#most googled musician in 2023

[shakira-fan-page]

Sony Music Latin via Instagram Stories. (Dec 12, 2023)

[mostlysignssomeportents]

MIT libraries are thriving without Elsevier

I'm coming to BURNING MAN! On TUESDAY (Aug 27) at 1PM, I'm giving a talk called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE!" at PALENQUE NORTE (7&E). On WEDNESDAY (Aug 28) at NOON, I'm doing a "Talking Caterpillar" Q&A at LIMINAL LABS (830&C).

Once you learn about the "collective action problem," you start seeing it everywhere. Democrats – including elected officials – all wanted Biden to step down, but none of them wanted to be the first one to take a firm stand, so for months, his campaign limped on: a collective action problem.

Patent trolls use bullshit patents to shake down small businesses, demanding "license fees" that are high, but much lower than the cost of challenging the patent and getting it revoked. Collectively, it would be much cheaper for all the victims to band together and hire a fancy law firm to invalidate the patent, but individually, it makes sense for them all to pay. A collective action problem:

https://locusmag.com/2013/11/cory-doctorow-collective-action/

Musicians get royally screwed by Spotify. Collectively, it would make sense for all of them to boycott the platform, which would bring it to its knees and either make it pay more or put it out of business. Individually, any musician who pulls out of Spotify disappears from the horizon of most music fans, so they all hang in – a collective action problem:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/21/off-the-menu/#universally-loathed

Same goes for the businesses that get fucked out of 30% of their app revenues by Apple and Google's mobile business. Without all those apps, Apple and Google wouldn't have a business, but any single app that pulls out commits commercial suicide, so they all hang in there, paying a 30% vig:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/15/private-law/#thirty-percent-vig

That's also the case with Amazon sellers, who get rooked for 45-51 cents out of every dollar in platform junk fees, and whose prize for succeeding despite this is to have their product cloned by Amazon, which underprices them because it doesn't have to pay a 51% rake on every sale. Without third-party sellers there'd be no Amazon, but it's impossible to get millions of sellers to all pull out at once, so the Bezos crime family scoops up half of the ecommerce economy in bullshit fees:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

This is why one definition of "corruption" is a system with "concentrated gains and diffuse losses." The company that dumps toxic waste in your water supply reaps all the profits of externalizing its waste disposal costs. The people it poisons each bear a fraction of the cost of being poisoned. The environmental criminal has a fat warchest of ill-gotten gains to use to bribe officials and pay fancy lawyers to defend it in court. Its victims are each struggling with the health effects of the crimes, and even without that, they can't possibly match the polluter's resources. Eventually, the polluter spends enough money to convince the Supreme Court to overturn "Chevron deference" and makes it effectively impossible to win the right to clean water and air (or a planet that's not on fire):

https://www.cfr.org/expert-brief/us-supreme-courts-chevron-deference-ruling-will-disrupt-climate-policy

Any time you encounter a shitty, outrageous racket that's stable over long timescales, chances are you're looking at a collective action problem. Certainly, that's the underlying pathology that preserves the scholarly publishing scam, which is one of the most grotesque, wasteful, disgusting frauds in our modern world (and that's saying something, because the field is crowded with many contenders).

Here's how the scholarly publishing scam works: academics do original scholarly research, funded by a mix of private grants, public funding, funding from their universities and other institutions, and private funds. These academics write up their funding and send it to a scholarly journal, usually one that's owned by a small number of firms that formed a scholarly publishing cartel by buying all the smaller publishers in a string of anticompetitive acquisitions. Then, other scholars review the submission, for free. More unpaid scholars do the work of editing the paper. The paper's author is sent a non-negotiable contract that requires them to permanently assign their copyright to the journal, again, for free. Finally, the paper is published, and the institution that paid the researcher to do the original research has to pay again – sometimes tens of thousands of dollars per year! – for the journal in which it appears.

The academic publishing cartel insists that the millions it extracts from academic institutions and the billions it reaps in profit are all in service to serving as neutral, rigorous gatekeepers who ensure that only the best scholarship makes it into print. This is flatly untrue. The "editorial process" the academic publishers take credit for is virtually nonexistent: almost everything they publish is virtually unchanged from the final submission format. They're not even typesetting the paper:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00799-018-0234-1

The vetting process for peer-review is a joke. Literally: an Australian academic managed to get his dog appointed to the editorial boards of seven journals:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/olivia-doll-predatory-journals

Far from guarding scientific publishing from scams and nonsense, the major journal publishers have stood up entire divisions devoted to pay-to-publish junk science. Elsevier – the largest scholarly publisher – operated a business unit that offered to publish fake journals full of unreveiwed "advertorial" papers written by pharma companies, packaged to look like a real journal:

https://web.archive.org/web/20090504075453/http://blog.bioethics.net/2009/05/merck-makes-phony-peerreview-journal/

Naturally, academics and their institutions hate this system. Not only is it purely parasitic on their labor, it also serves as a massive brake on scholarly progress, by excluding independent researchers, academics at small institutions, and scholars living in the global south from accessing the work of their peers. The publishers enforce this exclusion without mercy or proportion. Take Diego Gomez, a Colombian Masters candidate who faced eight years in prison for accessing a single paywalled academic paper:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/colombian-student-faces-prison-charges-sharing-academic-article-online

And of course, there's Aaron Swartz, the young activist and Harvard-affiliated computer scientist who was hounded to death after he accessed – but did not publish – papers from MIT's JSTOR library. Aaron had permission to access these papers, but JSTOR, MIT, and the prosecutors Stephen Heymann and Carmen Ortiz argued that because he used a small computer program to access the papers (rather than clicking on each link by hand) he had committed 13 felonies. They threatened him with more than 30 years in prison, and drew out the proceedings until Aaron was out of funds. Aaron hanged himself in 2013:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz

Academics know all this terrible stuff is going on, but they are trapped in a collective action problem. For an academic to advance in their field, they have to publish, and they have to get their work cited. Academics all try to publish in the big prestige journals – which also come with the highest price-tag for their institutions – because those are the journals other academics read, which means that getting published is top journal increases the likelihood that another academic will find and cite your work.

