Free Art & Technology Overview from Evan Roth on Vimeo.

Following on from a visit to Public Works on Friday, an organisation about public spaces and art John is involved with I thought most of their projects came off a bit dry, needed the artist input, something funny/humourous with a pop culture touch.

What I was thinking of was something more like the Free Art & Technology group over at Boing Boing (recently allegedly tagging a Google Street View car in Berlin so you can track it on GPS – probably as the comments say with something like this – ability to track stuff on GPS for $85? ME WANT!)

Like the Kopimi station and the Piratebay/Amazon add-on (piggybacking onto existing sites with artwork or counter-cultural things is very now – I assume this is Steve Lambert as I’ve just installed his Add-Art plugin which displays artworks instead of browser ads) and the GML graffiti robot arm Great projects which force the issue by humorously or intentionally breaking the law, activism, or just brilliant ideas…love the cheap Matrix bullet-time too.

The thing is like the scientists who get training about presentation and PR, you need to present your ideas to a wider public with a hook, a meme, a snappy idea or sentence. And if you’re scared of breaking laws or offending grant-making bodies you’ll not actually engage people – because people don’t exist in some safe padded Tellytubbies world those in charge would like them to live in.

Now if the architects and town planning bods over at Public Works got in bed with the rapper/hacker/artists over at FAT…that would be a marriage made in heaven. Or hell, depending on which (Google) view point

This is the role of the 21st century artist – less Klee and more KLF.

I so wish I had stuff like this when I was doing my degree and creating artwork, I was messing with relays and switch circuits and floorpads…but it was 1995, which unless you were in Silicon Valley with rich daddies you couldn’t afford the decent shizzle…now anyone can afford it!

So here’s Enter the Ninja – this year’s Tatu meets 2Unlimited meets GLC hybrid. What? You weren’t looking for that? Kak!

As you could have guessed, severely NSFW…

and Zef Side (Zef is Afrikaans for redneck) – love their manifesto/mantra

“To sum it all up, in this place, South Africa, you get a lot of different things: whites, coloureds, English, Afrikaans, Xhosa, Zulu, watookal—I’m like all these different things, all these different people, fucked into one person.”

Thanks to BoingBoing for turning me on to this…I ignored the original posts but the follow ups and Leon Botha (a very good artist) intrigued me…they are blowing up bigstyle (although mostly Internet fame you can’t cash down the bank). And a good interview here – as Yo-Landi put it their philosophy is ‘drive fast and play kak (shit) music loud. It’s a zef rap-rave jol (party), with lasers, smoke machines, 3D graphics, rappers… and everyone’s gonna be there.’ (my translations). Sounds good to me!

For a more academic take on Ninja and co go here – I read Koos Kombuis’s book about Voelvry and James Phillips (odd bloke) so it’s an interesting comparison but some of the politics mentioned there is dodge – yes there are and were progessive Afrikaners but it’s not a far stretch to connect apartheid with Afrikaners since they were in power and nearly all supporting those policies (why Voelvry was so sharply political, and did help the fall of apartheid – cos the ‘good’ Afrikaner kids weren’t supporting their parents bigotry – but it is a stretch to connect Die Antwoord with this movement!). But I can understand the attraction and tensions between British and Afrikaner white South Africans – John grew up there as a Scottish import (must have been annoying to be referred as ‘Inglesman’ when there were more than the English in SA

Anyway I think the ladies doth analyse too much – hearing Afrikaans in humourous GLC-style rap is really funny, fokken lekker And I’d rather these guys and gals get famous than the blandness that is B.E.P…they might be surreal performance art and all playing roles from a previous project – or be the ZA version of The Streets – but when it’s this fun, who actually gives a fokk?

* Japanese for cute, allegedly.

Love the kitten line, the BBC Micro comparison and ‘your dad’s got a beard! I bet he’s in Al Qaeda!’

Maybe their followup should be a cover/version of EMI about the blight that is record companies in all of this…

Thanks to Bob Levingbird for tipping me off about this.

The embedding wars continue…and it seems to me that the industry as it scrabbles for money is just shooting itself in the horse when the foot has bolted (did I get that right? ) – it is as Damien from OK GO writes:

we’ve got this ridiculous situation where the machinery of the old system is frantically trying to contort and reshape and rewire itself to run without actually selling music. It’s like a car trying to figure out how to run without gas, or a fish trying to learn to breath air.

Damien was describing their bands battle over license/country and embed (as in when you copy the code and put videos into your own webpage/profile/blog) restricted videos, realising that this is counter-productive and annoys fans.

