Re: [microsound] politics of music: online labels

[david turgeon <david.t@xxxxxxxx>]

> i also was amazed when i began .tiln to see that artists just wanted to
> connect and be heard by others.  i have made an effort not to be judgmental
> or prejudice toward works i receive, as i didn't want to limit the
> possibilities of .tiln by imposing my own ideas into it.  each day i am
> exposed to new ideas because of this.  if i were to impose politics and
> narrow definitions of genre i would end up with something bred from my own
> ignorance.

yeah, but would you pretend that .tiln is without limitations?  i see
limitations in it, aesthetic & otherwise.  for instance would you let a
plain rock band post their mp3s on tiln?  if you feel rock bands are
well enough covered as it is, you might consider that catering to them
is not a very productive use of your bandwidth.  someone mentioned
mp3.com & it's obvious .tiln is not the same thing.  it still serves a
purpose, though, in that experimental sound artists posting on .tiln
don't feel like they're lost in the middle of a sea of unrelated music
like they would on mp3.com.

it's good to trust your own ideas & intuitions if you think they have a
chance to be fruitful.  personally, i don't want to open no type for
everyone to post their music to it; but the limitation on no type is not
necessarily one of genre (though that sometimes plays a role).  we just
pick the artists we think are particularly interesting.  .tiln is more
like a public service, which is great, & i'm glad some choose to follow
that path.

..tiln in a sense is an idea that harkens back the early days of recorded
sound, where "labels" would essentially take a chance on anything, no
matter what it was.  the "star system" came not long after this, when it
was shown that some music was more popular than others & popularity was
thus taken as the measurement gauge for "talent".  even zappa, in his
autobiography (_the real frank zappa book_), complains about how when he
started, labels would sign any band that looked interesting & "new", up
until the point they began hiring A&R people (mostly young music
enthusiasts who may have thought they were doing good) who would point
them to their favorite acts, creating an in-crowd effect.  i don't know
whether this effect is avoidable at all, even in the context of online
labels.  in a way you have a (mild) in-crowd effect as soon as someone
on .tiln asks their friends to submit their stuff too.

> i see this kind of 'limitation' existing in fals.ch (only as an example),
> as there is of course a mego-centric vision, but this discounts artists
> that are not 'stars' or of the 'in-crowd'.  this is the kind of
> monopolization that creates pop culture and becomes the fodder for
> marketing.

actually, fals.ch does indeed look like an "in-crowd" affair; for
instance, it doesn't include a page for submissions.  but i think they
take them, if you ask.  & maybe mego forwards them a couple demos every
now & then.  fals.ch is not mego though, it's ran by the cd_slopper guys
(florian hecker & oswald berthold) if i recall well.  anyway, i could
imagine someone feeling no type is an "in-crowd" affair as well,
particularly those who submit stuff & never get an answer back from us. 
:)  oh well.

~ david
--Boundary_(ID_MPRcvwDMIpntJWFdsEexSw)
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