If academics could all agree to prioritize other journals for reading, then they could also prioritize other journals for submissions. If they could all prioritize other journals for submissions, they could all prioritize other journals for reading. Instead, they all hold one another hostage, through a wicked collective action problem that holds back science, starves their institutions of funding, and puts their colleagues at risk of imprisonment.

Despite this structural barrier, academics have fought tirelessly to escape the event horizon of scholarly publishing's monopoly black hole. They avidly supported "open access" publishers (most notably PLoS), and while these publishers carved out pockets for free-to-access, high quality work, the scholarly publishing cartel struck back with package deals that bundled their predatory "open access" journals in with their traditional journals. Academics had to pay twice for these journals: first, their institutions paid for the package that included them, then the scholars had to pay open access submission fees meant to cover the costs of editing, formatting, etc – all that stuff that basically doesn't exist.

Academics started putting "preprints" of their work on the web, and for a while, it looked like the big preprint archive sites could mount a credible challenge to the scholarly publishing cartel. So the cartel members bought the preprint sites, as when Elsevier bought out SSRN:

https://www.techdirt.com/2016/05/17/disappointing-elsevier-buys-open-access-academic-pre-publisher-ssrn/

Academics were elated in 2011, when Alexandra Elbakyan founded Sci-Hub, a shadow library that aims to make the entire corpus of scholarly work available without barrier, fear or favor:

https://sci-hub.ru/alexandra

Sci-Hub neutralized much of the collective action trap: once an article was available on Sci-Hub, it became much easier for other scholars to locate and cite, which reduced the case for paying for, or publishing in, the cartel's journals:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.14979

The scholarly publishing cartel fought back viciously, suing Elbakyan and Sci-Hub for tens of millions of dollars. Elsevier targeted prepress sites like academia.edu with copyright threats, ordering them to remove scholarly papers that linked to Sci-Hub:

https://svpow.com/2013/12/06/elsevier-is-taking-down-papers-from-academia-edu/

This was extremely (if darkly) funny, because Elsevier's own publications are full of citations to Sci-Hub:

https://eve.gd/2019/08/03/elsevier-threatens-others-for-linking-to-sci-hub-but-does-it-itself/

Meanwhile, scholars kept the pressure up. Tens of thousands of scholars pledged to stop submitting their work to Elsevier:

http://thecostofknowledge.com/

Academics at the very tops of their fields publicly resigned from the editorial board of leading Elsevier journals, and published editorials calling the Elsevier model unethical:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2012/may/16/system-profit-access-research

And the New Scientist called the racket "indefensible," decrying the it as an industry that made restricting access to knowledge "more profitable than oil":

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24032052-900-time-to-break-academic-publishings-stranglehold-on-research/

But the real progress came when academics convinced their institutions, rather than one another, to do something about these predator publishers. First came funders, private and public, who announced that they would only fund open access work:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06178-7

Winning over major funders cleared the way for open access advocates worked both the supply-side and the buy-side. In 2019, the entire University of California system announced it would be cutting all of its Elsevier subscriptions:

https://www.science.org/content/article/university-california-boycotts-publishing-giant-elsevier-over-journal-costs-and-open

Emboldened by the UC system's principled action, MIT followed suit in 2020, announcing that it would no longer send $2m every year to Elsevier:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/12/digital-feudalism/#nerdfight

It's been four years since MIT's decision to boycott Elsevier, and things are going great. The open access consortium SPARC just published a stocktaking of MIT libraries without Elsevier:

https://sparcopen.org/our-work/big-deal-knowledge-base/unbundling-profiles/mit-libraries/

How are MIT's academics getting by without Elsevier in the stacks? Just fine. If someone at MIT needs access to an Elsevier paper, they can usually access it by asking the researchers to email it to them, or by downloading it from the researcher's site or a prepress archive. When that fails, there's interlibrary loan, whereby other libraries will send articles to MIT's libraries within a day or two. For more pressing needs, the library buys access to individual papers through an on-demand service.

This is how things were predicted to go. The libraries used their own circulation data and the webservice Unsub to figure out what they were likely to lose by dropping Elsevier – it wasn't much!

https://unsub.org/

The MIT story shows how to break a collective action problem – through collective action! Individual scholarly boycotts did little to hurt Elsevier. Large-scale organized boycotts raised awareness, but Elsevier trundled on. Sci-Hub scared the shit out of Elsevier and raised awareness even further, but Elsevier had untold millions to spend on a campaign of legal terror against Sci-Hub and Elbakyan. But all of that, combined with high-profile defections, made it impossible for the big institutions to ignore the issue, and the funders joined the fight. Once the funders were on-side, the academic institutions could be dragged into the fight, too.

Now, Elsevier – and the cartel – is in serious danger. Automated tools – like the Authors Alliance termination of transfer tool – lets academics get the copyright to their papers back from the big journals so they can make them open access:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/26/take-it-back/

Unimaginably vast indices of all scholarly publishing serve as important adjuncts to direct access shadow libraries like Sci-Hub:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/28/clintons-ghost/#cornucopia-concordance

Collective action problems are never easy to solve, but they're impossible to address through atomized, individual action. It's only when we act as a collective that we can defeat the corruption – the concentrated gains and diffuse losses – that allow greedy, unscrupulous corporations to steal from us, wreck our lives and even imprison us.

Community voting for SXSW is live! If you wanna hear RIDA QADRI and me talk about how GIG WORKERS can DISENSHITTIFY their jobs with INTEROPERABILITY, VOTE FOR THIS ONE!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/16/the-public-sphere/#not-the-elsevier

[jokeroutsubs]

SiTi Teater charity stream featuring Bojan and Štras - information & how to buy tickets!

Have you seen our posts about Bojan and Štras (frontman of MRFY)? Were you intrigued and would like to see more of them? Then this post is for you!

