Coachella-bound
29 April 2005
Despite feeling completely exploited last year by the evil, greedy people in charge of Coachella, I'm going again this year. I just can't resist the opportunity to see so many good shows in one weekend.
I'm too busy/lazy to post my likely schedule, so I'll point to Leonard Lin's instead, since mine will probably end up looking similar.
Going? Look for me!
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Emerge vs. Release
21 April 2005
I recently found something remarkable in the March 24, 2005 issue of Rolling Stone. Yes, that's the issue dominated by the fantastic Hunter S. Thompson tribute. But remarkable as that was, it's not what I'm referring to here.
What I found remarkable was the short article in the "Random Notes" section that reports on a recent (and increasingly rare) performance by Fiona Apple. After describing Fiona's appearance at the Roots' pre-Grammy jam session, the article goes on to mention that her shelved album Extraordinary Machine -- or most of it, anyway -- has "emerged" online.
If the article were to stop there, it would be mostly unremarkable. I would've just set it aside and picked up my computer -- to go find those tracks. (So let's just hypothetically assume I hadn't already heard them a few weeks earlier.)
But of course the article doesn't stop there. It goes on to recommend that you "don't get your hopes up", because Sony has no plans to "release" the album.
I don't know about you, but for me the distinction between an album's emergence on the internet and its official, recording-industry-sanctioned commercial release has been mostly meaningless for years now. Many of the new albums from the past few years that I really looked forward to were on my hard drive months before they could be bought anywhere. And of course I'm far from being alone on this. I've been to many, many shows where the entire audience sang along to songs that were, as I've said, literally months away from being traded for money.
So, once again I have to ask: does this make us criminals? I mean, come on: all this music is now literally floating around in the air around us. What are we supposed to do -- not breathe?
That's right. The only thing a major commercial release really does is to make the ridiculous proclamation that you must henceforth pay to breathe. That's the choice they give you. Either suffocate, or pay more than you should -- mostly just to enrich a few executives who don't add any real value to the equation anymore.
Is that what you think I might be "getting my hopes up for", Rolling Stone?
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superVEEN
11 April 2005
Word of the Day for Saturday April 9, 2005
supervene \soo-pur-VEEN\, intransitive verb:
1. To take place or occur as something additional, extraneous,
or unexpected (sometimes followed by 'on' or 'upon').
2. To follow immediately after; to ensue.
Supervene comes from Latin supervenire, from super-, "over,
above" + venire, "to come."
(Thanks to the always-observant Adrian for passing this on.)