what is money
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Wednesday, 3 March 2010 23:30 (fourteen years ago) link
what the fuck can a unicorn spend a dollar on
Do I have to take a picture of myself kissing my copy and send it to the tumblr to prove my dedication? Just wondering guys.
― you gone float up with it (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, 3 March 2010 23:31 (fourteen years ago) link
are you a unicorn?
― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 3 March 2010 23:31 (fourteen years ago) link
kissing my copy
eating it would show tru dedication
― by another name (amateurist), Wednesday, 3 March 2010 23:32 (fourteen years ago) link
whiney in all seriousness if you have not already translated that stuff into cold hard cash then you need to either 1) hire a manger working on spec or 2) hire me because if I were in your shoes right now the next 3 months of my rent would already be paid
― Lee Dorrian Gray (J0hn D.), Wednesday, 3 March 2010 23:33 (fourteen years ago) link
hipster unicorns
― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 3 March 2010 23:34 (fourteen years ago) link
Stuff Hipster Robocops Like
― tylerw, Wednesday, 3 March 2010 23:35 (fourteen years ago) link
i wonder how many people illegally DL'd this album and are listening to it regularly (and how this compares w/ 7,000 who purchased it)
bigchampagne has those #s I think though you have to pay to see them. I think it's like 10:1 which leads labels to say "we'd be selling all those records if it weren't for the damned internet!" which obv isn't true; not everybody who takes something they can get for free would necessarily buy it given the absence of the free option. my own (again, thin-air based) guess is that sales would maybe be approx. twice what they are across the board w/o the internet, but maybe not, because the internet has increased the amount of exposure indie acts can get - it's a complicated q & there's pretty much zero point in imagining how things might have shaken out otherwise - without the internet, practically no-one would have heard of jn at all
― Lee Dorrian Gray (J0hn D.), Wednesday, 3 March 2010 23:38 (fourteen years ago) link
all you have to do is believe
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Wednesday, 3 March 2010 23:39 (fourteen years ago) link
the "big" indies -- Sub Pop, Matador, Merge, etc. -- are at least somewhat profitable, right?
― ksh, Wednesday, 3 March 2010 23:48 (fourteen years ago) link
i imagine that would be the case with merge, at least
― by another name (amateurist), Wednesday, 3 March 2010 23:52 (fourteen years ago) link
but maybe not, because the internet has increased the amount of exposure indie acts can get - it's a complicated q & there's pretty much zero point in imagining how things might have shaken out otherwise - without the internet, practically no-one would have heard of jn at all
yeah otm. i feel like it's difficult to pinpoint buying a record as like a definitive moment anymore, too: people might download first and buy later; buy some of it on itunes; go see her next time she's in town; buy the next lp or whatever.
― werewolf congress (schlump), Thursday, 4 March 2010 00:41 (fourteen years ago) link
well yeah but in fairness if the album sales could approach the amount of exposure, it'd be good times for artists - it's not like the # of people downloading translates into Newsome selling out the Hollywood Bowl or anything
― Lee Dorrian Gray (J0hn D.), Thursday, 4 March 2010 00:48 (fourteen years ago) link
hey she sold out Harvard!
― Wet Hot American Oil Spill (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 4 March 2010 00:51 (fourteen years ago) link
http://thequietus.com/articles/03830-joanna-newsom-have-one-on-me-album-review
Excellent review by Petra Davis in The Quietus. Sorry for going off topic lulzx
― craigboney (Mister Craig), Thursday, 4 March 2010 00:54 (fourteen years ago) link
I know Insound is doing pretty well. Moving plenty of vinyl there. I also work at a CD/record store where business is based off of used items mostly, and that model is not like it was but its still holding its own.
― Evan, Thursday, 4 March 2010 01:04 (fourteen years ago) link
Thanks to Amazon presence as well.
― Evan, Thursday, 4 March 2010 01:05 (fourteen years ago) link
What someone should do is print up 500 copies of some weird folk record they made, sneak a few into stores around the world, and then spend the next 20 years planting rumors about this "lost" album's purported greatness but particularly its elusiveness. Maybe every few years coax a few friends to form bands "influenced" by said "lost" record/artist. And then, 20 years down the line, when the price of this ultra rare artifact hits the roof, occasionally auction one off anonymously to pay for your retirement.