SiTi Teater is a theatre in Ljubljana that’s celebrating its 15th anniversary this year. Part of the celebration will be an event involving several “one on one” duets between Slovenian musicians, as well as performances by Slovenian stand-up comedians and actors. It will be streamed on Thursday, October 5th 2023, at 20:00 (8 PM) Central European Time (you can use this website to convert that to your time zone if needed). You can see the full list of performers on their website. These three performances in particular might be of interest to Joker Out fandom:

Bojan Cvjetićanin & Gregor Strasbergar – Štras, of course. You can find their previous 1on1 performances, as well as some other fun Bojan/Štras content, in our Štras tag!

Tomi Meglič (frontman of Siddharta and one of Bojan’s role models) & Miha Guštin - Gušti (former Big Foot Mama guitarist and, of course, Kris's dad)

Lado Bizovičar, one of the biggest names in Slovenian stand-up comedy, whom you might remember from being on V petek zvečer with Bojan, and from that time he rubbed his friendship with Bojan in Käärijä’s face.

The concert will be streamed, and you can buy a ticket to get a link, as it will be a charity stream. At the beginning of August, Slovenia was hit with devastating floods that ravaged large parts of the country; you can find out more about it here (English article) and here (Slovenian article with a lot of photos and videos). Recovery will be long and expensive, as the most recent estimates are that the floods caused about 5 billion € of damage.

You can choose to pay 5€, 10€, or 15€ for the ticket. All proceeds from the ticket sales will go towards helping the people who suffered in the August floods.

So you can have a fun evening and help people out! We’ve asked SiTi Teater about it, and they said that the stream will be on YouTube and accessible worldwide. If they have a chat enabled, we’ll do our best to translate as much as we can during the event, or at least give some context!

Instructions for how to buy a ticket are under the cut! (And the website is in English!)

First, make an account (it's better to do that first so it doesn't interrupt your purchase process later). To do so, go to this link. (You can also log in with your Google or Facebook account or Apple ID.)

When you've done that, go to this link to buy the ticket for the charity event. The description is in Slovenian, but the ticket buying process is in English!

After you click on "Buy tickets", you have to decide how much you want to pay for your ticket: 5€, 10€, or 15€. There is no difference between the differently priced tickets - everyone will get the same link. It's just about how much you can afford to give. (Again - all the proceeds will go to flood victims.) Click the number 1 under the amount you wish to pay, and a ticket will be in your cart. Proceed with your purchase!

When you've completed your purchase, you will get an e-mail with a PDF ticket. Since this will be an online stream, that’s not an actual ticket, just a PDF with information. The text on it says:

You will receive a WEB LINK to watch our event on our YouTube channel to your registered e-mail address on 5.10.2023 at 19:00. The link will be active from 19:30 on, and the stream will start at 20:00. After the stream is finished, the link will not be active anymore. If you don’t receive the link to your email by 19:15 on 5.10.2023, please contact us at info[at]sititeater.si or call us at 070 940 940. Please check your junk mail folder and other folders in your e-mail as well. All proceeds from the ticket sale will go to the people affected by the floods through the humanitarian organisation Zavod Truhoma.

All times are in Central European Time, so if you live in a different time zone, check what that is for you! To sum up: you will get a link for the stream on the day of the event (October 5th 2023), one hour before it starts. The link will be active from half an hour before the event.

If you have any more questions, let us know and we’ll be happy to help!

[wumblr]

since my union, UMAW, is advancing a "livable wage" bill in congress

(by which they mean requiring every streaming service to pay at least one cent per stream, which would require 1,500 streams/hr or 240,000/mo to reach minimum wage, an amount that would get you a little less than halfway to the top 10k spotify monthly listeners, but i'm splitting hairs)

here's what i think is the most recent/accurate pay per stream per service breakdown. it is further complicated by the fact that spotify now does not start paying until you reach 1,000 monthly streams, which excludes about 87% of its library from payment. i haven't distributed to spotify since 2020, when joni mitchell and neil young pulled their catalogues over joe rogan's six figure salary from spotify for vaccine misinfo, although i also have not pulled my catalogue. i believe this is how the union started, but they might have been around before that

if you want, switching to a different paid streaming service may pay out more for the same streams. tidal and napster pay most (napster is a google product now), i use deezer, which used to be one of the ones that pays a full cent per stream. i would strongly encourage switching away from spotify, and i have been encouraging that for years, but that's up to you

if you really want to maximize your payment to artists, check their website to see where they're suggesting you buy music. for most smaller artists this will be bandcamp fridays, which don't happen every month, but the cut that bandcamp takes is minimal, so buying anytime is fine. spending the same amount as a streaming service (~$10/mo) would go a lot farther in payment to artists if you spent it on one direct sale and pirated everything else. no, seriously

live shows are also a great opportunity, tours often operate on horrifically thin margins (this is why little simz cancelled hers) so ticket and merch sales are always welcome, and the difference between profitability and loss can come down to a small number of sales per show

[sminny-wew]

Why people are excited over Princess Elise’s (brief) return

Short answer: the new design/art style that Sonic Channel gave her looks nice and she’s being treated with as much dignity as the rest of the Sonic cast for the first time since Sonic 06′s release nearly 17 years ago

Long answer:

Every year, Sonic Channel (the official Japanese website for Sonic the Hedgehog) puts out character illustrations for each month. Sometimes it’s just art of the character posing, sometimes they’re actually doing something (Sonic celebrating his birthday, Amy walking in the rain, Cream going trick-or-treating, etc.). For 2023, Sonic Channel is posting a specific themed series of artwork called “Isekai Ogiri” that depicts two characters in silly, non-canon scenarios; part of the appeal of these illustrations is that one of the two characters in each artwork is voted for by fans. So far we’ve seen Gadget (AKA Buddy AKA the custom character from Sonic Forces) confessing his love to an Egg Pawn in a scene straight out of a slice-of-life anime, Shadow and Infinite as rival idol musicians, a cutely-dressed Blaze visiting fortune teller Amy, Tikal and Chaos running their own pizza place, and most recently as of this post, Silver the figure-skating coach and his student Elise. (I’m linking back to the original SC pages b/c they put out a message on their official Twitter urging people to link back to the original SC pages/tweets, otherwise they might be inclined to stop making this art; if you want to understand the little stories that come with each illustration, I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with janky Google Translate translations.)

