Just Saying -- the soapbox thread

[alanp]

While I was watching this, I was thinking two things. Firstly, thank gawd I never got into automechanics (beyond liking the actual driving part and appreciating pretty cars), and secondly...

Is this how Dad feels, watching me work on computer hardware?

[EBK]

For years, my wife has made fun of me for pronouncing Dawn and Don exactly the same.  I have recently, however, found out that I am not alone, and this pronunciation is a product of my Western Pennsylvania (sub)dialect*.  Nor is it unique to my dialect.  People from places near the green dots on this map tend to do the same thing:


This language feature even has a name.  It is called the cot-caught merger.  I feel so validated!

Next, I need to figure out if I am the only person who insists that "whirl" and "swirl" are two-syllable words.   

*I am tempted to refer to it as a subdialect because it differs even within my immediate family.

[TeleCrunch]

So. Cal native here (I say, "dooood" a lot): My sister's name is Dawn - spoken as Don. Cot and caught: same. Whirl and swirl: one-syllable.

I live in So. East Pennsylvania now (for 15 years):
Water: My wife says, "woder", I say, "wotter".
I get a lot laughs for this one: When I say, "roof" it sounds closer to "rough". Out here in PA it is clearly "roooof", like Babe "Ruth". Oddly, when I sing the Drifters "Up on the Roof", I pronounce it "correctly".

Another interesting regional difference: "yeah" is very short in the West (yeh), out here East it's clearly "y-e-a-a-uh"

[thesmokingman]

While I was watching this, I was thinking two things. Firstly, thank gawd I never got into automechanics (beyond liking the actual driving part and appreciating pretty cars), and secondly...

Is this how Dad feels, watching me work on computer hardware?

I liken this engine rebuild to my recent acquisition of a powerpc g5 isight imac ... so completely impractical. I think the original small block hemi like that only got horsepower in the high 100s  to 300 hp range ... and there's generally a lack of aftermarket performance parts (hence the custom-welded intake plenum) ... its cool to see it done, but it would be completely forgivable to go with a later model mopar engine just for the horsepower and parts availability.

[alanp]

https://tickets.ticketspace.co.nz/event/carl-cox-whanganui

Carl Cox must have liked the Cemetary Circuit motorbike race last year, because the King of Ibiza is doing another gig this year

Can't go, myself -- it's a work night, and I need to get up at like 4am the next day.

[alanp]

https://cemeterycircuit.co.nz

That's the race I mean, btw.

[juansolo]

I liken this engine rebuild to my recent acquisition of a powerpc g5 isight imac ... so completely impractical.

PPC macs are where it's at  I have a couple of Powermacs G4 and G5. The G4 is set up with OS/9 if you want impractical

[thesmokingman]

I liken this engine rebuild to my recent acquisition of a powerpc g5 isight imac ... so completely impractical.

PPC macs are where it's at  I have a couple of Powermacs G4 and G5. The G4 is set up with OS/9 if you want impractical

my wife was like "why?" and the best I could muster was that it was one of the few oddball platforms I haven't owned ... POWER, MIPS, SPARC ... had those ... only thing left now is alpha ... and I'm not in the market. if this wasn't a flatscreen all-in-one I would have passed. I just don't have the room for a collection anymore.

[juansolo]

The two machines I haven't got that I want are the Sharp X68000, a Japan only beast of a machine from back in the day. Had that thing come out world wide, I doubt we'd be using PCs, and an Apple IIGS. Which though quite prevalent in the US, they're rare as hell here. Sad thing is now that either machine is just stupid money, which is a shame as though I'd love to own them, there's no way I can justify the expense of them.

[mjg]

This article is a fascinating read, about a guy who basically faked his way into a European tour for his band.  Hard to tell what the actual truth is, but in the end he got the fame he wanted I guess.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/jered_threatin

[EBK]

Fascinating story.  I had heard a bit about that guy before, but I liked this article a lot, especially the "Update" at the end.  That part was essential.

[midwayfair]

Man, the update at the end was a killer.

But honestly, he was right about a lot of stuff in there. Simply pretend to be another person to be your own booking promoter and people will take you more seriously. Get even a little bit of press and the press takes you more seriously. Most people don't actually care about what you do, they just care that other people care about what you do. I think his plan would have worked a decade ago.

