Manifesto I

Manifesto, written by Cat Empire

WE BELIEVE
In the grass in the trees
WE SUPPORT
Living life cause life is short
WE UPHOLD
Sky of blue sun of gold
WE MAINTAIN
On sunny days all sadness and pain be relieved

WE BELIEVE
The breeze blows the leaves in the gypsy king’s court
WE SUPPORT
Food and wine song and thought and when the night gets cold
WE UPHOLD
The following rules that I’ll sing
To you all

We believe in melody
And harmony
And all things sweet
We sing a yum-a-yum chum
To the moon and the sun
And the rumble of the drums
And the big fat beat
We believe in the ace up the sleeve
And we shine our gold teeth
At the cats in the alleys
A flame on a match
That the wind can’t catch
And when the bad guys attack
The empire strikes back

Week 7 Reading I

Confessions of an Intellectual (Property): Danger Mouse, Mickey Mouse, Sonny Bono, and My Long and Winding Path as a Copyright Activist- Academic

By Kembrew McLeod

This was one of the best readings I have read so far throughout this semester. Although some may find the legal and business orientated subjects boring in the context of the Music Industry, I enjoy studying it and working with these laws and practices in mind. This particular essay focused on a case study as the basis for the surrounding argument about Copyright and the failure of the legal system to update itself in order to deal with new music consumer habits. The case study in question is the controversial making of Dangermouse’s Grey album which featured the use of The White Album by the Beatles and The Black Album by Jay Z.

Kembrew McLeod is a Copyright Activist who believes in sampling music for the making of new music. Therefore he talks about the outdated legislation which prohibits people from using other people’s material in particular ways. This is still an issue to this day. Much of the legislation regarding music related practices are outdated and no longer relevant when considering the ways in which music consumers are both listening to and creating new music. Mashups and remixes are the main types of music being discussed in the essay.

I quite liked this article because of the extremely relevant and interesting case studies that are mentioned. I would be very interested in being part of “Negativland” which were a group of prankster radio hosts.

Week 6 Reading

Storage in Collaborative and Networked Art

By Jason Freeman

This article looks at the development and influence that transmission, collaboration and networking have had on society as a creative outlet. That is, how the rise in networking sites and programs have allowed communication and collaboration between people who otherwise would not be able to meet face to face. Freeman looks at the purposes of old and new technology and expresses this with a very simple but effective quote in regards to using answering machines: “[we used to] reach out and touch someone,” whereas now “we are reaching out and touching storage.”

The author also goes into specific examples of collaborative online projects that are occurring. Particularly Jamglue which is a site where people from all over the world can log in and “jam” with people who they would otherwise not be in contact with face to face in the same time frame. This could lead to numerous music projects throughout the world. For example, people could play with their favourite musician, different music styles could be blended more easily without playing with people in different countries in real time and travelling wouldn’t infringe as much on bands and their practice sessions.

A & R

I’ve considered working in A&R: For anyone interested in the field, it’s an awesome article and some important names are mentioned.

http://www.themusicnetwork.com/music-features/industry/2011/03/29/twist-and-scout-ar-shake-it-up-baby/

‘Stra-yan Music Blogs

http://whothehell.net/ is a music-based website with updates about the latest touring bands, industry news, artists and bands to look out for, gig and festival reviews as well as other (occasionally pointless) information. It’s clearly set out without being overly cluttered. The theme is clearly recognizable with a simple black, white and blue colour scheme and the “who the hell” logo printed on the background layer. For a music lover who likes to update their knowledge of new music on a frequent basis, “whothehell blog” is a definite RSS feed must-have.  They also have the option of signing up to their newsletter if this is an easier method of maintaining communication.

http://electrorash.com/ is another music website, specifically focusing on indie/electro/disco/techno music. I believe the reason this blog is so successful is because of it’s extremely organised and minimalist layout. There are very few distracting features such as side bars and multi-coloured, colour schemes. The information is up to date and always relevant to their readers who are largely indie/electro appreciators.

http://ausindies.com.au/home.html is a must see for anyone working in or interested in the Australian Music Industry. It’s run on behalf of the Jaegermeister Independent Music Awards and has many sponsors supporting the site. It operates all year round, even when the awards aren’t in full swing. The site features upcoming artists with small, simply and well written biographies, tour dates, Youtube clips, charts etc. The layout is more complex than Electrotrash, but still well set out so that the page isn’t cluttered. Their orange, grey and white colour scheme is recognizable. They keep their tags up to date and also include Twitter updates.

 

Week 5 Reading

Rethinking the Digital Remix: Mash ups and the Metaphysics of Sound Recording

David J. Gunkel

“Rethinking the Digital Remix” was a well-written and fairly opinionated essay, discussing the validation and authenticity of digital remixes and mash-ups as genres of music in today’s society. Gunkel explores both arguments both for and against the use and creation of remixes and mash-ups but throughout the article, readers may pick up Gunkel’s own opinions on the issue quite strongly.

