If you didn't notice Jess Harvell's Technicolor has shut up shop. Actually I missed the party, though thanks to Google cache-ing checked out a little. Excellent superbly informed writing. Read between the lines at Jess's recent NYLPM post (Monday February 17th 2003) and worked out Jess is fed up with the whole palaver, even angry at all this open-source pettiness. He makes the point elsewhere that we should all grow up and make money from writing.
I don't intend to blog forever. I've given myself a theoretical year online, some commentators say the average blog lasts three months (of frenzied activity) then peters out, I'm not ruling that out either. Are people getting fed up with with the sheer volume of blogs? Have a look at DJ Martian's compilation and shudder. Does anyone feel that the more voices the less interesting the phenomena,? Notice that Google have bought Pyra (Makers of Blogger), we're in for alot more of this stuff.
I, despite sounding like "monsieur-le-plus-hip" am a classic Johnny-come-lately. I'm always the last one on the bandwagon. I'm exactly the kind of dork who drives true hipsters like Jess crazy. I don't want to put words into Jess's mouth but the dude is so sick of the net he aint even replied to my email. I waited and waited before posting this.
I stand by my little effort. I've no problem with thousands of music blogs. An evening spent combing through the aforementioned DJ Martian list revealed 4-5 which I rated. That's only 4 or 5 people writing about music whose writing and insights I valued. So what if everyone and their dog wants to have a bash, maybe other people like their blogs and think mine's piffle. Let's not forget that many bloggers have jobs already (I'm not about to chuck in Animation). Maybe I'm being paranoid but why do people assume that because one's not earning money from a practice that its irrelevant. I am often a victim of this thinking, I worry (obsessively) about paying the bills like everyone else.bou
Amateur has come to mean "bad", but why? Some of the greatest things of the world are the work of amateurs. A case in point, and a particulary apt example for many reasons, not least because this web page (In case you hadn't noticed this is my own URL, not hosted by Blogspot) is probably floating on it: Apache and or even Linux. These, in case you didn't know are the fruit of thousands of boffins (lost deep within the lines of UNIX) tinkering and collaborating, disagreeing, coming up with new suggestions and twists on the vision. A massive Pan-Global amateur endeavour. The virtual equivalent of thousands of potting sheds at the end of thousands of gardens. Maybe music journalism isn't so consequential, but frankly you're asking the wrong guy to give the reasons why.
Recently a remark DJ Shadow made in an interview made me stop in my tracks. He was in the basement of a record store and said referring to the records (paraphrase) "Gee this is so humbling, look at all these broken dreams." The suggestion was that all these artists suffered the tragedy of not making it in the music business. They weren't dignified like him (maybe I'm being unkind) and talented enough to make a career of it. Er hello Shadow, anyone home? Can you imagine a single Ardkore/Jungle/Garage record ever being made if the artists sincerely believed they were going to make a living out of it. More often than not they were having a laugh. Amateurs the lot of 'em.
Finally I'd point out that blogging about music circumvents grim Industry back-handing. I don't want to sound too anti-Industry but there should always be healthy contra-practices and voices. In a simiIar way I have a profound respect for those Professional critics who get their hands dirty and muck in with Amateurs like myself, gawd bless 'em. In fact I reckon the Industry progresses by consuming these practices. A recent healthy example being Richard X and the Sugababes at number one, and maybe the better bloggers will want to wind up writing professionally. While I may not always have the same burning enthusiasm for blogging, when I do get my coat I won't be slagging the whole thing off.
Posted by Woebot at February 27, 2003 11:55 AM