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Rude assholes
Aug. 22nd, 2011 02:37 pmGoogle "serendip LLC" to see how hard-assed my personal musical heroine, the original synth herself, Wendy Carlos, is about enforcing her copyrights, taking her stuff down off YouTube etc. One can argue whether this is counterproductive and Canute-like in the current era. One cannot argue that she has the legal right to do so.
Interestingly enough, they've also gone around interfering with eBay and other online second-hand sales from people who get her name wrong. Now you might think that the more Wendy does this the more it will provoke the trolls and insensitive gobshites out there, and that a better idea might be just to ignore that bullshit. But what is not tolerable is that the response of the broader intarwebz to this is to start deliberately getting her name wrong and unleash the most disgusting transphobic nonsense. I had to stop reading the documentation myself because it was triggering me pretty freakin' badly.
Some dude on Facebook was surprised the other day when I pointed out that it's extremely rude to be using Wendy's birth name. You know, I thought it was accepted in this day and age that that's just common courtesy - but then, when some people get pissed off, they think they have the right to hit their opponent anywhere that they think it'll hurt.
The other issue is that East Side Digital appears no longer to be selling Wendy's CDs so there is currently no legal way to get her hands on her stuff new. So you have all these guys selling her stuff second-hand - and many of them get her name wrong, perhaps out of ignorance, perhaps out of sheer dickishness. Perhaps that's why Wendy hasn't updated her website in the last couple of years - she's trying to sort that out. But maybe the anger and meanness leaking out of this whole bullshit is the more cogent reason.
Interestingly enough, they've also gone around interfering with eBay and other online second-hand sales from people who get her name wrong. Now you might think that the more Wendy does this the more it will provoke the trolls and insensitive gobshites out there, and that a better idea might be just to ignore that bullshit. But what is not tolerable is that the response of the broader intarwebz to this is to start deliberately getting her name wrong and unleash the most disgusting transphobic nonsense. I had to stop reading the documentation myself because it was triggering me pretty freakin' badly.
Some dude on Facebook was surprised the other day when I pointed out that it's extremely rude to be using Wendy's birth name. You know, I thought it was accepted in this day and age that that's just common courtesy - but then, when some people get pissed off, they think they have the right to hit their opponent anywhere that they think it'll hurt.
The other issue is that East Side Digital appears no longer to be selling Wendy's CDs so there is currently no legal way to get her hands on her stuff new. So you have all these guys selling her stuff second-hand - and many of them get her name wrong, perhaps out of ignorance, perhaps out of sheer dickishness. Perhaps that's why Wendy hasn't updated her website in the last couple of years - she's trying to sort that out. But maybe the anger and meanness leaking out of this whole bullshit is the more cogent reason.
Oh, did I forget to mention?
Apr. 11th, 2011 09:18 pmA RADIO SHOW. I HAS ONE.
First broadcasting Tuesday 19th April, 9 pm NZST. 88.3 FM, probably not audible anywhere outside Kingsland. If you want to be interviewed or your weird band's insane music played, or you have requests, get in touch immediately. (Yes, probably some Vostok Lake will find its way onto the play list, but not TOO MUCH.)
First broadcasting Tuesday 19th April, 9 pm NZST. 88.3 FM, probably not audible anywhere outside Kingsland. If you want to be interviewed or your weird band's insane music played, or you have requests, get in touch immediately. (Yes, probably some Vostok Lake will find its way onto the play list, but not TOO MUCH.)
One of my guilty, cheesy pleasures is American 80's electropop/New Wave band Berlin. Here is their big hit theme tune:
And now, here's the original, indie-label version of the song. Same band, more or less, although you might be amazed to hear it.
DEAR GOD WHAT IS THAT?!? Did someone see a clip of Depeche Mode in 1981 and decide that Dave Gahan's dance moves weren't QUITE awkward enough and Andy Fletcher's keyboard miming wasn't QUITE dorky enough?!?
And now, here's the original, indie-label version of the song. Same band, more or less, although you might be amazed to hear it.
DEAR GOD WHAT IS THAT?!? Did someone see a clip of Depeche Mode in 1981 and decide that Dave Gahan's dance moves weren't QUITE awkward enough and Andy Fletcher's keyboard miming wasn't QUITE dorky enough?!?
