Comics Rock!

As a kid, I loved rock n' roll and comics with equal abandon. Both were gifts of escape; the comic books came from my older brother, the rock n' roll records were left behind by an American draft-dodger my parents had offered sanctuary. In both cases, I don't remember my first contact; the coloured pages and the black grooves were things I began picking up and exploring long before my permanent memories were formed.

By the earliest and most awkward phase of adolescence, comics and music both dominated my attention; I recall one summer that revolved around my love for both The Doors and The X-Men ("People are strange...").

But girls. As girls went from being bewildering remote creatures, to close but still bewildering creatures comics became a mark of immaturity that I could ill afford to bear. I never stopped reading comics entirely but I poured so much of my obsessive nature into music that there wasn't much left over. When I did visit comic shops, I was often put off by the gimmick-driven garishness of the nineties glut and then again by steroid-and-revenge addled comics of the post-9/11 era.

Things have changed, though. Nowadays, the women who matter to me consider comic books and rock n' roll albums as equally quaint. Rock n' roll, as I love it, is at a low ebb (and I survived the late eighties!) not dead by any means but still short of a few invigorating scenes or sounds. Comics, on the other hand are in a particularly strong phase with Marvel, Image and the always-dependable Fantagraphics putting out a fairly rich array of material. Plus there's the massive trove of material I missed since the eighties ended!

I'm a phase driven man, my obsessions wax and wane, so I think of this as just another of the never-ending shifts in my cultural proclivities. But the comics are back for the long run. So, dear readers, (are there any of you left?) you can expect some comic coverage on here from now till when I pack this blog away. But, worry not the life-ruining power of music will never be neglected here!


Now it's your turn, MRML readers, do you read comics? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments section!


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The Twitter Tirade

Some disdain micro-blogging site Twitter, launched in 2006 [!], for  the glib shallowness that can result from the site's enforced brevity. A lot of those critiques of the limitations of 140 charter tweets ring true but yet still the site's reach grows. So, in the interest of moving past disdain and into qualified acceptance, I present my take on Twitter:

1. It's chaotic
As someone said, the signal to noise ratio on Twitter is insane. Between the links to worthwhile articles, musical minutiae and little chiseled jewels of snark there is an endless stream of inanity. So, as a wheat-chaff separator, it's pretty porous, unlike, say Google Reader (R.I.P.). This problem can be minimized, of course, by simply not following (or unfollowing) the Twitter twits.

2. It's partisan
After I followed the hilarious ant-Republican LOLGOP and a few like-minded sorts my feed quickly suffered epistemic closure. To counteract the onslaught of snappy, pre-digested soundbites, I added Matt Lewis, Ross Douhat, Ramesh Ponnuru and some American Conservative columnists to keep the mental door ajar.

3. It's direct
Between followers, hashtags, @usernames, favorites (sic) and re-tweets you're more likely to come into direct contact with the people you're writing about than anywhere else. This can lead to a leveled, more democratic discourse or it can lead to petty back-biting but that's somewhere between a glitch and a feature.

4. It's addictive.
Despite the wide array of shallow tweeters, there's still a slew of people with things to say and links to share. So, whether its' columnists who never sleep like Matt Yglesias, curious curators like Eric Alper, forgotten bands on the re-rise like Death, Twitter-critics like JADEDPUNKHULK, political activists like ShitHarperDid there is always something going on...

Until the next platform comes along to re-wire/fuck-up our methods of communication, Twitter still holds much in the way of possibilities. Come check out what I do (yes, Twitter is also heavy on self-promotion) and hopefully I'll give you some good things to read, hear and see.


IF YOU'RE A READER HERE, PLEASE FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER!

Follow @jeffen69

Why the Hiatus?

Sorry, no one obvious reason for the hiatus but if you wish to know more (and if not STOP NOW!), here are some of the thoughts rattling around inside my thick skull.


