WOEBOT

I'm in an extremely strange place vis a vis blogging at the moment. I'd even go as far as describing it as screwed-up. This may have started with my slightly nutsy decision in the Spring to ration my reading of one or two of my favorite blogs as I found I was checking in to them far too many times. I've gone as far as completely weaning myself off one particular blog I was finding too compulsive, and at once punitive to me as a reader.

At the same time my own output for WOEBOT has become crippled by my expectations for it. These days I only ever seem to write (relatively in blogging terms) deeply researched pieces which require reading books, combing the internet and tracking down impossibly hard-to-find records. The form of these conceptual essays gets more and more convoluted, I've noticed a pattern which revolves around concept pieces grouped around sets of ten exquisitely-curated records. You'll not believe it, but I have (no exaggeration at all) SEVEN of these gigantic pieces in the wings. But as soon as set out writing them, I find myself procrastinating, usually in search of greater detail, more background information, more useful theoretical tools, and ultimately (drools) more vinyl.

More worryingly, I keep finding myself drafting quite large think-pieces (this is over and above the aforementioned SEVEN) but as the weeks go by I fail to have any time to concentrate on writing them to a sufficient standard whereby they're "publishable" I gradually come to the conclusion that it'd probably be more sly and hipper not to venture to comment on their subjects at all. This is compounded by the blogosphere malaise of everyone trotting out their opinions on certain subjects with a intensely competitive desire to be, if not the first to comment on something, then at least to have the definitive opinion about something, the stragglers indulging in meta-critical sniping at the first through the gates. I've even read people attacking other people along the lines of "What right do you think you have to comment on such and such?"

This slightly stifling atmosphere has also driven me into the position of covering terrains which on the one hand I feel people maybe ought to be more interested in, but on the other kinds of music I find my way into precisely because they're unspoiled pastures, and which I then (this really is ridiculous) struggle to connect with emotionally, even as I appreciate their qualities. As a listener this is often an exhausting position to find myself in.

There's another dimension extraneous to all this. I've just worked on the core graphics systems for a certain Music Television Video brand's British *and* American forthcoming "Interactive" Cable channels. This convergence between TV and the web is often fascinating to watch close-up. I left one company where I'd done one, and was hired by another company to do the other. I've been in the thick of discussions with senior executives talking about how they can leverage the kind of hobbyist devotion that this blog represents to drive their channel. I heard a great new phrase at one meeting: "The Reputation Economy", yikes that's scary isn't it? I mean would anyone blog if some idea of their own reputation wasn't at stake? But what if you start to wonder if you care what anyone thinks about your opinion? The whole thing is kinda horrific from the perspective of the Music-Theorist-as-UNIX-programmer shtick.

From my own experience as a writer I'm beginning to suspect that both the career-led drive of "Professional" Music Journalists (I've met one...) a drive founded on the need to put bread on the table, and the accompanying apparatus of an editor to convince and practical deadlines to meet are actually central to the discipline. I already have a job, and I packed in my writing gigs because I didn't have the time, so where does that put me?

Yeah, it's not a pretty sight. At the moment WOEBOT is like the metaphorical Ouroboros, the snake eating its own tail, at once ever more intensely devoted to its own program but at the same time time finding that program impossible to navigate, subsequently threatening to vanish into itself. I'm not actually going to pull the plug, just wondering how the hell I'm going to get myself out of this predicament. Hoping maybe somehow to get some time to actually get all this accumulating garbage off my chest.