[FRIAM] Steaming services

[Steve Smith]

On 8/22/21 8:28 AM, ⛧ glen wrote:
> It does both, perhaps counterintuitively. I'd argue it facilitates traffic between demes/cliques, but inhibits the content of demes/cliques.

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*"

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.

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.  

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.

Terry (of WMD/Belmont fame) is now the bass player for Queen Chief in
Portland OR.  Their preferred streaming platform seems to be
bandcamp.com 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.  

They just released a couple of singles this year.  A stoner rock
rendition of Hank William's classic "Kaw-Liga
<https://open.spotify.com/album/2U88jwoi9ZKRHjTgG1YIDu>" and their own
In my Eyes <https://open.spotify.com/album/1oaVT5IS8jIm6xpJ2RlH2o>.

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)...

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.

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.

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.

It's a wild new world, even though everything feels pretty much the same
(only different).

- Steve

>
>
> On August 22, 2021 6:51:02 AM PDT, Jochen Fromm <jofr at cas-group.net> wrote:
>> 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://open.spotify.com/track/1MdsletWuIR9ItEnitWRwp?si=yZPJfu01R_6RAmw9ang8mQDo you feel streaming services restrict our access to music or do they extend it? :-/-J.
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