1) My Life
Y'ever wake up at 4:00 a.m. and ask, "What the fuck am I doing with my life"? Yeah, it's part of getting old (or being David Byrne) but some questions need to be answered. It's not that this blog is to blame for my oh-so-cliché early-morning navel-gazing (apparently I've already charged music itself with all the life-ruining) but it does eat up a surprising amount of my time.

2) Uploading
It seems every storage locker (Sharebee, MediaFire, RapidShare etc.) falls eventually, taking all your uploads with it. Then you have to decide if you're going to restore material or not and blah, blah, blah. To get to the point, offering out-of-print, unavailable music has gotten ever-more complicated over the years and remains a looming concern for me personally.

3) Blogger
It seems the audience for a lot of blogs, MMRL included*, is shrinking and that decline may spur Google, who are willing to sacrifice any of their creations to the Baal that is Google+, to disembowel this great platform. This fear of Google gutting Blogger the way it did Reader is argument enough to eye the future warily.

4) Company
So, not only are audiences in decline but a lot of my Blogger friends have quit over the years and since new music blogs seem relatively rare, this little corner of the internet is definitely feeling a bit endangered.

5) Commenters
I've got a lot of regular (and proudly irregular) commenters and, truth is, it is they who have kept me in business this long. But sometimes there still seems to be a worrisomely low level of idea-sharing both here and on a lot of the music blogs I frequent. There's any number of reasons for this, which I've covered ad nauseum on other 'where-the-fuck-are-the-comments posts' over the years. Suffice it to say here, that I'm currently looking at the different impediments to dialogue, such as the fact that it's harder to leave a comment, or a note of encouragement, on Blogger then it is on many other social networks...

6) Social Networks
Sigh. I hate Facebook and I'm not sure I can even make a group page entirely unconnected to my actual name there anymore, so I'm giving Twitter (another) shot. If this Twit shit sticks, I'll do some kind of Grand Opening post (you can see my sad little feed on the widget to your right) but in the meantime it's just a low-level experiment.


This isn't meant as a laundry list of complaints (and I've re-read it looking for excess whinging), just as a catalog of the major thoughts I've reviewing before taking the next step. 

Feel free to add your voice to the comments section.


* That said, despite being an almost post-less month I've been racking up huge visitor numbers due to a couple of old posts making the rounds - t'is a strange ole world...

Powerpearl Pause

Comments have totally fallen off (but not downloads!*), so I'll take a break or maybe try something different...


*
Vol. 1 = 211 D/L

Vol. 2 = 157 D/L

Vol. 3 = 129 D/L

Vol. 4 = 100 D/L

Mediafire Sucks: Now What?

Music Ruined My Life is not ending just because Mediafire gutted its collection of out-of-print/never-in-print rarities. We are, however, considering, what comes next. After all,  I was crushed when MassMirror died in the early days but that loss ended up being a good kick in the ass for me. So post-Mediafire, there are a number of questions that need to be sorted through.

1. What does Mediafire do next?

Does anyone know how Mediafire proceeds after they lock your account? Do they delete your account or your files or what?

2. Does MRML need to offer regular downloads?

I think of this blog as one that spreads unavailable music to people and hence the downloads have always seemed important to me. Are they to you? Would you still visit with less links? I make a point of regularly writing posts with no downloads and they receive a comparable number of visitors and as many, or more, comments than the download-laden posts. What do you think?

3. What is the best site for uploading files now?

The last post on my hosting problems (see HERE), generated a flurry of positive and constructive comments. The bulk of the suggestions centered around what places are now viable that Megaupload has been shut down and Mediafire and Sendspace have buckled under. I'm not looking for a sleazy site that pays people to upload illegal content  - just a place that allows the unavailable to become available. Mediafire was once a great site and I never really resented them for removing content they considered  'grey'.

Here are some the of alternatives you suggested :


DivShare 
great place for uploading individual songs but it has a storage limit  of 5GB of which I'm half way to just by sharing a song or two here and there.

Rapidshare
For no reason they closed my free account years ago but many of the links are still alive today. 

Hotfile 
One of those 'reward' places...


