music communities form themselves
interesting shite from wired blogs:
Music Communities Form Themselves
Topic: People
This post concerns The Fall, but really, it be about any band, for the purposes of argument. This particular band is on a tour that, even by its own standards, has taken a few shambolic turns. Frontman Mark E. Smith reportedly ashed a cigarette on the head of the tour manager in the van, erupted in anger after a banana thrown by the lead singer of the opening band hit him in the face, and may have done other things to contribute to the coming dissolution, but the fact remains: the rest of his band abandoned him mid-tour (aside from the keyboardist, to whom he is married).
American Fall tours are canceled as often as not, so this wasn't a surprise. But the plot thickened, as three Fall labelmates stepped up to fill in for those who had fled, learning to play the songs practically overnight. I downloaded MP3s of the new band's first two shows, and was overjoyed to find that they sound great, if a little unrehearsed.
What struck me about all of this was that I accessed all of this news and music using purely old school Internet technology -- email lists and online storage lockers.
Despite all the hype about the opportunities that exist in the realm of online community, the latest news and files are still promulgating through self-made communities that exist outside of the framework of monetization. Sure, both of the lists that gave me this Fall information are now on YahooGroups, but they're simple mailing lists that could just as easily still exist as independent listservs (available since 1986). Although Yahoo has added features to the mailing lists, most of them go unused, as evidenced by the fact that the live MP3s were posted outside of that system.
Despite online music companies touting community features, they seem unable to keep up with the homegrown variety. No commercial operation could have sent reviewers to every Fall show in the country and then secured the necessary licensing deals to host unprotected MP3s of each show starting the morning after. However, a patchwork community of fans was able to do exactly that, in lightning speed. And for whatever reason, those patchwork communities are loth to set themselves up entirely within a closed system (unless it's something like YahooGroups, which mimics a free system except for the little ad inserted and ignored at the bottom of each post).
If you had told me in 1999 that by 2006 nothing would have changed about how I followed a Fall tour online, I would have said something like "You must be joking. Surely there will be several companies webcasting shows from all major venues for one-tenth of the ticket price, with the audio for any show freely downloadable by anyone who holds a ticket for another show on the tour."
But I would have been mistaken. Either the companies trying to make money from music communities have been going about it all wrong, or else they will simply never be able to compete with a network of actual fans who are technically – though insubstantially – breaking the law.
Music Communities Form Themselves
Topic: People
This post concerns The Fall, but really, it be about any band, for the purposes of argument. This particular band is on a tour that, even by its own standards, has taken a few shambolic turns. Frontman Mark E. Smith reportedly ashed a cigarette on the head of the tour manager in the van, erupted in anger after a banana thrown by the lead singer of the opening band hit him in the face, and may have done other things to contribute to the coming dissolution, but the fact remains: the rest of his band abandoned him mid-tour (aside from the keyboardist, to whom he is married).
American Fall tours are canceled as often as not, so this wasn't a surprise. But the plot thickened, as three Fall labelmates stepped up to fill in for those who had fled, learning to play the songs practically overnight. I downloaded MP3s of the new band's first two shows, and was overjoyed to find that they sound great, if a little unrehearsed.
What struck me about all of this was that I accessed all of this news and music using purely old school Internet technology -- email lists and online storage lockers.
Despite all the hype about the opportunities that exist in the realm of online community, the latest news and files are still promulgating through self-made communities that exist outside of the framework of monetization. Sure, both of the lists that gave me this Fall information are now on YahooGroups, but they're simple mailing lists that could just as easily still exist as independent listservs (available since 1986). Although Yahoo has added features to the mailing lists, most of them go unused, as evidenced by the fact that the live MP3s were posted outside of that system.
Despite online music companies touting community features, they seem unable to keep up with the homegrown variety. No commercial operation could have sent reviewers to every Fall show in the country and then secured the necessary licensing deals to host unprotected MP3s of each show starting the morning after. However, a patchwork community of fans was able to do exactly that, in lightning speed. And for whatever reason, those patchwork communities are loth to set themselves up entirely within a closed system (unless it's something like YahooGroups, which mimics a free system except for the little ad inserted and ignored at the bottom of each post).
If you had told me in 1999 that by 2006 nothing would have changed about how I followed a Fall tour online, I would have said something like "You must be joking. Surely there will be several companies webcasting shows from all major venues for one-tenth of the ticket price, with the audio for any show freely downloadable by anyone who holds a ticket for another show on the tour."
But I would have been mistaken. Either the companies trying to make money from music communities have been going about it all wrong, or else they will simply never be able to compete with a network of actual fans who are technically – though insubstantially – breaking the law.
posted by stashdauber at 9:32 AM
1 Comments:
after seeing the doco flick "The Fall: The Wonderful and Frightening World of Mark E Smith" i'm not at all surprised his bandmates left him. the guy is a nut, to put it mildly. never known another rock band that had 40+ members over the course of their career.
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