So, yeah, Princess Elise of notorious Sonic 06 infamy, the one video game journalists always seem eager to remind you kissed a dead anthropomorphic hedgehog, recently appeared in one of these illustrations. And people lost their minds, but this time, with excitement.

But if Princess Elise was/is so despised, why do people seem genuinely excited to see her now?

Well there’s 2 reasons for that: 1) the way in which she was drawn, and 2) the fact that she was even a contender to appear in this art series in the first place

1) Human characters appearing in the Sonic series has always been a source of discourse among fans. Some, like myself, enjoy seeing humans coexist alongside a cast of furries, robots, and other assorted beings; others believe there shouldn’t be any humans (except Eggman) in Sonic at all. They’ve been variously depicted as realistic people (Sonic 06) and with more cartoonish Pixar-esque proportions (Sonic Unleashed). From my perspective, what seemed to make people dislike Elise’s original design was that in addition to looking out-of-place next to the cartoony Sonic (people often say that she looks like she belongs in Final Fantasy), her facial expressions were quite bland and difficult to read. While I would argue that Sonic and his friends also had very little facial expression in 06, it’s much easier to notice with Elise (and to a lesser degree, 06 Eggman) due to her more realistic face. It evokes a feeling in some people known as the Uncanny Valley. In the Isekai Ogiri’s April illustration, Elise is depicted in a new style that leans more towards cartoony; some have compared it to Puyo Puyo, others have said she resembles the humans from Balan Wonderworld. Either way, most fans, at least those on Twitter and Tumblr, have praised Elise’s new “look” because her new proportions (large head and hands, big eyes that are easier to read) make her more closely fit in with other Sonic characters. She feels less like a Final Fantasy character and more like a Sonic character.

(With that said, not everyone was automatically bothered by Elise’s realistic 06 design because human beings do not perceive everything in the exact same way b/c art is subjective)

2) Part of how Elise even wound up in this illustration is not just because people wanted to see her again, but because Sonic Team themselves decided to treat her with dignity by making her an option to vote for. And she was up against Merlina from Sonic and the Black Knight, a well-regarded character among fans and one of the few female villains in the entire series!! The poll they were in for the April pic was very close!!

During the late 2000s following Sonic 06′s release, Silver had his fanbase, but a lot of people still viewed him as annoying, and it took several years of game reappearances for him to become a less divisive character (my source: I’ve been a Sonic fan with internet access since ~2003, the way he’s depicted in the Sonic Paradox shorts is actually what a lot of people thought of him at the time). Also, he was still an anthropomorphic Sonic animal, so naturally people would be quicker to accept him as part of the cast.

But Elise? The human? While I doubt she was originally intended to be a recurring character, even if 06 WAS supposed to be a reboot, her portrayal in that game was so widely despised by critics and fans alike that she was thereafter relegated to rare cameos (like being on a collectible card in Sonic Rivals 2) and jokes at her expense (in LEGO Dimensions, when Sonic interacts with Lumpy Space Princess, he says, “Last time I met a princess, I...we...you know, I don't quite remember, never mind!” in a hurried and embarrassed voice). Elise is hardly the only notoriously-disliked Sonic character, but because she only appeared in one game in a non-playable role (I’m not counting the stages where Sonic carries her), her biggest positive accomplishments--unlocking her cell herself instead of waiting for Sonic to save her, jumping from Eggman’s ship with zero hesitation, and reviving Sonic--are often overshadowed by the moments where she just stands there praying, gets kidnapped, and kisses a dead hedgehog just in case you forgot for the 17th year in a row, leading people to view her as an inherently bad character. Because she is also a girl, and video games were and still are a largely male-dominated culture loaded with toxic masculinity, it’d be ignorant to say the vitriol towards Elise wasn’t charged with sexism and misogyny on some level.

But as an aspiring writer and someone who hates wasted character potential, my personal opinion is that characters, SPECIFICALLY in ongoing franchises like Sonic, are not inherently bad, it’s the ways in which they’re USED that can make them LOOK good or bad, and they don’t deserve to be locked away forever all because of one bad interpretation. But unlike Silver who has been in multiple games since 06 (or even Mephiles, who was added to the Sonic Forces mobile game last year as an unlockable character), Elise has only ever had 06. Thus, people only have that one interpretation of her to go off of, because not everyone obsessively rewrites her in their headcanons or hunts down fan fiction where Elise is characterized with actual effort.

And like I said, I don’t think Elise was created with longevity in mind, but it’s specifically because critics and fans alike continue to beat this dead horse that you have people like me saying “What if she came back tho”

Compare the hate Elise gets to the Deadly Six, characters whose debut game was not seen as quite a colossal failure as 06 but still had a story that was almost universally panned, particularly in regards to its character writing. While the Deadly Six (or just Zavok) have yet to appear in a game written by Ian Flynn, they’ve been recurring characters in the IDW Sonic comics and, while still pretty universally disliked, have been regarded by some fans as being tolerable in the comics due to how Flynn utilizes them there. (I wrote a whole other post speculating about the Deadly Six’s characterization in IDW if you feel like reading that lol.) In this sense, the current Sonic writers are genuinely trying to make even the most undesired characters palatable for the audience. I think it’ll be a long while before most people fully warm up to the D6, but the intent is there.

Meaning that the same could hypothetically be done for Elise, if this illustration is any indication that SEGA is beginning to wholeheartedly embrace their past, even the ugly parts

I’m not expecting anything huge from this, and I don’t expect her to suddenly become a major recurring character, because this illustration is nothing more than Sonic Team testing the waters to see how people react to them unironically including Elise in non-canon material. But look at all the fan art people are drawing of Elise in her skating outfit. Look at how fans are reacting. If, sometime after this, Elise were to appear in even a minor role in the IDW comics, in this new art style, with Ian Flynn, Evan Stanley, or even a guest writer like Daniel Barnes at the helm, I would welcome it with open arms, because I trust them to handle Princess Elise’s character with genuine investment and care.