4Shared
Interesting possibility but everyone who d/l's needs to have an account with 4Shared


A Drive
A pay site. Not to whinge, but I spend enough of my time on this blog that the concept of spending cold hard cash to continue just seems perverse. Would MRML readers be willing to foot the cost of an account at this or any other site?


uploaded.to
A bit of a mystery...


Your specific thoughts on these (or other options) is needed.

- -

There's another round of questions to come but worry not, we'll be back...

The Gutting of Mediafire and Me

My Mediafire account has been locked.

The next stop, I imagine is account deletion.

Then the otherwise-unavailable music this blog has exposed will be lost once again.


As for me, I have to figure out what to do next...

And the Gutting of Mediafire Begins...

I've got my first take-down notices, plural, from Mediafire this week. Traditionally things would just disappear from my 'shared files' list but now they're getting aggressive and taking down things like this live Mike Ness bootleg that has never been commercially available in any way, shape or form.

Artists and their representatives do have a right to have material taken down, whether it's a commercial release or not and no one here disputes that. However, I wish that all concerned understood that blogs like this one, and so many more, exist to give exposure to under-appreciated or as yet little-known artists  We intend no harm to musicians or those who work with them and are willing to do our research to ensure our blogs are not undercutting the very artists we seek to elevate.

I've spoken with dozens of musicians whose work has been featured here from Joey Keithley from DOA to Graham Parker to Dr. Frank of the Mr. T Experience to TV Smith of The Adverts to Kurt Bloch of Fastbacks and many, many others, all of whom have been happy to note that we celebrate music here, keeping alive things that were neglected in some way. Seriously, in four and a half years not one artist has been anything less than happy at what they see here.

So pull down our files, if you believe that what's best in this day and age. But non-commercial blogs that spread unavailable music should not be treated as pirates for, materially speaking, we gain nothing and take nothing. Music bloggers work hard for no real external reward. Bloggers that both promote music and studiously avoid commercially available material are a part of the the music world now and should be accorded respect.

The Decline Part Two: Well It's Not Billy Idol's Fault

So after kvetching about MRML's first serious decline in visits (see HERE), I've been out digging up bones. Here are some random findings that I'm sifting through.

(Click to enlarge)

• Google Analytics claims that "Billy Idol Live at Poplar Creek"* (See HERE) is my most popular post by a staggering 8 to 1 ratio**. This left me wondering, is Google Analytics fucked or is the world?

• Further on the idea that G.A's the one all fucked-up, their July 2011 newsletter says, "Compared to a year ago, websites have seen reduced pages / visit, average time on site, as well as bounce rate ". No further explanation, just, "Everyone's numbers are down. The End."
  

• Strangely, G.A.'s hard to contextualize stats, as opposed to Site Meter's, show no decline in my numbers at all.

• G.A.'s bewildering numbers did confirm one suspicion, the precipitous decline in this blog's statistical fortunes are partly a result of the death of blog aggregator Totally Fuzzy, which was once my third largest source of referrals.

• I also learned from Brushback that music bloggers all over experienced a rapid decline starting in May, which others have blamed on the rise of social media, primarily Facebook and The Tweety. So that's (at least) two for G.A. being fucked and one for the world.

• One person mentioned that perhaps I've been a little too obsessive in my treatment of certain artists but that doesn't jive with how my two best months ever (March and April 2011) were almost exclusively dedicated to The Stranglers and The Rezillos respectively.

• Another worry that I got mixed messages was about page loading time. I heard all sorts of estimates from normal to slow to extremely sloooow. Since then, I did a few touch-up (lost a side-bar or two, lowered the number of posts per page) and tried to reduce the number of videos. Feedback on loading time is still welcome.
  

So yeah I check Site Meter over ten times a day, most days. I'm not terribly proud of this tic but I won't deny that seeing this blog's visitor numbers die so suddenly has hit me hard. Sure, it's just numbers and this blog isn't just about how many people come here but this sad, little site involves an incredible amount of work. So, during times when the comments grow few (and they still sometimes do), my nervous system needs some kinda neuro-chemical reward to keep this giant time-suck from collapsing in on itself. I love blogging but at the end of the day I still need some proof that I'm not just Dancing With Myself.