Sliding doors
Jan. 7th, 2011 12:44 pmI received a music voucher for Christmas 1991. There were two retrospective double-album compilations of bands I'd heard of that caught my eye. I got the one by Yes. I wonder how my musical direction and my life would have been different if I'd got the Talking Heads one instead? If I'd spent the 1990s ranting on about the genius of David Byrne rather than Jon Anderson? If I'd gone off on an 80's arty-new-wave kick rather than a 70's prog-rock kick?
How wonderful it would be...
Nov. 19th, 2010 11:24 am... to roll out of bed and spend eight hours or so in a day composing/recording/writing, instead of indexing.
But the world needs indexes and is prepared to pay for them. The same cannot be said, at this stage, for arty-satirical electronic music or cultural theory. And at least indexing is useful labour which doesn't require me to do anything which makes me hate myself.
But the world needs indexes and is prepared to pay for them. The same cannot be said, at this stage, for arty-satirical electronic music or cultural theory. And at least indexing is useful labour which doesn't require me to do anything which makes me hate myself.
Epiphany pt. 94
Nov. 3rd, 2010 08:29 pmYou know what I love about both football and music? That they're (relatively) safe spaces to be loud and aggressive and to show off and use my energy and strength. I have a reputation for brutality (undeserved, I think) on the football field, and I realised today that my music can be described in similar terms. Really, what is Vostok Lake, but an attempt to prove that electropop can be aggressive and clever just as well as any guitar-based music? (Of course I'm not nearly as clever as Wendy Carlos or as aggressive as Atari Teenage Riot, but I just may be the missing link between the two, with some Tori Amos or Amanda Palmer thrown in in the middle there.)
24 hours to Hamilton. Time to make my preparations.
24 hours to Hamilton. Time to make my preparations.
24 hours to Hamilton. Time to make my preparations.
24 hours to Hamilton. Time to make my preparations.
Narrowing it down...
Sep. 8th, 2010 11:01 amOkay, I'm seriously considering covering either the title song, or "Breaking Out". (Possibly also "Duel Duet", although I'd have to mess with the lyrics slightly.) Any votes?
Pity the child, but not forever...
May. 3rd, 2010 11:29 am...not if he stays that way.
Overdosing on musicals at the moment. Chess and Rent to begin with - can anyone suggest where to go from here? It's not quite the same as opera, but it's giving me good ideas about how to advance plot via song.
Yesterday's football results from a D. Lawless goalkeeping double-header:
Mt Albert Ponsonby 1st team 3 - Tuakau 0
Nothing very much to report from this game, apart from the fact that I saved a goal with my face late in the game.
Mt Albert Ponsonby reserves 1 - Onehunga-Mangere 1
The second game was insane. The O-M girls (mainly Samoan lasses resembling refrigerators with melons on top) came out hard and nasty in the second half, and our inexperienced reserves couldn't handle the biff and lost their half-time lead. I must admit I lost my temper a bit (at both the opposition and my own team for rising to the bait) but got a good line in against a rather foolish O-M woman who tried to put me off during my goal kicks. "Your mother dresses you funny!" probably won't win any prizes for original wit, but it shut that particular troll up and relieved the tension somewhat.
Overdosing on musicals at the moment. Chess and Rent to begin with - can anyone suggest where to go from here? It's not quite the same as opera, but it's giving me good ideas about how to advance plot via song.
Yesterday's football results from a D. Lawless goalkeeping double-header:
Mt Albert Ponsonby 1st team 3 - Tuakau 0
Nothing very much to report from this game, apart from the fact that I saved a goal with my face late in the game.
Mt Albert Ponsonby reserves 1 - Onehunga-Mangere 1
The second game was insane. The O-M girls (mainly Samoan lasses resembling refrigerators with melons on top) came out hard and nasty in the second half, and our inexperienced reserves couldn't handle the biff and lost their half-time lead. I must admit I lost my temper a bit (at both the opposition and my own team for rising to the bait) but got a good line in against a rather foolish O-M woman who tried to put me off during my goal kicks. "Your mother dresses you funny!" probably won't win any prizes for original wit, but it shut that particular troll up and relieved the tension somewhat.