(But until then I have my own ideas that I’m a bit hesitant to share for.....reasons~)

[inkribbon796]

Egotober 2023 Day 20: The Musician's Apprentice

Summary: Nate has a great idea, with unfortunately some bad timing.

Prompt: Music

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31

Nathan Sharp essentially had two homes. His actual house in Gainesville and then the open road whenever he did his yearly tour. Mostly he toured, even for a little bit, to keep his “friend” fed and out of trouble.

Mare, the demon who was in lockstep with Nate and his musical career. A symbiotic relationship. And also the reason that Nate was banned from the country of Ireland, because if Mare and Anti were in the same city for a prolonged period of time people died and houses burned.

So Nate was on a strict no fly list to the entire country, even though Anti could find Nate and Mare whenever. But Nate didn’t make the rules, he only suffered under them.

He was on his way home when he called Bing, he’d done a bit of thinking over the last year or so.

Nate texted Bing. “Got a moment?”

Bing was slower to text back than usual. “Yeah, what’s up, dude?”

“Wanna talk about someone, would rather do it without a paper trail.”

Nate got his luggage into his home, and got his dog all excited when Bing appeared into his house through his laptop.

Nate jumped, his dog barked.

“Glad you’re back,” Bing said.

After Nate calmed his racing heart, he sat down. “Yeah, thanks. We gotta talk about something.”

“We do,” Bing said.

“I want to take on an apprentice,” Nate said.

Bing clapped his hands in front of his face once. “You’ve got the worst timing. Who and where are they?”

“They’re the kid of a friend of mine, got the best gift I’ve probably ever seen,” Nate said.

Bing took a deep breath, “Dark is on a rampage in Egoton, he is reacting to Marvin moving here. And you are giving me a second apprentice to worry about.”

“Shit,” Nate said, wiping his hand down his face. “Does it make it better or worse that his gift is very visual and I’m not the only one who’s spotted it.”

“Take me to the kid, we’ll go from there,” Bing said.

Nate rolled his eyes, grabbed his phone and his dog and on the way texted his friend what was going on and to meet him at a secluded park.

Bing shot into the driver’s seat of Nate’s car as he started the car. Nate tried not to jump, failed, and started the car. He turned some music on.

“Heard the Coalition has some apprentices,” Nate said.

“Well, a bunch of us had ‘em for a while. We only got around to breaking it to Silver.”

“You got one, some science guy? He’ll play nice with mine.” Nate said.

“Yep, Logic, he’s great, if he tries to tell you he’s a reformed criminal, don’t believe him, it was minor eco-terrorism,” Bing had the gall to smile at him as he said it.

“How much are we talking?” Nate asked.

“Not much,” Bing said. “Great kid, smart kid, trying to get him off crime before Google and Dark scoop him up.”

“Alright then,” Nate said. “Should be fun, Mare will love the guy then.”

They got to the park and Nate introduced him to his friend, and his sixteen-year-old son Thomas.

Nate liked Thomas, he was a bit excited.

Bing seemed to like him too but to Nate it always seemed like Bing regarded most humans with lukewarm acceptance. He was never too upset or too enthused.

Thomas loved seeing his dog again and Nate’s dog loved being outside with people.

Thomas was naturally excited to meet Bing, and after some pleasantries started up a little song from a play he was practicing for school. After a little warm up, the park around the warped and changed to look like a setting from the musical number. Even Bing was watching it happen, which Nate hadn’t been sure would happen. Bing and Google were naturally resistant to visual and auditory illusions.

As Thomas sang and performed Nate watched a slowly growing look of dread creep up on Bing’s face as he stared more and more intently at Thomas.

The song ended, Nate and Thomas’s father clapped.

Bing stared before saying, “Okay, if it was up to me, you’re basically hired. We’ll talk about a suit, I’ll talk to Jackie and Silver.”

“Really?” Thomas said.

“You’re too dangerous to let Dark, or worse Deceit, just scoop you up,” Bing said.

“Oh, I don’t want to work with them,” Thomas said.

“Perfect, come up with a name, I’ll see about a costume,” Bing said and then looked at his dad. “And you need to sign and look at some forms. I’ll have Silver, Jackie, and Nate send them to you.”

“Yeah, I’ll read over those,” Thomas’s dad said.

Bing was pleasant enough but when Nate went to leave he looked a lot less pleasant. “I think I know how Silver feels now, you’ve made me an actual branch leader.”

“You’re welcome, how much is Silver going to hate this?” Nate sighed.

“Oh very,” Bing had a laugh in his voice, “he’s going to be pissed, but I’ll talk with him. It’ll be fine. Besides, a friend should keep Logic out of trouble.”

Nate got a text message and smiled when he read it. “Iridescence. He’s already picked a name.”

Bing smiled back. “Oh, he’ll fit in.

Bing left at that point and Nate went home to finally relax before Silver would figure out what was going on and call him.

[prfm-multiverse]

Sound & Recording Magazine March 2023 Interview with Yasutaka Nakata is now also available digital for subscribers.

Excerpts...

I've never been a trendsetter.

- This is CAPSULE's first album in seven years.

Nakata: I wanted to release it earlier. And I always have a lot of music in my mind that I want to do, and some of the timing comes around in various projects, and some of them don't.

- Even at your level, you still feel that your skills have improved, don't you?

Nakata: That is what motivates me to write new songs and what I look forward to. This time around, I think I have gotten better at balancing the instrumental and vocal parts of the songs, rather than separating them too much. Hikari no Disco" has some of the trappings of the old CAPSULE, but I think it is a song that only the current me could have created.

- It is wonderful that you are still discovering new things in your many years of making music, isn't it?