Virtually foolproof, I say, though it doesn't take into account the giant asteroid hitting or its impact on vinyl sales.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 4 March 2010 01:23 (fourteen years ago) link
yes Josh but who's to say such efforts haven't already been undertaken, without success, countless times?
― Lee Dorrian Gray (J0hn D.), Thursday, 4 March 2010 01:49 (fourteen years ago) link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vashti_Bunyan
― ksh, Thursday, 4 March 2010 01:51 (fourteen years ago) link
Philips records not exactly specializing in editions of 500, ksh
― Lee Dorrian Gray (J0hn D.), Thursday, 4 March 2010 01:54 (fourteen years ago) link
more like "released with a pretty massive promo budget & muscle & enough copies printed up to find their ways into many hands later"
― Lee Dorrian Gray (J0hn D.), Thursday, 4 March 2010 01:55 (fourteen years ago) link
Why must you shatter his crystal palace
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 4 March 2010 02:01 (fourteen years ago) link
http://ladyofspiders.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/wgart_-art-d-domenich-unicorn.jpg
― you gone float up with it (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, 4 March 2010 02:14 (fourteen years ago) link
this thread is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long. rap it up, folks.
― scott seward, Thursday, 4 March 2010 02:19 (fourteen years ago) link
Philips records not exactly specializing in editions of 500, ksh― Lee Dorrian Gray (J0hn D.)
― Lee Dorrian Gray (J0hn D.)
Yeah, you're right. No idea why I thought Diamond Day was a small run thing initially.
― ksh, Thursday, 4 March 2010 02:19 (fourteen years ago) link
it wasn't a limited run, but nobody bought it because there were a million other great albums released that year that were better.
― scott seward, Thursday, 4 March 2010 02:23 (fourteen years ago) link
What someone should do is print up 500 copies of some weird folk record they made, sneak a few into stores around the world.
Does this happen?
― Megadeth Panel (Ówen P.), Thursday, 4 March 2010 02:36 (fourteen years ago) link
no because if anybody sells 500 copies of anything they immediately repress
― Lee Dorrian Gray (J0hn D.), Thursday, 4 March 2010 02:39 (fourteen years ago) link
of course I have that 30 copy run of unavailable-elsewhere cassettes I just gave to two Croatian distributors in '98 but fortunately nobody's gotten wind of that yet
― Lee Dorrian Gray (J0hn D.), Thursday, 4 March 2010 02:40 (fourteen years ago) link
― Lee Dorrian Gray (J0hn D.), Wednesday, March 3, 2010 9:39 PM
As a child who worked in sweat shops, I can say J0hn is right.
― Evan, Thursday, 4 March 2010 02:43 (fourteen years ago) link
The following year, having no idea how to approach professional record companies and being convinced they would be uninterested, Fahey decided to issue his first album himself, using some cash saved from his gas station attendant job and some borrowed from an Episcopal priest. So Takoma Records was born, named in honor of his hometown.[5] One hundred copies of this first album were pressed [6]. On one side of the album sleeve was the name "John Fahey" and on the other, "Blind Joe Death"—this latter was a humorous nickname given to him by his fellow blues fans. He attempted to sell these albums himself. Some he gave away, some he sneaked into thrift stores and blues sections of local record shops, and some he sent to folk music scholars, a few of whom were fooled into thinking that there really was a living old blues singer called Blind Joe Death. It took three years for Fahey to sell the remainder.
― Mr. Que, Thursday, 4 March 2010 03:19 (fourteen years ago) link
well yes but
Following a 1994 entry on Fahey in Spin magazine's spin-off Alternative Record Guide publication, Fahey learned that he now had a whole new audience, which included alternative US bands Sonic Youth and Cul de Sac, British comedian and writer Stewart Lee and the avant-garde musician Jim O'Rourke. Byron Coley published a large article called "The Persecutions and Resurrections of Blind Joe Death" (also in Spin magazine) and at the same time a two-cd retrospective called The Return of the Repressed all combined to kick-start Fahey's career. Suddenly new releases started to appear in rapid succession, in parallel to the reissue of all the early Takoma releases by Fantasy Records.[4]
― Lee Dorrian Gray (J0hn D.), Thursday, 4 March 2010 03:20 (fourteen years ago) link
How does that take away from Mr. Que's bit?
