What inspired you to go the In Rainbows route with this album?

Trent: I think it’s just an awkward time right now to be a musician. The reality is that people think it’s okay to steal music. There’s a whole generation of people, that’s all they’ve known. I used to buy vinyl. Today, if you do put out a record on a label, traditionally, most people are going to hear it via a leak that happens two weeks — if not two months — before it comes out. There’s no real way around that. I’m truly saddened because I think music has been devalued, so that it’s just a file on your computer, and it’s usually free. But we can’t change that. What we can do is try to offer people the best experience that we can provide them. Will it work? I don’t know. But I think it’s a great way to get music out to people who are interested. At the end of the day, all I care about is the integrity of the music, and that the feeling of those who experience it is as untainted as possible. I’d rather it not be on an iPod commercial. I’d rather it not be a ringtone that you have to get with a free cell phone or any of that bullshit.

now that’s what i call a pragmatic approach.

the whole interview is here: Trent Reznor and Saul Williams Discuss Their New Collaboration, Mourn OiNK

Tags: p2p, filesharing, music, download, interview

saul williams is offering his upcoming album The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust as a free download to his fans in an approach similar to what radiohead recently did with their latest album in rainbows.
on the website you have the choice between two options, pay $ 5.- saying “I want to directly support the artists involved in the creation of this music.” or 0,- to say “I’m not concerned about that. I just want the music.” the only difference seems to be that you have a choice between 3 different file qualities, if you pay the 5.- bucks, whereas “only” the “192Kbps DRM-free LAME encoded MP3s along with a PDF booklet” is available for free. fair enough.

what i think they did better here: to point out that this money goes directly to the artists and to offer it at a very reasonable fixed price, which i was glad to pay. with radiohead i was in this weird bind, trying to figure out what an appropriate price to pay would be.

My Dearest Friends and Fans,

It is my greatest honor to present to you The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!, my new album produced by Trent Reznor and mixed by Alan Moulder. The wall of sound that we’ve created is tagged with such graffiti that a passerby would seek out doors and ways to ENTER. Once inside a world defined by dreams come true they’d find aligned with the simplest act of sharing what we treasure. Most people aren’t aware of the world of art and commerce where exploitation strips each artist down to nigger. Each label, like apartheid, multiplies us by our divide and whips us ’til we conform to lesser figures. What falls between the cracks is a pile of records stacked to the heights of talents hidden from the sun. Yet the energy they put into popularizing smut makes a star of a shiny polished gun. The ballot or the bullet for Mohawk or the mullet is a choice between new times and dying days. And the only way to choose is to jump ship from old truths and trust dolphins as we swim through changing ways. The ways of middlemen proves to be just a passing trend. We need no priests to talk to God. No phone to call her. And when you click the link below, i think it fair that you should know that your purchase will make middlemen much poorer…

NiggyTardust!

love,

Saul

Tags: saulwilliams, saul, williams, album, music

i didn’t do a whole lot of studio photography, but these two images i quite like.

the fierce and the tired.

poubelle was a punk from geneva i met at photo school.
ruud was a local (bern) barkeeper and bass player.

here’s the link to the set of all the black and white photos i have uploaded so far.

Tags: b&w, blackandwhite, black, and, white, photography, punk, switzerland

[teh glorious interweb what got stuck in my camino tabs this past week]

gmail goes imap

Turn Thunderbird into the Ultimate Gmail IMAP Client - “Gmail’s IMAP support roll-out this week had nerds all atwitter about the possibility of synchronized email access across devices, computers, and clients.” How-to!

How do I enable IMAP? - gmail now offers IMAP.

OiNK deb-oink

OiNK Database Didn’t ‘Self Destruct’, Wasn’t Encrypted But Users Safe? - “The rumor: The OiNK database was encrypted and self-destructed. The truth: It wasn’t and it didn’t but ex-users still might be safe. In the meantime, OiNK got fired from his job.”

Oink founder: We’re just like Google - “I don’t sell music to people, I just direct them to it. If somebody wants to illegally download music they are going to do it whether my site is there or not.” an interview.

Anti file-sharing laws considered - “The UK government could legislate to crack down on illegal file-sharers, a senior official has told the BBC’s iPM programme.”

