{"id":558,"date":"2010-11-03T22:46:19","date_gmt":"2010-11-04T05:46:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vuzhmusic.com\/blog\/?p=558"},"modified":"2010-11-03T22:46:19","modified_gmt":"2010-11-04T05:46:19","slug":"response-to-silent-world-of-netlabels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.vuzhmusic.com\/blog\/2010\/11\/03\/response-to-silent-world-of-netlabels\/","title":{"rendered":"Response to Silent World of Netlabels"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is, in this mini essay<\/a> by Mixgalaxy Records, a discussion we should be having in the netlabel underground.
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\nClearly, yes, there is very little intracommunication between netlabel artists who do not already know each other… there is very, very little community-wide feedback. This is something I’ve been saying for years. I had the great pleasure of having participated in the final ‘golden years’ of the cassette underground. With each tape trade there was an exchange of letters, and often there was a follow up once both traders had a chance to listen to the other’s work. Sometimes this led to a friendly connection. Other times just a polite comaradery, or in some cases a dismissive ‘nice try, just not my kinda thing’. For what it was, there was at least some feedback, even if brief.
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\nThe author of the Mixgalaxy essay is correct to accuse the netlabel underground of ‘silence’. It’s shameful the total vacuum that people’s efforts disappear into. I may not necessarily be composing my own music for an audience, but I do feel it’s part of the experience to occasionally have someone contact me and say “Hey, really weird stuff… I dig it.” As Gurdonark says in the comments to the Mixgalaxy post “A listener need not spend 16 dollars on a CD to download a netlabel album, but spending 30 seconds on an e mail or 5 seconds on a tweet is a form of ‘payment’ netlabel owners crave.<\/i>”
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\nMy biggest beef with the netlabel underworld has long been that although I myself am constantly listening to netlabel releases by artists that I frequently know little about, and recommending them via email or Twitter or through this blog (check out this post<\/a>, or this one<\/a>, or this one<\/a>, this<\/a>, this<\/a>, this<\/a>, or this one<\/a> for example), I see only a small minority of other netlabel supporters doing the same. Most of the time the only interaction some netlabels\/artists have with anyone is a promo blurb about some new release — or ten new releases. There may as well be a mechanoid behind some of these labels. Do they listen to their peers? Do they even know their peers exist? Who knows? But hey, they have several new releases this month. Why even participate in a commun<\/i>ity if you don’t want to commun<\/i>icate?
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\nWhere I disagree with the author is the false dichotomy of netlabel with commercial music. I don’t see that the average artist in the net underground is at all ‘hoping for that big break’ that’ll help them cross that supposed thin line that separates the two worlds, and they’ll suddenly be rich and famous. Net artists have embraced obscurity, and why not? Obscurity is a virtue. Yes; we all want more listeners, yes; we even want fans, but the kind of music most of us make is just never going to have a hope of being popular, and we all know it. I for one am happy to reach more and more listeners, but I am happy with a slow and small accumulation of appreciative listeners. I feel like I can be honest to my own creative direction (which is something I take very<\/strong> seriously), with this approach. I may be misreading the essay, but I simply don’t agree with the diagnosis that netlabels’ problems have to do with money not being involved. I think the free aesthetic is one of the strongest bonding elements we all have.
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\nI want a more inclusive and supportive community of netlabel artists than there is currently. Perhaps this can change. I have seen signs lately that point to ‘scene boosting’ activity… the Mixgalaxy Records blog post itself is a pretty good sign of this.
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\nIt occurs to me, perhaps, that what the community might have a need for is a more centralized method of communication. Mail art had some central hubs… Ashley Parker Owens’ Global Mail<\/u> filled that role for a while. The cassette underground had Gajoob<\/u>, and later Autoreverse<\/u> (among others)… the net underground is completely de-centralized, which can be a strength, but it definitely doesn’t lead to a sense of community. Right now, it’s every man\/label for himself. I may not be the chummiest guy in the whole wide world, but I sure as shit reject that kind of isolationism. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is, in this mini essay by Mixgalaxy Records, a discussion we should be having in the netlabel underground. – Clearly, yes, there is very little intracommunication between netlabel artists who do not already know each other… there is very, very little community-wide feedback. This is something I’ve been saying for years. I had the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14,15],"tags":[2263,36],"class_list":["post-558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recommended-listening","category-thoughts","tag-netlabels","tag-recommendations"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3eIxq-90","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vuzhmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vuzhmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vuzhmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vuzhmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vuzhmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558"}],"version-history":[{"count":46,"href":"http:\/\/www.vuzhmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":604,"href":"http:\/\/www.vuzhmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558\/revisions\/604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vuzhmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vuzhmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vuzhmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}