― Evan, Thursday, 4 March 2010 03:24 (fourteen years ago) link
SORRY ITS NOT 20 YEARS JOHN ONLY 3
― Mr. Que, Thursday, 4 March 2010 03:25 (fourteen years ago) link
THREAD RUINED
Didn't Bill Drummond claim/write in "45" that he used to press up fake-band singles and mail them to the NME or whatever from random countries, trying to inspire trend stories of a "Greenland scene" and stuff like that?
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 4 March 2010 03:25 (fourteen years ago) link
Hobbies...
― Evan, Thursday, 4 March 2010 03:29 (fourteen years ago) link
Anyway, what this thread needs at this point is less talk about unicorns and more talk about unifauns!
"Said the unifaun to his true love's eyes..." Here Peter gets especially sad and tragic (and it's only the beginning of the song!). 'Unifaun' is supposed to be a pun, a cross between 'uniform' and 'faun' - the 'faun' brings in the mythological element, while the 'uniform' brings in certain military associations. Patriotic lament over the fate of one's country? Whatever it might be, the subject of the song is evident from the beginning line: a tragic statement of Britain's current state, a lamentation over the enormous, unbridgeable gap between the romantic past and the corrupt present...
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 4 March 2010 03:57 (fourteen years ago) link
impressions of disc 1: i moderately dig this.
impressions of disc 2: "in california" / "jackrabbits" / "go long" = a++ fantastic sequence
― call all destroyer, Friday, 5 March 2010 04:07 (fourteen years ago) link
btw which of her older songs does jackrabbits sound *identical* to melodically at bits? at around 0:35 or so (I believe, I can't check)
― Turangalila, Friday, 5 March 2010 04:22 (fourteen years ago) link
Clam Crab Cockle Cowrie?
― ksh, Friday, 5 March 2010 04:30 (fourteen years ago) link
disc two is the least dense with hooks, i think? (though the second half of disc three is the nearest to hard work - i don't know. i haven't had a chance to listen to this outside of work, and that is the one i play least. "sweet appraising eye of the dog / blink once if god / blink twice if no god" is a little too far for me to feel comfortable forcing on other people.) but yeah i'm surprised how much of it i remember on later playthroughs.
i am loving how plinky-plonk a lot of the piano is.
can anyone point out the kate bush song that 'easy' actually sounds like around the 'there is a life in the river / there is a river filled with light' bit?
― thomp, Saturday, 6 March 2010 15:27 (fourteen years ago) link
i'm at the point with a lot of songs where a lot of the deliberately skewed bits are starting to register for themselves rather than as disruptions. eg.
'who asked you if you wanted to belo-o-~ved by mewho died and made youin charge of who gets to love who'
(or whatever; n.b. 'loved' is like seventeen syllables long for this to scan, which it still barely does)
-- moments like this are starting to register on their own merits, and not as 'oh. she just did a thing'
― thomp, Saturday, 6 March 2010 15:29 (fourteen years ago) link
love how much mileage she gets out of "godawful lawlessness / law! less! ness!" on 'soft as chalk'. (love that something called 'soft as chalk' kinda stomps.)
realise lots of ppl will not find any of these moments appealing
― thomp, Saturday, 6 March 2010 15:32 (fourteen years ago) link
I have not read this yet, but -- NYTimes Magazine huge article time
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Newsom-t.html?ref=magazine&pagewanted=all
― ksh, Saturday, 6 March 2010 15:33 (fourteen years ago) link
Best piece about her I've ever read.
― M.V., Saturday, 6 March 2010 15:48 (fourteen years ago) link
Excellent, excellent piece. Totally worth reading, and one of the best on Newsom out there.
― ksh, Saturday, 6 March 2010 16:42 (fourteen years ago) link
"Easy" when she sings that word sounds a bit like Kate Bush "Breathing".
― Mark, Saturday, 6 March 2010 17:17 (fourteen years ago) link