Nakata: Working on something you know you can do without trying anything new is a lot of work, isn't it (laughs)? (laughs) Rather than repeating the same thing over and over again, even if it is a little more difficult, I enjoy the discovery that I make as I continue to make music. In that sense, I think I feel "discovery" the most when I am working on CAPSULE.

- You have said repeatedly in previous interviews that you try out new things first with CAPSULE.

Nakata: With CAPSULE, I can decide to a certain extent which songs will be included in the album. With other artists, it is often difficult. I mean, it was CAPSULE's songs that allowed us to release the album in the first place, and I have a feeling that if we submitted them to a normal competition, they would definitely not have been chosen (laughs).

- In "Give Me a Ride," there is about 1 minute and 50 seconds of intro before the vocals starts.

Nakata: That's too long (laughs). It is true that the length of the intro is unusual for a pop song, but CAPSULE is supported by people who don't think it is an intro and listen to it (laughs). If you worry too much about the standard structure of a pop song, you can't make anything, and in the latter half of the song, you have to make a falling chorus and change the key (laughs). In my case, I was making it naturally and it came out like this, so I needed 1 minute and 50 seconds to lead the song to the pleasant feeling I got when I turned my attention to Koshijima's voice.

- When I look at the artist photos and music video for "Metro Pulse" again, I notice that the two members of CAPSULE are in computer graphics.

Nakata: In a sense, this is also a return to the roots. Originally, the jacket photo for our first album "Haikara Girl" released in 2001 was of CAPSULE's mannequins (laughs). These days, artist photos are sometimes illustrations, sometimes virtual. This time, CAPSULE decided to use polygons to evoke the time when the band was formed.

- With this album, I feel that we have discovered a new aspect of CAPSULE. How do you feel about the response?

Nakata: After a seven-year gap, it's already like a debut work, isn't it? I feel like I have only just begun after the release of METROPULSE, and if I were to use an analogy, it would be similar to the feeling I had when I released FRUITS CLiPPER. I haven't reached "MORE! MORE! MORE! (laughs). I think that this album was created with the same excited feeling as the initial impulse I had when I was an amateur musician.

Google Drive

https://www.snrec.jp/

[gingintigtig]

Hello! I am surprised by your versatility in creativity: you are both a musician and an artist at the same time. It's amazing! I'm interested to ask, what did you find yourself in first? Did you first find yourself as a musician or as an artist? What is the inspiration in each of the areas? Did you have any additional courses/lessons in these areas of art? Who do you consider yourself to be in the first place? And lastly, have you ever had a feeling of inferiority that you didn’t get something in some of the areas of music or art? Sorry for so many at once. I am very interested to know the opinions of people who find themselves in several areas at once (I study in college at once in two specialties as an instrumentalist and music theorist). Thanks for reading my questions and have a nice day! (I translated this text in Google Translate, so forgive me if this is difficult for you to read🙏🙏🙏)

I'm interested to ask, what did you find yourself in first?

I've been drawing since I was a small child, so you could consider me an "artist" first before becoming a musician. I entered music when I received a demo of eJay 3 in a box of kellogs cereal when I was 13! I loved it so much that, for my 14th birthday, my parents bought me a copy of Fruity Loops 4. 2023 is the 20th year I've been using Fruity Loops (aka FL Studio).

What is the inspiration in each of the areas?

I don't have a central inspiration. I draw or compose whatever I find fun or interesting at that point in time.

Did you have any additional courses/lessons in these areas of art?

The only lessons I've had for art and music were mandatory state education in England from KS1 to KS3. After that I am completely self taught. Fun fact: I can't read sheet music! I write music by ear using a MIDI sequencer.

Who do you consider yourself to be in the first place?

I don't consider art to be above music and vice versa. They're both valid creative outlets. I draw more frequently, but only because drawing requires less complicated and fewer tools, where my music production routine is very involved.

And lastly, have you ever had a feeling of inferiority that you didn’t get something in some of the areas of music or art?

Any feelings of inferiority I've had have been short lived, and they've only happened when I've wrongfully compared my work to other's work. The most important thing is that I have fun.

[topplefromthesky]

Almost Famous review/analysis

NOT professional, just enthusiastic

Almost Famous - 2000 - Cameron Crowe

I find it hilarious how a 15 year old and a 30- something can both fall for a 16 year old and both have a chance or actual involvement with her, like sex, the 30 something had sex for a year with a now 16 year old then 15 year old, this is a problem, it truly is, 1973 or 2000 or 2023 its a problem, al though the movie is set 1973 where this is very likely to had happened, you know drugs, alcohol, rock an roll baby, (with minors all around……. Girl minors(chicks)….fully grown men…. Married!) so anyway I wouldn’t want the movie to sugarcoat the reality that this was(is?,ew), but also not romanticize illegal activities with minors! And grown men!. So… getting that out of the way, I loved the film, the mother was a little too much to be honest, but really loved it. Obviously Penny Lane was the most interesting person there, none of the band were interesting nor appealing, even the kids… even VIC was more interesting, VIC! Honestly I was very surprised how William managed to keep his cool during some of the scenes, you know if you literal dream about being a rock writer and meeting all these musicians and suddenly you got the gig and you’re there, in the same hotel as fucking David Bowie, and you’re just there.. standing there, with a fucking poker face, HOW?! Seriously howwwwww?! Since the whole point of William is that he isn’t cool like they made sure you know that, with that scene where he’s talking on the phone with Lester bangs, he’s definitely not supposed to be cool but the poker face, that was cool, every single time. My favorite besides penny lane, (we’ll get to penny lane I promise).. definitely was the constant battle of everyone deciding to either be who they think they are or who others think they should be, it was funny and relatable, we’ve all been there, and everyone wants the same thing (at least in this movie) to be cool, ….oh to be cool…., more than an actual personality it's just an essence a way in which you move or talk or blink… only if you are cool… which you’re kinda born with, there’s no way to achieve it, that’s why everyone wants it. 