Apparently this is all to do with advertising – the Ad revenue isn’t shared for embedded ads (although annoyingly YouTube STILL shows the ads an embedded videos – what IS with that?) as advertisings don’t like the idea of embedded videos possibly ‘hurting’ their brand by being embedded on any old site (say, a porn site or site of a rival or critical party…yes advertisers get with the 21st century, and the fact of mass comment and lack of control, but as we know like with music marketers they don’t have a clue(train) as yet)…

So when you have bands criticising their paymasters (in this case our old friends EMI) or like with Amanda Palmer criticising Warners for pulling her videos (and then created the wonderful song above ‘Please Drop Me’ to the tune of Moon River – asking fans to upload it to YouTube as a response to Warners), then you know something is very wrong in the state of DigiMark.

And I think this is counterproductive – as Damien and Amanda realise such freedom over their videos help build their career – to clamp down on embedding or sharing or streaming or posting low-quality MP3s is actually to stop the massive free-promotional tool that is the internet. It’s far worse when someone doesn’t actually give a shit and want to listen/post/play/embed your videos and music, believe me. To have their attention is a luxury – don’t waste it, or turn it off by silly restrictions – to lose that possibly a lifetime of attention for the sake of a few cents is really to cut your face off to spite your nose (again? did I do that right?) (thanks to chronicpaint for the link)

Conversation between Buddy Holly and Paul Cohen of Decca from Thursday February 28, 1957 wanting to release his songs they hated and didn’t want to release, but still wanted to hold onto for 5 years. One of them was ‘That’ll Be The Day’ and he went ahead and recorded and released his version against his contract – funnily enough on a Decca subsidiary, and then being signed as a solo artist back at Decca after the hitr – the rest is history…

Just think what would have happened if he ‘played by the rules’? (via boingboing)

The Crackdown Project Minimix by Billie Ray Martin on Mixcloud

Friend to Radio Clash and fellow Year-Zero-n (hmm must work on that collective noun) Celebrity Murder Party has been busy – not only remixing several of the upcoming remixes for Billie Ray Martin’s Crackdown Project releases (both remixes of Just Fascination and Crackdown) but also producing this promo minimix where you can hear some of the tracks, and also a mix for the Mininova release of a few of the mixes from the project (available on all friendly torrent programs at the link).

Not only is it interesting that Billie chose to release tracks via Mininova Content Delivery Service, but also shows the change in the musical landscape between free and paid; between getting people to take notice but also make money; getting what you give basically…torrent sites can either go either way after the crackdown (lol) – either become Napster with a paid model, to start again and fairly irrelevant and outgunned by the likes of iTunes, or offer the ‘free music’ as part of a promotional tool by artists who want to reach fans direct.

I do prefer the latter model, because the genie is out of the bottle – people will expect music for free from now on – but also people will support the music they like, buy special formats, support the artist. Try before you buy, basically…these models are not incompatible, only if your thinking is locked in 20th century thinking of physical formats…it’s still up in the air, but I think it’ll work. I’m drafting in my head a post about music marketing in the age of bittorrent and p2p actually, because although I think marketing is an evil dark art (not in a good way either) and follow Hicks creed, it’s also obvious to me that there are certain opportunities out there that aren’t being followed.

Certainly turning your fans into criminals and banning the sites will not work, as it never has historically. So respect to Billie for embracing the new technology; needs to be far more well-known and unknown people who see it as an opportunity rather than a threat, even if all the bits haven’t totally been worked out yet, it will fall into place.

Anyway on that note here’s one of the free mixes from the Mininova download, CMP’s remix of Just Fascination and mighty fine it is too – loads more where that came from from the bits I’ve heard I hear there is going to be a launch shindig (March 6th?) in Berlin with CMP and Phil Retrospector and others performing live on stage with Billie Ray Martin also – should be good ;-D

I did the dates/BUYBUYBUY spammage in the previous post so you know what to do if you likey. (And if you have a problem with that fair enough, endlessly promospam on blogs annoys me also, but can I point out none of us atm is snorting coke off hookers backs (well maybe Jez is ) and I am hopelessly in debt partly cos of working for free on this frigging site/podcast, so bring on the WAHMBULANCE loaded with cash, plz

Charlie Brooker is fast becoming the best commenter on the absurdities of TV, with intelligent analysis and critical comment. Well since Noel’s Telly Addicts anway…

Last night I went to the Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip warmup show, and mighty fine it was too…not been to the Borderline before, squirrelled secretly down a side street I’d passed through many times without knowing it was there, quite small so I got quite a close view of proceedings.