The OiNK Fallout: Should Its Ex-Users Be Watching Their Backs? - “They should be very, very scared. There are at least two reasons why this is not just your average, everyday, run-of-the-mill file sharing copyright infringement: this involves music that has not yet been commercially released, and money changed hands.”

Time to clear up the murk about Oink - “for example, the implication that Oink was a subscription service is not true. It was private and, like many other sites, accepted donations from users, but - as most web entrepreneurs will tell you - that hardly ever covers your true costs.”

seasonal skullz^^

Skull-A-Day: 72. Papercraft Skull - papercraft skull with moveable jaw. here’s the .pdf [via bb]

I Want Your Skull - cool pumpkin skull stencils. .pdf to download here.

Wrath of the Death Worm! - For the Love of the Great Pumpkin - “Just in time for Halloween - the Jack O’ Lantern version of conceptual artist Damon Hirst’s “For the Love of God”

schmoose and abuse

Top 11 Geek T-Shirts - “T-shirts have come into their own as a form of media, one that uniquely documents messages and stories, not to mention emergent technologies and companies changing the way we use the Internet.”

Windows Machines Represented in Leopard With Blue Screen of Death - apple left “the blue screen of death” easter egg in leopard. “Oh, Apple. You shouldn’t have. It’s far too accurate” [via waxy]

BeastieMixes.com - “For the longest time I have been collecting Beastie Boys remixes, I’ve collected over 1800+ so far. They need a place where people can download them.” [via beatmixed]

Welcome to the world of social casual gaming - “MySpace has announced a partnership with casual gaming giant Oberon Media to create a dedciated gaming channel. Due for launch in January, the brilliantly named MySpace Games service will allow users to place free casual titles on their profile pages and then play them against friends.”

www.apb.com - GTA style MMO. the question if i would chose law enforcemnet or thug doesnt even come up.

Greenpeace Vs IPhone: Greenpeace Responds to Alarmist Claims, Admits Targeting Apple Grabs Headlines - “Greenpeace’s report on the iPhone was inaccurate and alarmist.” some apple fan-boy is mighty pissed, lol.

Tibetan monks beaten as police halt dissent - “Hundreds of Tibetan Buddhist monks celebrating the award of a US honour to the exiled Dalai Lama have clashed with Chinese police, resulting in an unknown number of injuries and arrests.”

ATYPYK::TALKBUBBLE - learn the basics, puzzle for kids. [via rebel-art]

italy

Paint the Town Red: Futurist Vandals at the Trevi - “Yesterday, October 19th, the waters of Rome’s famous Trevi Fountain turned blood red when a man threw paint into the basin in a bizarre act of vandalism apparently inspired by the Futurists of the early 20th century.”

The Levi-Prodi law and the end of the Internet - italy to demand blogs to register: “The Levi-Prodi law lays out that anyone with a blog or a website has to register it with the ROC, a register of the Communications Authority, produce certificates, pay a tax, even if they provide information without any intention to make money.”

the world [of warcraft]

Farm Fetish - in the US more people play WoW than work on a farm.

World of Warcraft tips from a drug addict - “Here we have this French drug addict (I think he’s French anyway) who, while trying to talk like a gangster, succeeds at making a complete ass out of himself.” scary stuff.

swiss/german focus

Hilfe! Page Rank halbiert! Das Bloggen ist sinnlos geworden! - apparently swiss bloggers be moaning regarding the cuts in page rank they experienced…

Nazi-Dance-Trash für Teenie-Handys - “Richtig gruselig ist allerdings der Es-spricht-der-Führer-Adolf-Hitler-house-track-ringtone. Das Leben ist verrückter als Scheiße.”

[stream: del.icio.us/pieceoplastic | links or subscribe to this RSS feed]

Tags: linkdump, gmail, imap, oink, skulls, wow, italy

[via vvork - … - … - … - …]

and now for some spot-the-difference:

so? did you find them?