Gunkel first explores the history of recording devices and practices in history, mentioning specific equipment such as the phonograph, photographs and Plato’s Phaedrus. He then speaks of three specific reasons why the art of mash-ups and remixes shouldn’t be considered as viable forms of recording or musical practices. His first argument depicts the undermining of the original purposes of music (to see and experience live, physical performances), his second explaining that recording sounds in time defeats the purpose of originality and having the sound occur in the first place and lastly that reproducing an original product is illegal and infringes Copyright laws. One of the stronger quotes he includes quotes: “recording ruins music insofar as it turns living, spontaneous performance into something that is repetitive, programmed and entirely predictable.”

The author also briefly explains some of the positives of involving oneself in the production of remixes and mash-ups: it can result in “clever re-combinations of recorded music” which can be innovative and creative products and that in creating these collaborations of music, an idealism of two artists who would never otherwise be seen on the same stage let alone in the same recording, can occur.

I personally am not for or against the use of original music in new works, however there are certain limits that I place on these remixes and mash-ups. Firstly I believe mash-ups are effortless attempts to match music pieces together in short amounts of time. They are often past-paced, lack any huge talent to put together and often sound scattered and messy. On the other hand, there are remixes out there that are creatively and carefully devised in order to create sometimes even a better product than the original. The difference between the two being that mash ups (such as products recorded by Girl Talk) try to put short sequences of songs together, back to back, without much thought into beat-matching or genre-matching. Remixes attempt to beat match and genre-match in order to create a new collection or collaboration of sounds and often vocals.

Readings Week 4

Meaning, Semiotechnologies and Participatory Media

Ganaele Langlois

This journal was very densely written and probably required the reader to have some basic knowledge of the subject to gain the most from the piece. Despite this, Ganaele Langlois does raise some interesting notions to do with Semiotics and Technologies and how their relationship differs in the technological world and in reality.

One of Langlois’ earlier point is in regards to online participatory medias and their creation of a more democratized world was one of particular interest. The fact that anyone can access and contribute to these online databases of information means that there is even more of an abundance of information than in previous times. However, it also results in the need for information to be ranked by a higher party so that consumers aren’t overloaded with useless, unrelated information.

The author also goes into about how meaning is added to signs and words on a human, social and cultural basis and that this means technological meaning assigned to signs and words, will not necessarily be the same as when a human assigns meaning. I believe this gap will eventually be bridged, particularly when considering the rapid rate at which technology is developing. The computer and the internet could be incredibly powerful tools if their ability to create meaning is eventually on par with that of a human.

The Kids’ Blogs

Our RSS feed link doesn’t appear to be working. So, I found a few other kids’ blogs from BA Music Industry.

Lucas has this awesome idea for his HTML assignment where he wants to imitate the books we all read as 80s and 90s, vegemite loving kids. You know, the ones where you choose what your destination will be depending on which route you want to take and subsequently what your next page number is. Very cool.

The concept reminds me of the games that got me through year 12 like this one.

 

Weekly Reading #3

Week 3

The Strength of Weak Cooperation: An Attempt to Understand the Meaning of Web 2.0

Chistophe AGUITON & Dominique CARDON, Laboratoire SUSE, Fance, Telecom R&D

“The Strength of Weak Cooperation” was a densely detailed and information-saturated essay focusing on the changes occurring with consumer behaviour due to the development of what is being called Web 2.0. The essay looks closely at the BarCamp phenomenon and Coworking spaces, as well as analysing the behaviours of those using social networking and related websites such as Facebook, Flickr and Myspace.

There are same major points discussed within the essay. Aguiton & Cardon observe that consumers of internet sites and organisations are more and more heavily relying on other users content in order to produce their own. It is also found that users of the above mentioned and like sites utilise the available tools to their own means. That is, some use all the possible tools (example is Flickr: social networking, uploading, storing, sharing, tagging photos etc) and some may only use one of these features. Nonetheless, it only takes this small percentage of users of all the tools to create a network of information that is constantly consolidating and expanding these websites. Their argument is then consolidated to stress the need for web developers to maintain open-mindedness when it comes to the way the Web 2.0 is being used by consumers.

Aguiton & Cardon also look at how these “weak ties” (those that are not face to face in reality but originating in cyberspace), compare to some of the motions occurring in real time. They go into a study of BarCamp and Coworking spaces where meetings or spaces are initialized so that creatives and like-minded people can share their ideas and expand on others’ ideas. I think this is a great idea, particularly for those in the community who are information-hungry and willing to collaborate with like-minded folk in order to develop the next outstanding ideas and developments within society.

NEWSFLASH: HTML eventually worked>

I’m a music photographer during the week. Therefore this site is dedicated to my shoots and the photos I take.

The name of the site is “Where’s Nikki” and will use a “Where’s Wally”-like logo and decoration.  It will have a map with various stops I make and then these links will go to the photos taken.

Here’s a link for when it’s done:

http://raws.adc.rmit.edu.au/~s3285807/whereswally/Index1.html