Penny Lane, i don’t know why they just couldn’t have said she was 23 or something, why the fuck would they say she’s 16, and she goes to morroco by herself! At fucking sixteen when everyone else is in school, getting pimples and a job at seven eleven, you can’t even leave the county alone at sixteen. For the sake of my sanity I’m just going to pretend Penny Lane is the same age as Kate Hudson when she played her, which is twenty one. So, anyway, penny lane…. Where to start… honestly you have probably seen a million characters like her, you know, the girl, the girl everyone is fighting so desperately not to fall in love with, oh so hopeless, she’s got it all, the beauty, the brains, the witty commentary with the references you have to google, and of course! Also the abandonment issues, daddy issues, mommy issues, she’s like a miracle you just can’t believe she’s this amazing and this damaged… what's not to love! But honestly she’s sweet and kind and considerate, you know, in the way you wished you were, the kind of way no person that attractive should be, and we all see how amazing she is…… but her, that’s the thing! The thing every writer HAS TO put in…. She is blissfully unaware of her “unique” perfection, she is just so perfectly imperfect, but not in a Disney princess kind of way, ugh no, I mean, we are still talking rock an roll here, obviously she sleeps around, she kisses and flirts, but you know in a cute way, in a “I don’t care” way, in a “you wish” way, either you wish you were her… living your life to its full potential or you wish she was yours. I think it's funny the kinds of names they always and I mean ALWAYS put to these types of characters, penny lane…. That’s easily one of the worst full of charm and personality names I’ve heard, let's go over the list, I mean, Clementine… really… Now there’s actual people naming their daughters clementine and it's all thanks to Michel Gondry, who else.. lets see Ramona flowers, eh kinda normal, there’s like 10 quirky girls named summer, cause it’s just the best, I mean, THE BEST season (hair flip), honestly every Zooey deschanel character deserves a spot, oh i just remembered her actual real name is Lady…. She actually chose to be Penny Lane, Ha! I wonder if lady bird got the inspo, I mean, LADY BIRD, that’s it….I’m done, anyway, loved the film, it literally talked nothing about music and that to me is golden. 

[beginningspod]

It's time for Beginnings, the podcast where writer and performer Andy Beckerman talks to the comedians, writers, filmmakers and musicians he admires about their earliest creative experiences and the numerous ways in which a creative life can unfold.

On today's episode, I talk to musician Andrew Kenny. Originally from Fort Worth, Kenny formed The American Analog Set in 1995 and over the next decade, released six albums on labels like Emperor Jones, Tiger Style and Arts & Crafts, after which the band went on hiatus. In 2009, Kenny released the first of two albums as The Wooden Birds, but since 2011's Two Matchsticks, he has been rather quiet. That is, until this last year. In 2023, The American Analog Set released their first album in almost two decades For Forever, and most recently, Numero Group released New Drifters, a comprehensive box set of the band's first three albums, and folks, it is worth your time!

I'm on Twitter here and you can get the show with:

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Amazon Podcasts

Google Podcasts

Permalink RSS Feed                  Facebook                           

[shakira-fan-page]

Shakira was the world’s most searched musician on Google worldwide in 2023. She previously achieved this feat in 2020.

[mayookhpallikandi]

Proj.6 - Media in Performance (Artist Research)

1.Alex McLean

Alex McLean is a musician, developer and researcher based in Sheffield, UK. As a live coder, Alex performs widely as part of the long-lived band Slub (with Dave Griffiths, Adrian Ward and Alexandra Cardenas), as well as CCAI (with Sam Schorb), and Epiploke (with Lucy Cheesman). Alex is active across the digital arts, co-founding the TOPLAP organisation for the promotion of live algorithm programming, algorithmic techno promoters Algorave, and the International Conferences on Live Coding and Live Interfaces. He has also organised around 80 Dorkbot electronic art events in Sheffield and London. Alex completed his PhD thesis "Artist-Programmers and Programming Languages for the Arts" in 2011 at Goldsmiths, University of London, and now holds a part-time postdoc position on the ERC PENELOPE project, exploring weaving as a technical mode of existence.

2.Sam Aron

Dr Sam Aaron is the creator of Sonic Pi, an internationally renowned live coding performer, public speaker and science communicator. Sam has a PhD in Computer Science from Newcastle University and held a research position at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory where he initially developed Sonic Pi.

Sam has been an active community builder for 20 years starting and running the Newcastle and Amsterdam Ruby user groups, Amsterdam Clojure group and more recently the international Sonic Pi community of educators, programmers and artists.

Sam regularly engages audiences of all ages and backgrounds with the creativity of code through keynotes, workshops and performances. He has live coded internationally featuring in the Royal Albert Hall, Berlin Warehouses, Music Festivals, on the BBC and many school assemblies. Sam has received two Google prizes for his Open-Source work and The Rolling Stone magazine described his Moog fest performance as “transcending the present”.

3. Renick Bell

Renick Bell is one of the most well-known artists associated with the algorave movement, wherein computer programmers create algorithmically generated dance music using live coding techniques. Bell is the author of a live coding system called Conductive, and is responsible for organizing the first algoraves in his adopted country of Japan. While Bell has been making electronic music since the '90s, he began receiving wider attention for his performances and recordings during the late 2010s, including his acclaimed 2018 full-length Turning Points.

References

foam oü, Alex McLean. [online] Available at: https://fo.am/people/alex-mclean/ [Accessed 13 Nov. 2023].

The University of Sheffield, Dr. Samuel Aaron. [online] Available at: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/dcs/people/research-staff/samuel-aaron [Accessed 13 Nov. 2023].

 ALLMUSIC, Renick Bell. [online] Available at: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/renick-bell-mn0003691115#biography [Accessed 14 Nov. 2023].

[tinnitusdiaries]

10/31/2023

I started playing music when I was 9 years old. When I was 18, I enrolled in college and when I was 22 I graduated with my degree in music education. Would I consider myself an expert? Absolutely not.

My tinnitus became noticeable 42 days ago. Would I consider myself an expert? Absolutely.

I'm just kidding. I'm an expert musician.