Tags: art, nazi, salute

BBC News: Huge pirate music site shut down
BBC TV News on youtube: OiNK Website Shutdown
DJ Rapture defends OiNK: DEFENDING THE PIG - OINK CROAKS

Oink had everything by certain artists. Literally, everything. I searched for ‘DJ Rupture’ and found every release I’d ever done, from an obscure 7″ on a Swedish label to 320kpbs rips of my first 12″, self-released back in 1999. It was shocking. And reassuring. The big labels want music to equal money, but as much as anything else, music is memory, as priceless and worthless as memory…

About a week after I shipped out orders of the first live CD-r Andy Moor & I did, it appeared on Oink. Someone who had purchased it directly from me turned around and posted it online, for free. I wasn’t mad, I was just more stunned by the reach… and usefulness of the site.

If sharing copywritten music without paying for it were legal, than Oink was the best music website in the world.

[all via waxy]

Official OiNK.CD Memorial and News
OiNK Clone Rocker Report

Tags: p2p, filesharing, legal, copyfight

liebe welt,

bitte bitte glaubt mir, nicht alle schweizer sind xenophobische, nationalistische hetzer; es handelt sich “bloss” um knapp 3 von 10 … DREI von ZEHN????

ich schäme mich für dieses resultat.

die svp flirtet in einem perfid kalkulierten wahlkampf mit rassistischen themen, geht mehrmals haarscharf an die grenze des erlaubten, erhält mehrere verweise, und trotzdem geht die rechnung auf: die nationalkonservative partei muss leider als die grosse gewinnerin dieser wahlen gelten.

ich schäme mich für unser land.

im kanton bern müssen die resultate aus sicht der sp besonders als schockierend gelten: sie verliert 2 sitze, die grünen gewinnen jedoch bloss 1 sitz, während die svp 2 dazugewinnt. kann es sein, dass gewisse wähler direkt von der sp zur svp abgewandert sind? kleine highlights sind die wahlen von ricardo lumengo (kumuliert, obschon ich sonst grün wähle) und alec von graffenried. auch nicht schlecht: die schweizer demokraten um bernhard hess verlieren ihren sitz.

resultate von hier.

nächste frage: wohin sollen wir auswandern?

what’s this? too depressed to translate, try google.

Tags: swiss, elections, switzerland

aber trotzdem, bloss da sitzen und warten und nichts tun geht auch schlecht…

[photo 2: by my mum]

Tags: swiss, politics, elections, switzerland

[teh glorious interweb what got stuck in my camino tabs this past week]

take off panties and shirts as protest and such

Women’s panties threaten Burmese Junta - “The Burmese military is facing an unexpected threat from female opponents to its regime - a deluge of panties dispatched to the country’s embassies in a “culturally insulting gesture of protest” against its recent crackdown on protestors.”

No Shirts at Improv Everywhere - “For our latest mission, 111 men of all shapes and sizes shopped shirtless in the Abercrombie and Fitch store on 5th Avenue here in New York.”

Police: Pantless Man Claims Leprechaun Opened Door - “A man was caught Tuesday morning inside a car with his pants down. Leblanc told them he had done drugs and believed that a leprechaun had let him into the car.”

how to of the week

How To Wash Your Hands - “Which brings us back to the main point of this post: How to Wash Your Hands.”

online video killed the …

Absolutely Hilarious Bathroom Mirror Prank Video - “This prank is absolutely hilarious. Replace the mirror in a bathroom with a window pane, place a set of identical twins in identical rooms opposite each other and proceed to prank everyone who walks in.”

Bad day at work - “Bad day at work and you thought this was a kick back job.”

reboiled: a social network for two - that brilliant ze frank’s song now animated.

radiohead cd

why P2P can be a hard habit to break - “Radiohead’s innovative digital distribution arrangement for their new album, In Rainbows, lets people pay whatever they want for the music, including nothing at all. Despite that, BitTorrent swapping of the album has been on the level of other major releases.”

Please Buy “In Rainbows” On CD. Please. - “Radiohead’s much-debated decision to let fans choose what they pay for its new album online is a promotional tactic to boost sales of compact discs, the band’s management said yesterday.”

schmapple

Apple to open up iPhone software - “Apple boss Steve Jobs has said that outside developers will now be allowed to make add-on software for the iPhone.” is this just like he promised to make apple greener?