The fact that he didn't have a plan for taking care of the band members and the openers makes him super shitty, though.

[TNblueshawk]

Interesting read for sure. What a soulless fraud though. To his core he is a dbag in every way possible. I would disagree he is famous though unless one defines fame as some people knowing who you are through the internet. That's fine if you do but I don't.

Part of me as I was reading was thinking, well if this would have actually been set up as a type of test to show what is wrong with people, the process, the music industry or whatever, Ok, maybe I justify it in some way. In order to do this though you would have to really set it up to where you could prove, when exposed, this is the case. In addition, you would have to really take care of the band mates in some way to make up for it. I'm not sure how that would be done given his limited financial means but those are things you would have to do make this experiment work. But I kept going back to the fact that he fucked over band mates and several other people along the way and I find zero justification for this.

At the end of the day he is a rotten human being to the core with no redeeming qualities that I can see.

[sonarchotic]

Regarding the article. It is interesting but not surprising. Companies generate fake/paid press every day. Of course, all that gets you nowhere if people just don't like your music and don't go to your shows regardless of the hype. Where is the line between hype and reality? I hear music all the time that I think people only like because of its hype. Maybe that's true or maybe I just don't understand a lot of people's tastes? The fine art and wine worlds have been shown to often be hype-based markets and I don't think music is immune. Just narrowed down to the niche of metal bands I can think of some that were/are successful that I didn't understand what made people choose that band over others.

I played in bands and was around the industry enough to realize how much of it was based on hype and personal relationships. Some musicians aren't great musicians but they are good with people. Some musicians are creative but introverted. As in most industries, people skills often trump actual output.

I'm not supporting or making excuses for the guy. It's just that, given today's technology, it's not surprising that this was done. I'm sure it happens a lot more than we know.

[Muadzin]

"If a band approaches a venue and says: 'Hey, we wanna play this venue,' you're going to get ignored," he says. "All it has to do is look like it's coming from a booking agency - doesn't even matter what booking agency, even a fake one - and then you'll get talked to and you can get things booked. Simple as that."

I'll give the Threatin' dude this, he understands the modern music business better then most artists. Still too many think that their music will carry them through. It never does. Sometimes I wonder if it ever did. With nobody buying records or CD any more its become hard for venues to gage what kind of acts will draw in a crowd. Which is made worse by the trend that people no longer go out to see bands. The habits of the outgoing public have diversified so much these years that the days that a venue could book a band, any band, and will still get a sizeable crowd are long gone. So venues want to be more then double sure that any act they will book, will draw in a crowd. In that sense internet buzz has replaced record sales as a measuring gauge. And that has left them vulnerable to the likes of this guy, who seems to have grasped this new dynamic even better then they do. The moment this story broke I was in awe of this guy's balls and audacity in having gamed the system. It's happened before, the Dutch band Gotcha bluffed their way into the national band contest by using a similar fake press campaign, in the 90's. Which I reckon in those days was even harder. But they at least delivered live.

When rock 'n' roll first came about you just had to be able to play. You had a band, you could get a gig. Then came the time of the big artists that sold and played to millions, and everybody wanted a record deal. Such was the money to be made that artists allowed themselves by robbed by the recording industry, as even a tiny percentage of a shitload of sales was still a lot. Bands learned to promote themselves in addition to having to write good music. Then over time DJ's came to the scene and instead of having live bands clubs would let a dude play records instead, and the market shrunk. Even small bands with no record deals now had to learn how to market themselves. Next came new musical genres which actually challenged rock's dominent musical position. Then came online file sharing and record sales collapsed. Band promotion becomes even more important. And nowadays rock has declined to a niche market as rap, pop and latin music rule the Earth and record labels no longer even give a shit about rock bands any more. Bands need to be managers, bookers, home recording engineers, webdesigners, video artists, social media whores and god knows what else all in addition to being what they used to be, musicians. In that sense I can understand that actually coming up with good original music often takes a back seater, can anyone name any original music by the Jared Dines and Rob Chapmans of the youtube era? And this Threatin' guy just took that to the next level altogether.