PICS SORT OF RECENT SHOWS

From top to bottom

BIRDS OF MAYA MEGA BOOZE BAND from the jack rose Philly record release show, Harmonica Dan leading the way

FLAHERTY/ MOORE / CORSANO and others at the jack rose record release show

MIKE GIBBONS and NACHO GIBBONS at some horrible show in south Philly. the Bardo guys don't talk much about Nacho he's sort of like the brother they keep locked in the basement.

KRALLICE at the Mroom in Philly.
BLUES CONTROL art gallery show in Philly

STEVE GUNN art gallery show in Philly.. check out his pretty great record on Threelobed.

NOW PLAYING vulture club on Utech.. whatever happened to the follow up for this awesome disc????

EMAIL ABOUT PITCHFORK

some email correspondence i got about the pitchfork thing.

Hey,

Just read the article/interview on Pitchfork and was a bit disappointed to see that filesharing got blamed for the decrease in sales. I'm quite sympathetic to your frustration but I don't think it's directed at entirely the right issue.

The example of The Goslings / Warmth split not attracting the same amount of sales, for instance: for whatever reason, in 2009 the album didn't attract nearly the amount of hype and solid reviews that Grandeur of Hair did. Blogs and review sites lavished praise over it, while hardly any sites talked much about the split.

For instance, on RateYourMusic, a database of people keeping track of their MP3 or CD collections, you'll see that Grandeur of Hair has 329 ratings and Heaven of Animals has 16.

http://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/the_goslings/grandeur_of_hair/

http://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/the_goslings_and_warmth/heaven_of_animals/

If filesharing were to blame, don't you think there'd be the same level of interest generated, yet fewer sales? From what I've noticed, filesharing seems to be part of the marketing hype cycle of generating interest, especially in niche markets. Perhaps the fickle hype processes might be more to blame?

http://rateyourmusic.com/label/archive_recordings/

Michel

My reply

Hey didn’t know the article was up.. I just cruised it and I think its pretty well written.. I will say we did talk about a lot of things that have taken place in the market place and I would say there are a whole host of different factors on the table currently that can be linked to the more or less wide scale drop off in sales (this is the case with nearly every label I’ve talked to) He’s focused on the downloading file sharing for his piece, which I think might make up the lions share of the issue?? But certainly things like the fans fickle taste, current worldwide economic situation in the last two years, the over glut of product out there to consume, and maybe the people that used to buy my releases have just grown less interested in what I’m doing???

So I agree with your valid observation as noted below, but one thing I can tell you is the landscape is very different for me then it was two years ago, the ultimate reason is most like some type of combination of all of the above..

All good though life long music lover here and will stay that way.

PITCHFORK

http://pitchfork.com/features/columns/7804-the-out-door-3/ link to a pitchfork piece i was interviewed for.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/business/media/10audio.html?hp NYTimes article about the music industry that i found interesting also

old tubes

Picked up a old Melo ps1 phono pre-amp the other day in an estate sale through a third party.. awesome unit lots of gain, great tube sounds, flexible in use, and most importantly sounds really sexy. 20mins in the first listening session hmmmm whats that smell?? something burning? maybe some dust burning off the tubes from it sitting around for a while? dead... no sound? oppsss the separate offboard power supply fried. What the fuck. Ahhhh what can you do. A quick google search found a repair guy who works on the Melos units and knows the circuitry well enough so off in UPS it goes to Brooklyn. Hope it doesn't run me too much??



Saw Blues Control at an art gallery in Fishtown last week. Pretty good super nice folks also. wasn't super woowed but was a fun time all the same. Lots of drink at this gig



Went to the Alcest show in Philly which was on a Monday night. Was expecting like 3 people to be there but low and behold basically sold out. Seemed like a pretty lame crowd just by visual inspection of who was there. I had high hopes for the show but bailed before they even played.. too crowded, too hot.. and basically wasn't feeling it. I got this email the next day from Adam of Comoros strange psychic abilities you possess.alcest were terrible... beyond terrible, they were embarassing and emo and awful. how did you know? hahahaha pretty funny, well some times you win i guess??? Also bumped into the vocalist of OAK http://www.myspace.com/oakdoom at this gig. super nice guy lots of conversation about old metal. West coast heads keep an eye out they are trying to make out that way over the next few months. One of the best house shows i ever saw was them in South Philly at disgraceland. not so much drink at this gig.



Bardo Pond had a show at JB's back like two weeks ago. 2nd band that night CARLTON MELTON http://www.myspace.com/carltonmelton maybe a less freak out more rocking version of Earthless. really excellent stuff though. I didn't record though duhhhhhhh. I generally rely on good intelligence in these circumstances when an opening band is playing that i don't know and i didn't get "hipped" to these guys prior to them playing. Lots of drink had this night.