Mac OS X Leopard - 300+ New Features - the new OS comes with some impressive new gimmicks.

iPhone’s hazardous chemicals - “Scientific tests, arranged by Greenpeace, reveal that Apple’s iPhone contains hazardous chemicals. The tests uncovered two types of hazardous substances, some of which have already been eliminated by other mobile phone makers.”

schmooze and abuse

A Bona Fide Stephen Colbert Presidential Candidacy Might Be a Bona Fide Violation of Federal Law - “does he know that if he succeeds in using his show to help him score a slot on South Carolina ballots as a bona fide 2008 contender, he’ll also violate federal campaign law?” Colbert for President!

Cubicle Freakout - Vent your office stress - frenetic cubicle game, i was told to: “take the rest of the day off. the internet told you so”. ok then… that’s ofc what i like to hear.

A Times Square Pedestrian arrested for standing around - “observed defendant along with a number of other individuals standing around” on a public sidewalk in June 2004. Mr. Jones was “not moving, and that as a result of defendants’ behavior, numerous pedestrians in the area had to walk around defendant”. soon: minimal speed limits while walking in crowded areas.

Viacom opens up Daily Show archive - “Viacom has put online the entire eight year archive of its top rating comedy series, Daily Show with Jon Stewart, in a move which will be closely watched by all the major networks, advertisers, telcos and the burgeoning new media video industry.” the battle is on.

Phone Fingers - “Our Phone Fingers are made for iPhone’s touch screen to prevent smudges and fingerprints. With the Phone Fingers you won’t have to clean your touch screen all the time and it’s an eye catcher too.” while i agree smudge on touch screens is gross, i hope this is not serious.

Guns for Girls and Glamorous Weaponry! - a hello kitty AK-47. is this sad or mad?

Top bloggers reveal how to build traffic off-blog without spending a dime - “If you had 2-hours a day to devote to no-cost, off-blog (even off-line) marketing for your blog, what would you do?” I posed this very question to a collection of some of the world’s top bloggers and social network marketers… and here’s what they revealed:” the most stunning conclusion, they all said something completely different.

STRIDA - elegant, if odd looking folding bike. [via swissmiss]

Global hunt for child-sex suspect - “Interpol had appealed for public help after experts unscrambled digitally-swirled internet photos of the suspect.”

Aaron Hobson - great, dark, cinematic photography series [via rebel:art]

BBC online to go free over wi-fi - “The BBC’s online services will be made available free of charge at thousands of wi-fi hotspots around the UK.”

Rebel Nuns Evicted From Polish Convent - “Police evicted 65 rebellious ex-nuns Wednesday from a convent they illegally occupied for two years after defying a Vatican order to replace their mother superior, a charismatic leader who had religious visions. Several nuns, many of whom appeared to be in their 20s, screamed at police, calling them “servants of Satan,” as they were escorted out and into waiting buses.”

swiss/german focus

Miss Syl & H1- - upcoming exhibit at buro discount: rockets and outer space. opens 27.10.

The LIFT08 program explained - “Tonight we announced the 2008 program at an event with the local members of the LIFT community, and here is a short rundown of what will happen for those who couldn’t be here.”

D*Face vs. Chapman Brothers - “Mainstream-Künstler klauen Idee eines Underground-Künstlers.”

[stream: del.icio.us/pieceoplastic | links or subscribe to this RSS feed]

Tags: linkdump, radiohead, apple, burma

there was a time in ancient history, when looking for new music meant visiting actual record stores and maybe buying music magazines.
now i find most of my music online, and, this is a little scarier, through tv series. outch.

well, weeds, really. even people who don’t like weeds as a tv show will usually agree, that weeds comes with an excellent soundtrack.

during the two most recent weeds episodes i discovered two new bands, that i really really like. man man and that 1 guy. both bands come with singers that could be the bastard sons of tom waits, their music comes full of drunken fervor, often tilting towards barely withheld frenzy.

we are man man - myspace
man man: i, Man face

that 1 guy - myspace
the 1 guy: buttmachine [video]

now for something completely different: this next track is an excellent sound collage mixed from game sounds, the music keeps surprising and evolving.

bob ostertag: w00t [via rebel:art]

Tags: music, podcast, mp3