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my point is that our connection to a pool of infinite instant access product has had massively disorientating effects. i dont think that physical format fetishism is a valid solution, altho it does have its merits. but there is an element of nostalgic conservatism for the good old days of fordist punks buying vinyl after a days work. while vinyl does offer superior audio quality - thats really not what yr paying for even tho you pretend you are. oh look what i bought off volcanic tongue its so nice and shiny and new and its mine mine mine! £15 for it but it will just sit on the shelf because im already bored of it from my mp3 player cos it took 5 days to arrive in the post. what is this nostalgia for punk as product? maybe flac is the (immeadiate) future, with a laptop hooked up to a good preamp, but the finality of the start and finish time of the album, forever sealed into a vacuum of its own materiality - is not. the new physicality that sustains it is computer hardware/memory/bandwidth/instruments plugged into the laptop/software/video cameras/harddrives/cdrs instead of cds, jewel cases,paper inlays and record store racks. live, real time jamming from laptop to laptop is on the horizon, it will gain popularity when bandwidth and speed increase. people tuning into online jam channels. using the entire of the computer, not just the play button and speakers. websites AS album art not just a grave for it. with online video - still images are not the only option for album art. destabilisation of the frontman ego. poets tune in and out speaking over the live jam. lurkers on the edges (or software) edit and cut out worthwhile bits. yr own words fired back and forth at you. once spoken grappled grasped and edited by anyone. the new underground space - text fired out at anytime - no more of these fucking sites imitating the formats of old newspapers. in the new underground space noone needs to listen to the same song twice. bands form online - collaborating - elitist groups that can kick out anyone they dont like from joining in just like a mod can ban you from a board - groups share ideas and come together to collaborate and create new strategies - thus new patterns emerge and new connections can be made. i come back from the pyschiatric hospital where i used my hidden recording devices to gather tapes of schizophrenes gibbering - upload it - cut up and deconstruct - mix it with others - good source of vocals. everyday this week at 6pm there is a specific piece of a jam being broadcast by one group - since i am listening to it everyday at 6 oclock i am able to notice new patterns and repeating but altered moves in relation to the previous days jam. thus the listening expieriance is totally changed. music no longer has to be devised in a straight linear form in private and then repeated on a certain public stage or recording booth. or instead improvised on stage from beginning to end. think of the conventions in tv shows that are broadcast at the same time each week.
this jam is hot and so parts of it appear at 9pm on friday on this dudes compilation show - its widely heard cos the dude is respected for his connections to the streams and trusted to pluck out good moves for a representative whole of a certain section of the undergrond. genres are formed from a template as variable as the styistic differences and similarities of what you do on yr screen. in a certain scene sunday to tuesday are the days when most people go back over the jamming of the past week and the peak of the weekends and edit and assemble their work. were on a jam channel and reading out poetry thru my laptop mic - everyone else is listening - some people who arent listening right now but like my stuff have put tags on me so their recording my transmissions - as i read someone else is jamming along with fuckknows what instruments - some of what i speak might end up as a sample of someone elses peice - one of my lines might be the most talked about vocal hook of one of the maddest friday night jams - maybe most of it while just be spoken and not provoke and response - good - cos thats the way it should be - it only needs to be said once - if i keep repeating it and noone digs it then people wont listen to me - one of the last lines provokes more response - like backing vocals - harmonising with me is someone else - meanwhile loads of people are recording and editing and added affects to the lines - afterwards they will send me their work - i can see exactly who is listening and who is recording and what jams im active in - someone wants to dance so they turn on their webcam - everyones digging it so people are asking them would they show up friday and dance along to some of their jams - this dancing chick is developing quite a following - she brings credibility cos shes appeared in some cool stuff lately - people boast about having her present in their jams - someone else is reading words now - firing out unrelated garbled syntax- new connections and forms of language - im getting nudged by people - tiny boxes are appearing at one part of their screen - the people are nudging me with videos that they are playing along to the jam right now and they want me to see - i click on one which has got 15 other people watching - its good and syncs up well with the jam - the dude who is playing the video often collaborates with his partner who edits the video in realtime - splicing in different footage - these two dudes are jamming away - now i check the dudes stats - every particular group of jammers have preset conventions that they have decided upon in advace of the jam. (like in a song when the drum comes in and when the bass comes in etc.) - a stat box pops up telling me that in 25 seconds these dudes are obliged to add some gtr because it is one of their presets. so i know in 25 seconds some gtr is gonna be played - this syncs up well because in my group we have our own gtrist who has a preset to come in in 30 seconds - in 30 seconds when his channel opens his gtr will be audible to everyone on the jam. as the jam goes on because i have a lot of people connected to my jam i gain the priveledge to invite new musicians into the jam - other people can't do it at this moment because they haven't got enough connections - i announce to all the jammers that im gonna invite a drummer into the jam - i click something and an icon of a drumkit appears on everyones sidescreen with a counter counting down from 1min to 0 when he's gonna start playing. its all interconnected - our moves are gaining interest from other jam streams - people skirt around the edges of it peaking in and slowly edging their sounds in - we either push them out or let them in like a newcomer to an orgy. on my sidescreen i click on a scroller which replaces the mouse im using at the moment - this scroller moves the focus of my audio attention over a map of the jam - so i can focus on certain parts of the sound - i can listen in to the people on the edges playing their instruments to check them out - i can make the drums louder or highlight a particular sound i like in the mix. i can see where everyone elses audio attention is focused - all the listeners have avatars on the map and tend to congregate in spots where their friends like to listen in. i fire off some messages to some people who look cool who are realtively inactive in a jam far away - i fire them over a 30 second clip of what we're doing to intice them to come - the jam is going well - im getting enthusiastic texts from people who are reccing and editin it - hypnotic moves - quite a crowd is gathering - when things get heavy later on in the night people will prob broadcast vids of themselves fucking and masterbating and dancing to this jam - if we can keep up the pace and their attention - ive let in another gtrist - he has a link to the gtrist who is currently playing - the link alerts him when his friend is playing certain riffs so he can jump in and play along - as the jam goes on people are firing out ideas of what direction they want it to head in - we agree to shift and slow it down in 3 mins time - i run programmes that analyse the frequency and spectrum of the jam so far - they present me with print out patterns of it - i send out these patterns to everyone and they all send back patterns from past jams that their programmes say is a close match - thus we are able to plot the trajectory of our jam - the times when certain instruments or sounds come in and out - i decide at some point we want a really crazy freak out so i invite a painter - whenever he starts to paint over the video i set some sounds to sync up to his painting - his brushstrokes of colour are guiding along some of the sounds - new footage generated is spliced in - loads of people are skirting around the edges of this jam - sending in their ideas and strategies for conclusion - i look at their images and see which i think fits with ours - somebody is playing sped up footage of concrete statues crumbling - someone else who has the same footage is thus connected to the jam because when they click on their footage they are told someone is playing it in a certain jam right now - this person joins in and starts to jam - playing short bursts of footage of the crumbling statues and editing the colours - themes are being formed - someone decides to play out some sounds of concrete - someone else turns it into a beat - in reaction to this footage and sound someone else joins in with lyrics that perfectly fit in and everyones wowed by the cool connection.
thus the new format of art is closest to a pyschotic hallucination - a stream of unreal vision/hearing. we will look back on the seperation between music and video as archaic. old pictures of massive record collections will provoke the reaction: "You mean, back then people just listened to recordings of each other with nothing to look at?"
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