2005.05.26.0010 :: i still call it demf

were i a more focused person, i'd be working on my set for defender (which, for all of you who were planning to attend, has been moved... check the info at the link) right now, but instead i've spent the last half hour browsing through itunes.

i'd never looked at itunes before, but i can now completely understand the appeal. i could very easily spend a few hundred dollars buying tons of songs i love off of there. the sad part is that if i didn't already have most of my favorite music as MP3s, i'd probably just pay to get it off of there because of how hard it is to actually find music anymore. seriously, even soulseek doesn't seem to be a tenth of what it once was.

i only installed itunes to see how it all worked because apparently i'm going to be on it in the next few weeks, which is awesome. i've been thinking about it a lot lately and i guess it really makes the most sense to go digital only with the occasional vinyl release. i've never released a cd on my label unless you count the 3" mixes and i don't really intend to. i'm not sure why, but i just never had the love affair with cds that other people from my generation did. i had a few cds over the years that i listened to pretty much non-stop (pretty hate machine, zoo rave 1, siamese dream, last splash, music for the jilted generation), but i was never one of those people that bought them on a regular basis.

having said that, i find myself caring less and less about vinyl these days. i'll probably continue to release it at least occasionally for the time being because it works and a lot of people still use it, but every time look at my (meager in comparison to most of my friends) vinyl collection, i cringe at the thought of moving it.

i will, however, miss physical media. there's something about being able to hold a record and look at the sleeve, or being able to read a booklet for a cd while you listen to it. and, more importantly, such a huge part of the music industry and such a huge part of being exposed to music is discovering your parents' music collection or trading cds with friends, buying cds at shows, etc. i guess something will get worked out for all of this (data cds? cheap mini flash drives?) but it will be to cds as cds are to vinyl-- it just won't have that visceral "realness" to it.

i still remember the day i got the test pressing of my first record. i'd already had a few tracks out on cd at that point and had self-released tapes and cd-rs, but nothing could really compare to what it felt like looking at your own music physically etched into grooves and being able to put it onto a turntable and play it. i guess it felt sort of validating in some way or something. you could touch, listen to and even smell your own music on vinyl.

but, i digress. digital music distribution is, as far as i can tell, the way of the future whether i like it or not (and i think i do), so it's time for me to get my ass in gear and get up on that.

and, back to the point at hand, i'm playing in detroit this weekend and i'll be there partying the rest of the weekend. i made a demf afterparty lister so i could keep track of all the wicked parties and hopefully some other people find it useful too. because detroit's streets make about zero sense to me, i added google map support to it and then stole the code so that i could add google map support to my chicago event list and vegan travel guide as well. neat-o.

and, on a sad note, jes just informed me that MOD. is closing at the end of june. man, what the hell am i supposed to do on mondays now? gonna have to pour a LOT out for that place.