Tuesday, May 25, 2010

the case for the defence





"I love this blog not just for the editor's musical taste (which is exemplary), but also for his artful presentation of the material. Rather than post entire albums (which I don't approve of), he instead zeroes in on a particular song or two and offers it along with anecdotal text which is as smart as it is smart-assed. Ambiguity and mystery is, for me, a major component to the joy of discovering new sounds, and unlike a lot of MP3 blogs that treat art as a bland commodity, SibLINGSHOT uses it to make personal and political points with exceptional panache. I'm proud to call myself a fan."

To Mike L., filling in for Tom Scharpling: thank you for your generous words. Thanks too, to Thee Punk Rock Chef for forwarding the love. SibLINGSHOT ON THE BLEACHERS.

9 comments:

ib said...

Cheers, Löst Jimmy.

That some welcome solidarity should fall on me from New Jersey's WFMU - curator and flag-bearer of some of the world's finest lost & found grooves - is especially gratifying. In these DMCA plague years, I need all the encouragement I can get.

MikeB in Taipei (was NYC) said...

Is there a wise-ass internet abbreviation for "truer words/never spoken" (TW/NS?) - a well deserved compliment.

Also, WFMU is great, they also run a record fair a couple of times a year...

ib said...

Mike B in Tapei:

Nice! I had to look that one up, in case it was merely some exotically named penal institution. An annex to Sing-Sing...

Is this move permanent ? The new moniker has yet to grow on me, like the chapter in a book where our hero sallies forth.

I have read about those legndary record fairs of WFMU, where the dwellers of one room apartments are compelled to purchase more vinyls than they might just have cleared to make shelf space. I imagine them as taking place in some vast underground cavern, although the reality is probably far more prosaic.

MikeB in Taipei C said...

Sing-Sing? a/k/a the old neighborhood...Yeah, I will devise a more appropriate moniker, bye and bye. Just wanted you to be able to connect the dots...it's an 18 month gig, subject to extension, which beats the expected unemployment in NY.

Sallying forth indeed, i know nothing of the language, etc., but so far so good...

The FMU record fairs are closer to your imagination than would be expected, generally. No caverns, but cave-dwellers in abundance.

Keep up the great work, ib, this is still one of the premiere destinations for me, regardless of the location of the current base station...

ib said...

Sounds like a reprieve if not a holiday, Mike B.

At the very least a commuting of a sentence. This talk of Sing-Sing reminds me of "Junco Partner":

"I was born in Angola, serving fourteen to ninety-nine..."

18 months sounds like a pretty good gig, alright; hope it all goes well. The language would present an obstacle to anybody not schooled in it from day one - I was briefly attracted to the possibilty once of learning Mandarin or Cantonese, but since I struggle with even a rudimentary 2nd language, I quickly abandoned that idea. I like the brush script and that's as far as that goes.

What is the common tongue there, anyway ? Mandarin ? Hokkien ?

I looked that last one up. It wasn't
even remotely familiar.

Thanks for the kind words, incidentally. It's appreciated.

HowMarvellous said...

Well deserved ib - for sure.

HowMarvellous said...

the dmca's are flying lately, yes - even old old long-dead links. No-one looks further than the page - even blogs that only link to other blogs that might have links to content... have been removed.

Unless you're using blogger's publish via ftp method (?) - the pages are still served from google, hence the removal/set to draft capers on your own domain.

wordpress is easy enough, if a bit different in use & not always easy to replicate some of bloggers tricks. Drop me a line if you need help.

ib said...

Cheers, Andy.

Curious thing about those RUN DMCAs. I don't believe ftp makes any difference; a couple of bloggers I know got hit despite going the extra yard. Again with dead links.

Have you caught wind of that Blogger / Amazon integration email ? I am highly suspicious of the whole thing. Historically, those posts of mine which targeted all carried direct purchasing links to - surprise, surprise - Amazon. The whole nonsense of it left an especially bad taste in my mouth, specifically because I know a number of individuals purchased 'product' through these same links.

Now. I would far rather the artist benefitted financially from a purchase. I have no intention of seeing my own site become merely an adjunct to some vast corporation, no matter which that might be. And, in spite of the 'carrot' of an 8-10% alleged return on sales, it appears - at this time - that referrals to the UK based offices of Amazon, for example, do not qualify as part of this pilot scheme.

Thanks for the offer of assistance regards WordPress migration. I very well may be in need of sound advice.

HowMarvellous said...

hi ib

I'm surprised at posts going if the blogger/ftp route is used - I guess those filing the complaints look at the page code & see it's done by google, then whack in the claim, anyway.

Google aren't gonna argue the point on behalf of a blogger, of course - so out it goes. But it seems a stre-tch to me, too.

Get off blogger to wordpress.org tho, and avoid anything in print or owned by one of the nasty types ( not that it's easy to tell, necessarily ) and you'd likely be ok.


I've not seen anything of the amazon thing.