<div dir="auto"><br><span style="font-family:sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">He *hates* Alexa, Amazon, and especially Amazon Music.</span><br><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature" dir="auto"><br></div><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature" dir="auto"><br></div><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature">What is there to hate? They just play music you request.</div><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature" dir="auto"><br></div><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature" dir="auto">---<br>Frank C. Wimberly<br>140 Calle Ojo Feliz, <br>Santa Fe, NM 87505<br><br>505 670-9918<br>Santa Fe, NM</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 12:47 PM Steve Smith <<a href="mailto:sasmyth@swcp.com">sasmyth@swcp.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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On 8/22/21 8:28 AM, ⛧ glen wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>It does both, perhaps counterintuitively. I'd argue it facilitates traffic between demes/cliques, but inhibits the content of demes/cliques.</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
<p>I am a sucker for local AM radio when traveling... to put my
finger on the pulse of the locals, as it were. What music they
listen to, what their news-of-choice leans toward, and what they
are buying/selling/trading with one another. "If you can hear
this station, what you hear *might* be relevant to you *right
now*"<br>
</p>
<p> When internet radio stations started popping up (KTAO in Taos
being an early adopter), I found myself sampling these local
stations around the world... one in particular being in Australia
(forget the call sign/town) and having a strong familiarity to the
myriad country AND western stations up and down the rockies and
out into the plains of the US West, but with an Aussie accented DJ
of course. Unfortunately it didn't replicate the experience
because I was patently NOT there... I could NOT plan a detour to
catch the local farmer's market or check out a local joint (where
there burgers would have pineapple and plum sauce instead of
pickles and ketchup)... But what I was most struck by was that
they were playing 95% American Mainstream (C&W) music and
referencing OUR icons of music deeply/exclusively. Only
occasionally would I catch a "local" artist (Australeonesia?) I
felt simultaneously expanded and constrained.</p>
<p>When I moved to a small city/big town on the border
(DouglasAZ/Agua Prieta SA) our first neighbors were a Mexican
American family who were one of the local bands that played every
venue, mostly rock but with their own ranchera stylization
often. They would sit around evenings playing a wide range of
music, including the father, a sister and a younger brother (maybe
5? too young to participate in the public events). We moved away
from that house within 6 months but I continued to hear them the
whole 8 years I lived in that town, they probably played at both
of my proms and any other public musical event I might have
attended. What never crossed my mind (until now) was that for
the 4 years I was a Disc Jockey, I never heard them play on air,
nor was I motivated/inclined to seek them out. Why not? Linda
Ronstadt (100 miles away) was hitting it big from similar roots,
why not them? I guess because they weren't on the Billboard Top
100 charts they sent us every month, telling us what was hot and
what was not? They had no route to get known beyond the local
bars and public venues. <br>
</p>
<p>Both of my daughters partnered with aspiring musicians as they
came of age. There have been several bands involved and those
partners even occasionally found time to make music together
(though never recorded together). These bands never made it
beyond local recognition... "Billy and the Belmonts", "Oktober
People", "Weapons of Mass Destruction" all come to mind. And yet
one of them was going on a self-promoted tour of the west when we
were in Berkeley, CA for a year and in fact, totally by
coincidence, had gotten booked at an Irish Pub ("Starry Plough")
just a short walk from our apartment (actually probably the
closest watering hole to our apartment). It was just off
Telegraph, right on the Oakland border (as was our back fence)...
