8Sided Blog

the scene celebrates itself

the fall’s 1981 album ‘slates’

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Hayley Scott of The Quietus on The Fall’s 1981 roar of an album (or EP?), Slates:

Slates was a crucial turning point because it defies working class stereotypes, specifically in relation to art. The Fall’s lyrics aren’t restricted to the usual kitchen sink realism in the vein of ‘That’s Entertainment’ by The Jam. Rather than having a “woe is me” perspective on life, Smith liberates himself using working class intellectualism to reclaim art as a thing for the people, not academics. This teaches us a vital life-lesson: you don’t need to be privileged to be cultured. You can be into Ezra Pound and Philip K. Dick but also get shit-faced and neck a couple of double dippers on match-day afternoon. He created work that matches the smart intensity of his literary influences, but it’s still firmly grounded in Prestwich.

Wiki-Nature Wordplay

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Album Art From The Fall's Grotesque

Bandcamp’s Live Stream Platform → After some September trial runs with live online concerts from Mary Lattimore, Matmos, and Sarah Davachi, Bandcamp has announced a public launch of its live stream platform. This live stream feature is built from the foundation of a retail music site instead of a video networking tool adapted for music performance. And because the backend is Bandcamp — and pretty much every band has a Bandcamp presence — there’s a much lower barrier to entry than something like Dice. 

Livestreams will incorporate many of Bandcamp’s existing tools, such as fan messaging and merch sales. An added feature is a live chat window, which includes notifications when fans buy merch items. Bands can sell tickets to their live stream concerts, with Bandcamp taking 10% of the revenue (and no Ticketmaster-ish hidden fees). Until the first of April 2021, Bandcamp will waive this fee. 

I find the announcement exciting. It’s, at the same time, a natural next-step for Bandcamp and an outside-of-the-box move. All bets are on this live stream platform being a big hit, positioning Bandcamp as a contender in this field once the pandemic subsides. Live stream concerts aren’t going anywhere, folks. 

I’d love to see Bandcamp continue developing the platform to add things like geofencing, which would allow bands to do virtual ‘tours.’ And maybe an option to chain bands together under a single ticket for festivals and opening slots. I also want to see the bands step things up — to use this in surprising and unusual ways, rather than simply livestreaming some musicians playing in a living room. 

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The Fall in 1980 → The beginning of this article on The Quietus posits that your favorite album by The Fall is the first one you’ve heard. They’ve got a kazillion albums, so I can see how difficult it is to choose a favorite objectively. The first one I heard was This Nation’s Saving Grace, rescued from a cut-out bin while I was in college. Yeah, it’s my favorite. But, man, I do like a lot of other Fall albums, too.

Angus Batey, the writer of this Quietus piece, is fascinated by Fall singer Mark E. Smith’s lyrics. I’d say that’s the case with all listeners of this often challenging band. But Batey alludes to connections and references I hadn’t realized, portraying Smith’s oeuvre as a self-contained musical wiki of sorts. The Fall exercised intricate and interconnected world-building through the band’s presentation, lyrics, and identifiable sound. What’s remarkable is that Smith latched on to this, nearly formed, at such a young age. Early Fall was more ramshackle, but it’s still The Fall we recognize years later. The essential bits were always in place.

Here’s Batey on the wiki-nature of Smith’s wordplay:

Where to begin? And at what point would you believe you’d finished figuring out what the hell was going on? Perhaps it’s better not to start, and just delight in how [Mark E.] Smith uses his brilliant band like a stage conjuror uses the cape and top hat – as a diversion and a distraction, cloaking the deception. It’s little wonder contemporary critics baffled by Grotesque thought Smith was hiding something. In many ways they were right. […] Anyone trying to critique and catalogue and contextualise this stuff as it came out was doomed to fail. It’s too deep, too densely packed, too rich in allusion and scope and too well-read and learned in its reference points, even in an era with so much more information so easily locatable as is the case in 21st-century internet-enabled present. Back in 1980, nobody really had a chance.

If you’re not familiar with The Fall, then I’m not sure if this article will pique your curiosity or drive you away. But The Fall were that kind of band, really. If it’s curiosity, then I’d start with This Nation’s Saving Grace — though, as it’s my first Fall album, I’m biased.

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Steve Jansen – “The Extinct Suite” (video) → I randomly happened across this video for a song by Steve Jansen, ex-Japan drummer and otherwise storied musician and producer. The tune hails from 2017’s ambient solo album of the same name. “The Extinct Suite” — the only track on the album — is 56-minutes long, but we are treated to a nearly 5-minute excerpt for the video. This video is remarkable, created by German photographer and animator Anna Malina. Her Tumblr blog shows some of the original prints and their assembly for this dark, visual feast. I was intensely into photography while in college — my second nostalgic college reference in this post — but got bored after a few years. If I had the vision to stretch the medium’s possibilities as Malina does, I bet I would have kept at it. 

It’s Me and Your Granny on Bongos: Who Owns a Band Name?

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The proliferation of reunion tours by veteran acts — including bands formed over 50 years ago — is arguably a result of dwindling sales royalty mixed with the advanced age of the art form and its fans. The age factor inevitably leads to original members dropping off the bill, whether for ill health (or demise) or weariness of road life.

The New York Times examines the fine line of when your favorite band is no longer your favorite band because it’s missing key members — or even all its members:

“If it’s me and your granny on bongos, it’s the Fall,” the singer Mark E. Smith, who peremptorily hired and fired dozens of members of the Fall, once said. But only a few musicians can carry off such lordly “l’état, c’est moi” proclamations. Mick Jones might be on that short list.