* This despite the fact that downloads never passed 200, the visits the day it was posted were normal and it amassed a pleasant-but-not-overwhelming 15 comments.

** I write about Bob Dylan obsessively, not just because Dylan posts do well but because I'm...well...obsessed. Now if I had to boost numbers with weekly Billy Idol posts, I would, despite being kinda proud of that one post, commit blogocide.

The Decline

So regular readers will know that I religiously track (at least) three numbers here at MRML: visits, downloads and comment numbers. The last two numbers have been very healthy these last two months (as have the blog's number of followers and its subscribers on Google Reader) but the visitor figures have plummetted. We hit a high of 37,000 visitors a month in April sunk down 33,000 in May and I can guarantee you June will not make 30,000.

That's over a 20% drop in two months!

Why?

Here's some speculation:

1) The death of Totally Fuzzy
The internet's highest profile blog aggregator recently quit posting blog updates. This hurts us because Fuzzy readers' interest could be piqued by a good write-up, the same of which cannot be said of our other key sources of referrals (search engines, blog rolls etc.)

2) A decline in blog readership?
I don't know if the Twitter-ification of the universe has taken mouse-clicks away from us in Blog-land.

3) A change in Google's search algorithm.
I've seen this happen before (and it almost made me cry) but it was not this sustained. I also know Google's been tinkering a lot with its search results lately...

4) A decline in quality here at MRML.
Not my favourite theory but it is a possibility.

5)

_______________________________________________________


I haven't really decided on my reaction to this statistical deviation but any thoughts on it's origins from other bloggers or more tech or number savvy readers would be appreciated.

Another One Done Gone

Last Days of Man on Earth is ending. Another great blog goes down, albeit with its head held high. Joe's had a great run and he has plentiful compelling reasons for quitting. (One of the things that keeps yours truly from fucking off is the burning desire to not quit over the sort of petulant reasons that usually make me want to pack it in).
So go visit LDOMOE, peruse the archives (as a musical archaeologist Joe is irreplaceable) and leave a comment. Or should I say, LEAVE A COMMENT!!!! As you all know, I strongly believe that lack of feedback by music blog readers is a contributing factor in the loss of many a great blog. So let your voice be heard and help keep all those other indispensable music blogs (see my sidebar for my nominees) running.

There's Something I Haven't Been Telling You..

I've been on sabbatical this year.

So, since July of last year, instead of showing up for work every morning, I've been helping out my family, pursuing my education and, of course, hawking used entertainment.

With that workload, the scraps of time I use to weave this blog, were more plentiful. Now with the end of my "Regenerative Leave" (I've actually been neck-deep in finishing my degree this month already) looming, those scraps of time will soon be smaller, scarcer and slightly rattier. Those who read the words will see less of them, those who just skim by in their feed reader may see fewer updates but, fear not, there is too much Life yet to Ruined...


Next: Show Business is My Life.

Fighting Leeching

I love fighting to find rare songs, pictures, videos and history to post but fuck do I hate constantly having to fight to get people to share a few words in return.

Fuck the Silence

Sometimes the silence cracks.

I used to make tapes, hundreds of them, for all sorts of people and not just attractive women either (though their's were always free). Of course every recipient got quizzed on their reaction to the songs - love or hate them, I needed to know why.

So I've given up on the old CrO2 (the last one was made for my wife in 2001) and taken my musical soapboxing here. I can't quit. Not yet, anyway. This remains the surest way of spreading obscure music and that is one of my most fatal compulsions.

As soon as I decided to post that Billy Bragg single in early June, I knew it would fall near MRML's anniversary and bring up the memory of the hundreds of people who have downloaded that Billy Bragg Peel Sessions without so much as a character of comment. I knew whatever I wrote, it would sound like a quitting post but I paid that no mind. The words just flowed and I published immediately rather than revise until the morning.

There followed an avalanche of well-expressed thoughts, shattering the cursed silence.

Thanks to you all.

Next: Joe Jackson