in what other world (pre/sans Internet) could a band like that
find a pub like that? While Terry (daughter's now husband) had
the resources (as a Technical College instructor) to own a van,
mix their own music on Garage Band, cut their own CDs and print
their own T-shirts (aka Merch)... They would have been sleeping
in his van the whole way (instead of being gifted couch-stays by
their nascent mySpace fan base) and would have had to make a LOT
of phone calls and snail-mail inquiries to secure the venues they
were able to do online through the digital social networks circa
2005. Their music was out there for sampling on MySpace and
while all that (the bands as well as MySpace) are all defunct and
rotting away in digital history, it made it a lot further than I
think it could have in the days of vinyl or cassette tape. I do
still have CDs of their music and it is ripped to my hard drive as
well... but can't find any of it to speak of online 8 years after
dissolution. My t-shirts are all rags now, they were made on
budget blanks I'm sure.<br>
</p>
<p>Terry (of WMD/Belmont fame) is now the bass player for Queen
Chief in Portland OR. Their preferred streaming platform seems to
be <a href="http://bandcamp.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">bandcamp.com</a> which seems to be *trying* to provide a direct
route from artist to audience, but unspurprisingly Alexa doesn't
support Bandcamp and while they also stream on Spotify, my
understanding of that service is that they won't see any
significant income from that stream. I don't believe any of the
band members depends on the band for a significant source of
income, Terry certainly doesn't, though it may support his
recording/instrument collecting habits somewhat. <br>
</p>
<p>They just released a couple of singles this year. A stoner rock
rendition of Hank William's classic "<a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/2U88jwoi9ZKRHjTgG1YIDu" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Kaw-Liga</a>"
and their own <a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/1oaVT5IS8jIm6xpJ2RlH2o" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">In
my Eyes</a>.</p>
<p>Spotify refers me right away to bands (I presume equally
struggling/indie) like King Black Acid, Royal Fuz, RZRS, and
Hurriah. While I like QC's lyrics and musical "style" it is all
too high energy for my old ears/soul, so I tend to listen to a new
track or album a few times when it comes out, but don't have it
ripped to my car sound system nor pull it up regularly (though In
my Eyes is thumping/chanting away in the background as I type
this)...</p>
<p>Mary's son (who edits bills for the TX legislature by day) is
also a drummer in an indie band in Austin and they eschew
streaming in favor of the (semi) classic medium of CDs and
live-shows. They gently dissolved last year after a 10 year
run... the quarterly live-shows in various dive-bars were what
was keeping them going (emotionally/creatively?)... and they
also have all hit middle age.<br>
</p>
<p>Digital/Online/Streaming has definitely changed the fitness
landscape for aspiring independent artists and for music buffs.
Mary's son is a total movie/music buff and shares his listening
time between classic vinyl and the flood of new music coming to
him over his own social networks from friends of friends of
friends who are independent singer-songwriters/bands.</p>
<p>I like Glen's gesture toward analyzing this in terms of
network/graph models... I think the data is out there for anyone
to gather/study up to a point. Josh's (Mary's son) collection of
vinyl and hand-cut CDs probably is hidden for the most part from
any database, though he *might* not be astute enough to turn off
Google/Android's "what music is playing right now" service...
maybe what he listens to is being analyzed on some Google Brat's
Friday Project right now? He *hates* Alexa, Amazon, and
especially Amazon Music.<br>
</p>
<p>It's a wild new world, even though everything feels pretty much
the same (only different).</p>
<p>- Steve<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>
On August 22, 2021 6:51:02 AM PDT, Jochen Fromm <a href="mailto:jofr@cas-group.net" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer"><jofr@cas-group.net></a> wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>In the last virtual FRIAM meeting Jonathan Zingale mentioned that streaming services confine our access to music, because they mainly offer mainstream music.IMHO they also broaden our access to music: as a European I can listen to music from all around the world. I have for example German, Italian, Australian, British, American and Spanish playlists on Spotify. This weak I have listened for instance to a Spanish songhttps://<a href="http://open.spotify.com/track/1MdsletWuIR9ItEnitWRwp?si=yZPJfu01R_6RAmw9ang8mQDo" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">open.spotify.com/track/1MdsletWuIR9ItEnitWRwp?si=yZPJfu01R_6RAmw9ang8mQDo</a> you feel streaming services restrict our access to music or do they extend it? :-/-J.
</pre>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
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