Over the years, Foreigner has shed every main member of its early lineups until only Jones was left. But, argued Phil Carson, the band’s manager, “There’s only been one original member, ever. Mick handpicked everyone. We’ve had five or six keyboard players, almost countless drummers. If Mick Jones says it’s Foreigner, it’s Foreigner.”

{But Jones} sometimes misses shows, depending on his health. Last year, when he was forced to skip a show at a 10,000-seat arena in Tel Aviv, a fan told The Jerusalem Post he felt the night was “tainted with con.” {…} But Carson says fans enjoy Foreigner just as much whether Jones is onstage or in his slippers at home: “I’d say 90 percent of people at the shows have no clue who was in Foreigner.”

This piece also discusses an important topic that’s rarely brought up at band practice — the assignable ownership of a name:

Disputes over the rights to a band’s name are thorny because they combine elements of trademark law and contract law, said Loren Chodosh, an entertainment attorney whose clients have included Nada Surf and TV on the Radio.

Band names typically qualify as trademarks, and trademarks can be assigned by contract. “A band agreement, in a lot of ways, is like a prenup,” Chodosh said. “It’s about what will happen if things go wrong and somebody leaves, which nobody wants to talk about. Bands don’t start to hate each other until they’re successful.”

Most bands, Chodosh said, never establish contractually how the band trademark is owned. In the absence of a contract, she added, “Trademark law prevails. And because trademark law is not uncomplicated, it’s difficult to say who owns that trademark.”

Once a band feels like a growing concern (which may occur as early as the moment the band comes up with a name) it’s a good idea to determine where the band name resides. Does it follow all the band members, like the “last man standing” agreement Bobby Colomby of Blood, Sweat & Tears mentions in the article? What if the band splits in half? Is there indisputably a ‘band leader’ or defining presence that’s logically tied to the name? Figure this out. Get it in writing.

I think it was Mike Mills’s podcast interview with Brian Koppelman where he tells the story of REM’s band name agreement. If one band member called it quits REM would have to dissolve. So when Bill Berry left the band, he had to give explicit permission for REM to continue as a trio. I’m not sure if this was a legal requirement — that is, in writing, agreed upon by all band members — but my feeling is it certainly was.

🔗→ Reunion Tour! The Band Is Back! Wait, Who Are These Guys?

A Punk-Rock Gut Punch

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Another dispatch from out in the sticks. Howdy. Proverbial country road pictured above.

There’s a fantastic photo in NPR’s In Memoriam 2018: The Musicians We Lost. An emotive Glenn Branca is pictured in the center, and this is one of the best concert photos I’ve seen in a while. There’s so much energy there, like a jolt of Jolt. I assume Glenn is pictured in the midst of conducting his guitar-based ‘orchestra.’ 

The In Memoriam piece is striking, as these tend to be. There are a lot of special music folks we’ll be missing in 2019. For me, in addition to Branca, losing Mark E. Smith and Pete Shelley in one year is a punk rock gut-punch.

I don’t need another ‘favorite albums of 2018’ list — going through the ones I have bookmarked already could last well into next summer. I should be listening to 2019 music! But Austin Kleon, via his amazing blog (another inspiration for what I’m trying to do here), turned me onto a tantalizingly diverse ‘best of 2018’ list from music writer Ted Gioia.

Kleon titles his post ‘The Agony of List-Making’ and expresses a frustration with making public recommendations under the scrutiny of the internet mob. Gioia eases his own misgivings by presenting his list alphabetically, not allowing any title to receive a crown above any other. Kleon highlights this quote from Gioia’s list post:

Like any music lover, I enjoy sharing my favorite music with others. But in the last few years, a different motivation has spurred me. I believe that the system of music discovery is broken in the current day. There is more music recorded than ever before, but it is almost impossible for listeners to find the best new recordings …

I believe we are entering another era of music discovery, as listeners experience playlist fatigue and blogs continue to lose sway. These personalized lists, from close friends and selected ones from respected total strangers — chefs, movie directors, music writers, etc. — will hold the real power. Recommendations like these have always been the truest source of discovery. But we — as music fans rather than casual listeners — lost our way for a bit as streaming took hold, fascinated by algorithmic playlists and unlimited access.

Optimistically, these personal interactions of recommendation foster more intimate relationships with our music. On the other hand, this could all be my imagination as friends have been recommending music online since those early-90s message boards. But I do feel like there’s a dissatisfaction with playlist culture and how it’s pushed on us by certain platforms. This is a reason I switched from Spotify to Apple Music, something I’ll write about in the future. And this dissatisfaction will grow as playlists and platform features bow further to corporate influence. I used to wonder why Bandcamp didn’t have a playlisting feature — now I get it.

In other news, Big Shot Magazine kindly asked for a 2018 recap and I delivered a few reflections. I mainly talk about the launch of 8D Industries but I also touch on curbing the news diet, a recurring topic around these parts. The Ryan Holiday quote in the piece should be mentally taped above every screen at home, whether it’s a TV or a laptop:

Perhaps it’s time we realize that consuming more news about the world around us is not the way to improve it (or ourselves), personally or politically.

Holiday has written a few articles on why we should abstain from breaking news. They’re all worth a read. 

I’d also like to point out that I meant to refer to the long album version of “Bunny’s Dream” as a favorite song of the year. The video edit embedded in the article doesn’t quite have the majesty or the sprawl and, like many unsuccessful edits, feels rushed in comparison to the original. 

A question I posed to my social media friends: will people be playing Paul Hardcastle like they were playing Prince on NYE 1998? Of course, this is meant as a joke but I know I gave some DJs an idea for a midnight song on Monday. Please report back if you took the bait.