First on wass Losers…I’m ashamed I didn’t spot who this was, I’d heard the name but friends on Twitter reminded me this was Eddy Temple Morris’s band with a former Cooper Temple Clause and a drummer…what proceeded was a mashup/glitch/dance/indie crossover, kind of a mix of DJ set including samples of the likes of Gossip, Passion Pit (?), Candi Staton and many others I didn’t recognise – and a few live numbers – I thought the live numbers such as debut single ‘No Man is an Island’ (available free at that link) with a cheeky ‘Losers – Just a band’ drop in the middle – see video clip) were best, but liked the controllerism mashupglitchsampletronica DJ set meets heavy bass and real drums approach. After a quiet start really began to rock the crowd they finished on a cool version of You Got The Love with Candi on vocals…I do think a later slot would do them more justice.

Also blowing my mind was their VJ – rocking some cool animations/video live in sync, seemed to be using a MacBook with what looked like Ableton for video, loads of faders on screen with a small central video panel – any ideas what that was? ME WANT.

So after the warm up Dan Le Sac came onstage with a cheery wave and fired up a wonderfully stuttery ‘The Beat that My Heart Skipped’ and Scroobius Pip arrived, bottle of rose in tow. After some shenanigans involving a too-low keyboard and Scroobius admitted he was bloated and a bit slow due to ‘too much Venison pie’! they then launched into the first of the new songs, ‘Sick Tonight’, which with rapid fire rapping and evil dub/drum and bass bassline and skittery snares it’s a definite progression from Angles.

After that was a mix of oldies and newies – stand outs for me of the new tracks were ‘GB’ a ranty political track that should stoke some revolutionary flames and of course a triumphant ‘Get Better’ (which they reminded us is released as a single March 1st) which I have in full here: (most of the time out of respect for Dan & Dave I decided not to record whole bits, and anyone I hate those cunts who hold cameras and mobile phones aloft for hours at a time getting in the way – I was lucky where I was a pillar was behind me so I wasn’t blocking anyone’s view…I was dancing as well at parts hence the rather shakycam…well if you have a problem with that then you should’ve been there, you lazy fuckers

Oh and GB apparently went wrong providing unintentional humour as Dan said to the soundman straight-faced ‘Great Britain is broken!!!’ – also Dan had a new toy in the shape of a controller and was having fun stuttering, looping and swooping everything so apparently a few technical issues but I didn’t hear any! Loads of intentional humour too – Pip’s on-stage manner is less hiphop braggadacio and more music hall and very dry and arch – you can see why he likes Tommy Cooper.

Another good one was ‘Stake A Claim’ which I can’t remember much more of apart from the fact it was indeed, good and like all the new tracks very uptempo and bloopy (that’s the technical term)…less so was The Beat which as they say in ‘Fixed’ (which they also played) ‘I’m not dissing Dizzee Rascal’ but sounded more closer to a cynical ‘Bonkers’ cash-in ploy than it should coming from those two, rhyming the beat with the feet, just seemed a bit lazy dancefloor filler (in the other sense). They also played ‘Last Train Home’ which was a story about – surprisingly – the last train home to Essex and the slightly dodgy people that you meet, which was OK, could be a grower.

Of the old stuff as well as Fixed they played Angles with costume changes, and a great version of Thou Shalt Always Kill which I have in full on video, and
humorously someone kept requesting Tommy C but they weren’t going to play it so the last track ‘Letter From God to Man’ became ‘Letter from Tommy C to man’! That ended with a total Dan Le Sac knob-twiddling wig out, where it turned into a dance stormer – by then everyone was dancing like crazy.

Overall the new songs sound great – social commentary and conscience but with an uptempo danceable backing…the production seems less mid-range and rock/indie and more deeper, with subbass and rave basses coming to the fore (at least one track was totally a dirty MOAR WOBBUL bassline stomper that would make the likes of Jack Beats and AC Slater happy), sort of a more politically conscious ‘Bonkers’, with skittery beats and glitchy chopping. If there is any justice and going by the reaction to ‘Tongue in Cheek’ it should be massive…

It bodes well for the album ‘Logic Of Chance’ which drops on March 14th, and the tour a week or so later….rilly they should pay me for this promo, but I shall declare my interests in this matter – I think they are a fucking brilliant group who deserve far better exposure. That is all.