No, no. I'm not an expert musician or a tinnitus know-it-all. But! Within the last 42 days I have joined "support" groups and Reddit channels. I have Googled just about everything about tinnitus. I've seen many doctors. I have reached out to nearly everyone in my contact list on my phone, Facebook, and Instagram hoping that someone would say they had tinnitus. I researched every remedy and every cause.

What came of this? Not much.

I learned that tinnitus support groups are just about as stable as the rusted scaffolding that's been in front of the church on 31st street for at least six years now. That f*cker is going to go down one of these days, I know it.

I learned that Reddit is like if my ENT copy and pasted my appointment summary over and over again. "There's no cure. Get over it."

Google taught me more about myself actually. I learned that Google searching is, in fact, a compulsion of mine. Sometimes I would stumble upon a helpful blog or article. Sometimes I would find at least three inner ear disorders that .2% of the population has and that I definitely somehow had all of them (spoiler alert: I don't have any). Every time, though, I was giving into a compulsion and making myself more sensitive to my OCD (and tinnitus).

Reaching out to friends, family, colleagues, and a handful of people I didn't even remember following helped more than anything. Everyone I know assured me that I wasn't alone. Hearing loss from live music, hearing loss from an ear infection, and a collapsed ear drum. Most of us have it chronically, though some let me know theirs is intermittent. Everyone was just so okay with it. 3 years, 10 years and 30 years later. They just aren't bothered by it daily anymore and none of them told me it got worse. This isn't what it is like for everyone, but it probably is like this for the majority. This is what we don't read online.

I guess that's it today. Reach out to someone, anyone. Post a story on Instagram or message someone on Tumblr. Ask your colleagues or your parents. It is likely a lot of people you know live with this and they never mentioned it because they got used to it. They survived it and adapted. They habituated. Despite what the internet might make us think, habituation is possible. Habituation will likely happen on its own.

[prnanayarquah]

Nominations Open For Central Music Awards 2023

New Post has been published on https://plugzafrica.com/nominations-open-for-central-music-awards-2023/

Nominations Open For Central Music Awards 2023

Heritage Event Promotions, the organizers of the annual Central Music Awards have open nominations for the Central Music Awards 2023.

The organizers on Monday, 28th August, 2023 announced the official opening of nomination entries for the 12th edition of the Central Music Awards.

The Central Music Awards, being the first, biggest and most prestigious regional award scheme in Ghana have for the past 11years recognized, honored and awarded hardworking and deserving Artistes who have contributed immensely towards the growth and development of the music industry here in the Central Region.

Anticipating a magnificent awards night at this year’s Central Music Awards, 38 Award Categories are open to Musicians and Industry players for entries ahead of the 12th edition.

In accordance to the Central Music Awards Academy Calendar, Musicians and industry players in good standing and have released works within the year under review, that is;�� August 2022 to August 2023 are eligible to file for nominations.

PROCEDURE FOR NOMINATION ENTRY

Musicians, Management and Industry players are to download the nominee form online via our Google Drive Portal

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1863h3c7Q6gpy8LIll5ukxK-3Ysi_e0I5/view?usp=drivesdk

2. Fill it in with the appropriate details

3. Submit a hard copy to our District representatives across the region. Or you can submit it on the day of the Music Seminar.

SOURCE OF VERIFICATION

1.. Songs for nomination are to be put on pen drives

2. Professional picture artwork inclusive.

SUBMISSION OF NOMINATIONS FORMS

Filed nomination forms can be submitted at the following centres:

The reception of Kastle FM, Cape Coast

The reception of Samrit Hotel, Cape Coast

On the day of the music seminar, Saturday, 16th September 2023 at Samrit Hotel.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION

The official deadline for nomination is slated for Saturday, 16th September, 2023 at 11:59 PM.

AWARD CATEGORIES OPEN FOR NOMINATION

The 38 Award categories open for nomination include:

FEMALE ARTISTE OF THE YEAR

NEW ARTISTE OF THE YEAR

EMERGING ARTISTE OF THE YEAR

GOSPEL SONG OF THE YEAR

GOSPEL ARTISTE OF THE YEAR

BEST RAPPER OF THE YEAR

BEST COLLABORATION OF THE YEAR

REGGAE SONG OF THE YEAR

MALE VOCALIST OF THE YEAR

FEMALE VOCALIST OF THE YEAR

SOUND ENGINEER OF THE YEAR

BEST PRODUCER OF THE YEAR

SONG OF THE YEAR

MUSIC VIDEO OF THE YEAR

DANCEHALL SONG OF THE YEAR

GHANA POPULAR SONG OF THE YEAR

PROMOTER – PRESENTER OF THE YEAR

BEST PROMOTER – DJ OF THE YEAR

BEST PROMOTER – ONLINE

HIPLIFE SONG OF THE YEAR

HIGHLIFE SONG OF THE YEAR

HIP POP SONG OF THE YEAR

BEST GROUP OF THE YEAR

AFRO POP SONG OF THE YEAR

BEST MANAGEMENT OF THE YEAR

BEST PUB/NIGHT CLUB OF THE YEAR

BEST MASQUERADE GROUP OF THE YEAR

BEST BRASS BAND OF THE YEAR

LIVE BAND OF THE YEAR

BEST CAMPUS ENTERTAINMENT HOUSE

BEST CAMPUS MC OF THE YEAR

BEST CAMPUS ARTISTE OF THE YEAR

BEST CAMPUS DJ OF THE YEAR

BEST FAN BASE OF THE YEAR

BEST INTERNATIONAL ACT OF THE YEAR

SONG WRITER OF THE YEAR

EP/ALBUM OF THE YEAR

ARTISTE OF THE YEAR

CENTRAL MUSIC AWARDS SEMINAR

Musicians and Industry Players are to note that, the 2023 edition of the Central Music Awards Seminar is slated for Saturday, 16th September, 2023 at Samrit Hotel, Cape Coast at exactly 1:00 PM.

Source: Bismark Botchwey

Deputy Communications Executive

Heritage Event Promotions