of fantastic music to look forward to straight away.

Another of my projects due for a refresh is the 8D Industries label. We took a hiatus as the artists concocted releases, but now it seems likely we’ll have new music from Monta At Odds, San Mateo, and More Ghost Than Man before next summer.

But what about Q-Burns Abstract Message, you ask? I’m working on a new batch of songs, too. It’s all quite different, and I debate even using the Q-BAM moniker, though I probably will. I’d like to have a consistent slate of releases this year — perhaps a series or 3 or 4 song EPs — which will be a challenge. I must remind myself that we make the time, we don’t find the time.

And there’s a ton of writing in my future. The 8sided blog is an integral part of my life, and I enjoy working on it. I’m meeting cool new people through it, too (drop me a line anytime). I have internal debates over what this blog is exactly — is it a place for music industry commentary, or reviews and notes on the culture, or can I get personal, or can I get silly? I’m leaning towards it being all these things. But one thing I plan to examine repeatedly is how we’ve grown to rely on the biggest corporations in history for the dissemination of our art. How do we maintain our independence as the tech-giants chip it away? That’s the theme of the blog if there is one.

For over a year, I’ve been threatening to start a newsletter. All the cool kids are doing it, and I want to hang with the cool kids. Well, it’s ready to launch, and it has a name: Ringo Dreams of Lawn Care. What’s that about, right? Just bear with me. The newsletter will be different than the blog though I’m not sure how yet. The first few ideas for issues are more personal, more story-oriented. I’ll base it on my experiences juggling all these things — the publishing company, the label, Q-BAM — and the trials of working in the music industry from outside of the music industry. I’m sure I’ll also write about interesting things I’m reading and watching and hearing, too. It will be good, and I’m setting the first issue free in a few weeks. Please sign up here.

What am I looking for in 2020? Well, besides the replacement of some of our world leaders (omg plz), I’d like more excuses to travel. I already have flights booked for returns to SXSW and MusicBiz, but would enjoy several more chances to ride on airplanes. I’d also like to pick up a couple more consultancy clients this year, whether artists or labels needing help with branding, positioning, and release strategies or companies looking for assistance with music publishing and rights management. And I’d love to advise and collaborate with a cool outsider artist, band, or label — one dedicated to a musical niche with no mainstream aspiration and struggling with being seen in 2020’s ephemeral information whirlpool. If that’s you and you’re willing to do the work, then feel free to get in touch.

One last tidbit: I mentioned SXSW above. I’m thrilled to announce that there will be an 8DSync showcase at the festival this March, featuring many of the artists mentioned above. I’ll have the details soon. I played SXSW a few times as Q-BAM in the past, but I’ve never been on the organizing side of a showcase. So that’s exciting.

OK, you didn’t ask for it, but now you’re up to date on my activities. And, as a byproduct of this ramble, I have a clearer idea of what I’d like to do over the next few months. 2020 is the year when all that table-setting in 2019 pays off. Now I’d like to hear from you. What are your big plans? Is there an opportunity for us to work together, or bounce around some ideas? I’m game. I have the feeling this could be our year.

An Amazing BBC ‘Bootleg Report’ from 1971

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I previously wrote about bootleg culture in the age of streaming and reminisced on the simple days of CD bootlegs sold in my own record shop. Now my pal Kenn Richards — via his essential Research {Curation} Reduction newsletter — alerted me to this 14-minute BBC documentary from 1971 examining the bootleg scene in London at the time. Holy cats, this is wonderful.

The video features incredible quotes and contributions from Led Zeppelin manager Peter ‘no one heavier than me’ Grant, ‘The’ Pink Floyd, Yoko Ono, and John Lennon who prefers to be in a bag. Also, it’s so quaint how the guy who manufactures bootlegs and the other guy who sells them (at a Virgin Records, no less) are so open and casual and like ¯_(ツ)_/¯ about it.

Here’s some bonus content from the same year: Neil Young discovering bootlegs of his own work in a Los Angeles record store. Watch the guy behind the counter — his uncomfortable body language as Young starts flipping through the bins is priceless.