MISCmedia for 1/10/00
Separating the Crap from the Crap

IN A RETAIL RECORD STORE (I'm going to try to avoid the term "brick and mortar," which should've been on Matt Groening's "Forbidden Words" list for this year), space limitations necessitate what you'll get to choose from.

It's usually some mix of what the store operators believe will sell (whatever's getting the hype or buzz in its respective genre this month; what's sold well in the recent past) and what they want you to buy (personal favorites; stuff they've got too much of this week; stuff they get extra profit margins from).

But on the Web, as you know, the "stock in trade" is limited only by what the operators can special-order from their wholesale suppliers. Web-based music stores can therefore sell any darn thing they want to, to just about anyone who's got the credit rating.

Web music "malls," which rent or give away server space to any artist with wares to offer, do away with even minimal "quality control."

I've previously said this is an overall good thing. If properly nourished, this could be a vital part of the demolition of the big-media cartel (or at least a strong challenge to it) and the triumph of what Patti Smith once called "The Age Where Everybody Creates."

But I also appreciate the great difficulty a band has in getting any attention from the users of an MP3 free-for-all site, where thousands of other bands (many of them quite similar to your own) vie for the same attention, and where free streaming-audio files don't necessarily spur users to buy whole CDs of a band's stuff.

Nevertheless, there is some cool/odd/cute stuff on these sites. From time to time, MISCmedia will attempt to find you a few of them. Such as the following (in no particular order):

• DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY BAND, "I Saw Mama Kissing Santa (So Did Dad)." From the album "Dysfunctional Family Christmas," a nice unpretentious piece of country-farce; just slightly more cynical than Homer & Jethro.

• DREBIN , "Anniversary." Thoughtful, tasteful co-ed twee-pop from Belfast.

• SOME OF THE QUIET, "Basicia." Ambient seems an easy genre to pull off, until you try to develop a simple melody line without over-embellishing it. These guys succeed.

• CHAMPION BIRD WATCHERS, "Callisto." Christian emocore meets cello-and-flute-augmented prog rock. It works, particularly if you've taken certain non-church-approved substances.

• ALICE THE GOON, "Clowns Die Every Day." Mid-'70s-era Zappa meets Stan Ridgeway and has a threesome with post-postpunk nihlism; a marriage made in an alternate-universe Heaven.

• WOMEN OF SODOM, "Jews and Arabs Become Friends." There are many techno belly-dancing tunes out there; but this is one you might actually imagine dancing to.

• AGENT FELIX, "90210." "Why don't they cancel/That stupid show?" Fun pop-punk without a cause; or at least with a relatively unambitious cause.

• PLAVU, "Seventeen." Girlie-pop with a mind-bending slide-guitar undercurrent. Deelish.

• STAR GHOST DOG, "Downer." The band's web-page description says it all: "Blondie meets the Pixies and moves into a crappy apartment." They really should try to think up a better name, though.

• ACTION FIGURES, "Lauraville." Sharp power-pop hooks, smooth harmonies, smart youth-angst, and Twin Peaks references. Everything I like in one package.

TOMORROW: New media buys old media, or is it the other way around?

ELSEWHERE:

• I agree with this guy: Microsoft's web-content efforts have sucked. I disagree with his reasoning why: that people outside NY/Calif. can't possibly do content right....
• Revealed: The causal connection between action heroes and inactive fans (found by A Boy and His Basement)....

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• Why women may become "johns" while traveling but not at home.
• Does "political" writing have to be incomprehensible?
• When California stops being America's political bellwether.
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• Musings on the end of Peanuts.
• The always-splendiforous MISCmedia In/Out list.
• Remembering the Nineties, when seemingly nobody else is.
• The Grinch who stole New Year's.
• Comparing punks to neo-punks.
• Retail-as-theater and theaters as retail.
• Thoughts from having lived with Christmas for two months.
• Indie film's potential resurgence.
• Imagining life after Microsoft, and exploring the roots of the Gates personality cult.
• The first and second parts of our visit to an imagined Northwest theme park.
• Parts one, two, three, and four of our WTO protest post-mortem; a list of WTO-protest links; and the earlier preview piece.

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