HOME TAPING IS KILLING MUSIC (8-TRACK EDITION)

ITEM [via BoingBoing]: An interesting flyer from 1976 warning of the dangers of 8-track tape piracy.



It’s only fair to point out that they’re talking about people selling pirated tapes for money, which is different from the modern argument of people sharing music via YouTube or whatever for free (contrary to what the RIAA would have you believe). On the other hand, look at how pirated 8-tracks totally failed to destroy the music industry.

Anyway, the greatest thing about this flyer is the anecdote of how Jerry Lee Lewis once pulled into a gas station, saw a rack of pirated 8-tracks, smashed it up, then instructed the pump attendants to tell whoever owned the racks that “Killer was here”.

How bad-ass is that?

I don’t know how true that is, mind. After all, the story comes second-hand from an RIAA investigator. But if it’s apocryphal, I don’t want to know.

Balls of fire,

This is dF

THE IDES OF MARCH (2011 EDITION)

Or, “Why I keep doing this when bloggery is dead.”

Today marks the sixth anniversary of my presence on the LJs (though not this specific blog, which I started in late 2007).

I’m racking my brains trying to think of something clever to say about it. Honestly I’m not coming up with much. One thing I can say is that I’ve learned an important lesson in doing this:

Blogging is a lot like college radio. You do yr show, play yr music and say what’s on yr mind, imagining all the while that yr friends are out there listening and digging it – when in reality most of them don’t even have their radio turned on.

Which is the case with me. Sure, I have 62 followers (which is probably about 5x as many people as used to listen to my radio shows), but most of you are people I’ve met here on LJ. Of all the meatspace friends I’m in contact with, almost none of them read this blog.

This isn’t their fault, of course. I know it’s nothing personal. They have lives, and each life comes with different priorities, some of which are beyond control. Few of them listened to my radio show as well for similar reasons.

Granted, a key difference is that radio is a fixed yet ethereal medium – it goes out into the ether live, at a fixed time, for one broadcast only, never to be heard again unless someone bothers to tape/archive/syndicate it. With blogs, it’s all recorded and time-shiftable – and still most people I know will never see the vast majority of what I post, mainly because they’re not on LJ and never will be. The only way I can reach them is on Facebook – and even there, most of what I post goes unnoticed and/or "unliked" (and that’s due to the fact that I’m competing with a million other posts in their news feed, 80% of them Farmville updates).

Which begs the question: why bother?

The answer – at least for me – is that I do it for the same reason I did college radio: partly for the love of the medium, partly for my own amusement, and partly to keep in practice. And yes, because I'm an opinionated bastard. But I also do it for the few people who do tune in for whatever reason, whether I know them or not.

(I believe the medical term for this is “sheer bloody-mindedness”. I’ll have to check.)

The same applies to comments (or lack thereof). I get very few of them, but it’s really no different from college radio in that respect – hardly anyone ever called in apart from the occasional request, often for songs I had no interest in playing (Skid Row and Warrant were common examples). If anything, the bloggery gets a better response (with the caveat that I don’t have a troll/spam problem, or a lot of psychotic ex-girlfriends/boyfriends/spouses tuning in, as I know other people do).

All of which I mention because I’ve seen other LJers despair from lack of commentary. But for me, it’s like I’m back in the DJ booth broadcasting to the ether. I just assume that yr out there, and yr getting it, even if you don’t phone in.

Which is my meandering way of saying thanks for tuning in, and that broadcasts will continue as normal.

On with the countdown,

This is dF

THE IDES OF MARCH (2011 EDITION): SPECIAL COMMENTARY ON COMMENTARY

Not to flog a dead horse (eewww), but since this came up in the comments to the previous post (which will be ironic by the end of this post) …

Re: Comments on the LJs

It’s only fair to mention that another reason I don’t get hung up on comment frequency is because I don’t comment much myself. And yet I read my f-list every day.

The reason I don’t comment much – apart from being the quiet wallflower type at social events (stop sniggering in the back) – is because a lot of posts don’t really lend themselves to commentary from me. That’s because a lot of posts tend to fall into one of two categories:

1. I agree with/like it, but don’t have much to say about it beyond “I agree with/like this”. Which, I have to admit, is one thing Facebook gets right that LJ could use: a “like” button. There are times when you want to type out something like that, but not all the time.

2. It’s something deeply personal about the person’s life. Which is fine if I happen to know you really well and am familiar with the situation offline. Otherwise, I don’t feel comfortable commenting on things like that because, let’s be honest, what the hell do I know about you and yr personal life? Okay, apart from what I read on yr LJ. But that’s not really the same as knowing someone – at least not to the point of me posting some half-assed comment. Obviously there are exceptions (like friends/family members passing away), but for the most part I wouldn’t know what to say.

Which, incidentally, is true of me in real life. I’m terrible at consoling people. Ask any of my former friends. (Humor.)

Anyway, the upshot of it is that while I’m not commenting, I am reading. Or “lurking”, as the kids say today. And so I assume the same is true of all of you. And I’m good with that.

Of course, if I ever do want to see how many of you are paying attention, I’m told that there are two sure-fire topics guaranteed to generate comments on the LJs:

1. Hot soviet dictators
2. The Strokes and/or Interpol (the band, not the law enforcement agency)

bedsitter23  swears by this. And he’s been here longer than me. So he knows a thing or two about blogging.

Anyway, enough of this soul-bearing introspection (and yes, this counts as soul-bearing for me). The next post will be Sexy.

Don’t speak,

This is dF

MADONNA USES PERMA-LIFT BRAS EXCLUSIVELY BECAUSE SHE WANTS ONLY THE BEST

I told you my next post would be sexy.

Like Perma-lift Brassieres, I’ll never let you down.



To the point,

This is dF