The show is on the road
Jan. 26th, 2010 09:53 pmVostok Lake plays in Wellington in 17 days time. Bloody hell. I'm best to stop tinkering and make sure the performance will be a good one.
Weightless music vindicated?
Jan. 6th, 2010 07:29 pmI am increasingly coming to terms with Vostok Lake's defiantly underground/no-commercial-potential status. In short, this is because the music industry is collapsing all around and the last thing any sane person wants to do is to win a free ticket on the Titanic (that Swedish guy who Leo diCaprio beat at cards in the James Cameron movie must have outdrunk the rest of Belfast for two solid weeks).
But to give a case history: I have recently fallen in love with Repo! The Genetic Opera. Some call this the Rocky Horror of the 21st century, and while certainly that level of kudos is extremely premature, it is certainly playing in a similar ballpark of cool. (Other people hate it with a passion, some for no better reason than Paris Hilton's in it. Considering that she plays the spoilt, vain, drug-addicted daughter of a very rich man, I can see how she got the part, and how she plays it with surprising competence.)
But anyway! Repo! existed in various forms in live-on-stage format for going on 10 years before they made a demo film and got picked up by a major motion picture studio.
Pros: a film got made, with serious-business talented stars (I was sold on the description "gothic rock opera with Giles from Buffy and Christine from Phantom of the Opera"), DVDs distributed even to my backwater part of the world. The authors found their audience on a global scale.
Cons: since the film is defiantly niche-marketed, the mainstream critics hated it and weren't shy in saying so. Therefore: the film lost money. Therefore: the studio now own it until hell freezes over, or it makes another $7 million for them, one of the two. You can't even do the stage show any more because they own that too.
Tool said "I sold my fuckin' soul to make a record". Tool are worshipped worldwide. To make my record - called by trustworthy reviewers easily the best thing I've ever done - I bought a few grand full of cheap and/or second-hand equipment, made a lot of false starts while teaching myself to use it, and took seven years to come up with a complete set of songs. Hardly anyone knows it exists, and fewer care. But I have my soul. Who got the best deal?
Anyway, the tour is being booked. Keep checking that page. Or book one for me in your home town! I'll go anywhere in New Zealand, or anywhere world-wide given a travel subsidy and free lodgings.
But to give a case history: I have recently fallen in love with Repo! The Genetic Opera. Some call this the Rocky Horror of the 21st century, and while certainly that level of kudos is extremely premature, it is certainly playing in a similar ballpark of cool. (Other people hate it with a passion, some for no better reason than Paris Hilton's in it. Considering that she plays the spoilt, vain, drug-addicted daughter of a very rich man, I can see how she got the part, and how she plays it with surprising competence.)
But anyway! Repo! existed in various forms in live-on-stage format for going on 10 years before they made a demo film and got picked up by a major motion picture studio.
Pros: a film got made, with serious-business talented stars (I was sold on the description "gothic rock opera with Giles from Buffy and Christine from Phantom of the Opera"), DVDs distributed even to my backwater part of the world. The authors found their audience on a global scale.
Cons: since the film is defiantly niche-marketed, the mainstream critics hated it and weren't shy in saying so. Therefore: the film lost money. Therefore: the studio now own it until hell freezes over, or it makes another $7 million for them, one of the two. You can't even do the stage show any more because they own that too.
Tool said "I sold my fuckin' soul to make a record". Tool are worshipped worldwide. To make my record - called by trustworthy reviewers easily the best thing I've ever done - I bought a few grand full of cheap and/or second-hand equipment, made a lot of false starts while teaching myself to use it, and took seven years to come up with a complete set of songs. Hardly anyone knows it exists, and fewer care. But I have my soul. Who got the best deal?
Anyway, the tour is being booked. Keep checking that page. Or book one for me in your home town! I'll go anywhere in New Zealand, or anywhere world-wide given a travel subsidy and free lodgings.
God, I love online archiving...
Nov. 28th, 2009 08:52 pm... because I now have hard proof, which I never had until this day, that there really was a band called Harmony Sold Her Dragon in Wellington in around 1990. I saw their graffiti and thought it was a great name. I was actually hoping I had hallucinated it so I could use the name myself for a band or an album or something.
